CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., March 6, 2009 – "Reconstructing Pre-Inka Sican Civilization of Peru" will be the topic of the annual Beckwith Memorial Archaeology Lecture March 26 at Southeast Missouri State University.

Dr. Izumi Shimada, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University, will present the lecture at 6:30 p.m. in the John and Betty Glenn Convocation Center at Southeast's River Campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Shimada will discuss how, over the past 30 years, the Sican Archaeological Project, with its international and interdisciplinary team, has shed light on the many impressive achievements and puzzles of this culture, including ancient developmental processes in technology, religion, burials and more.

Shimada has received medals of honor from the government and congress of Peru for his contribution to Peruvian cultural and historical knowledge and understanding. He has written Craft Production in Complex Societies: Multi-Crafting, Sequential Production and Procedures published by the University of Utah Press in Salt Lake City in 2007.

The Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Museum and the Department of Foreign Languages and Anthropology at Southeast sponsor the annual Beckwith Lecture, which honors Thomas Beckwith, who donated his sizeable collection of Mississippian artifacts to the University in 1913. Select pieces from the collection are on permanent display in the Crisp Museum.

For more information on this event, contact the Crisp Museum at (573) 651-2260.