I was very sorry to read today that Liz Brumfiel passed away last week.
I saw Liz give the 1991 distinguished lecture at the AAAs in Chicago. I was halfway through my first year at Arizona and had come to the meetings to beg for a spot on Phil Kohl’s project in Armenia–the project that would introduce me to the Caucasus and begin my work there. But the intellectual high point of the meetings was Liz’s remarkable lecture. Delivered in a direct argumentative style, the paper served as an epitaph for the rancorous (and often tedious) processual/post-processual debates that preoccupied the 1980s and inaugurated a new era of avowedly social archaeology. It was a tour de force that served to affirm the possibilities of archaeological thought and practice. A kind and generous scholar, Liz will be missed.
Rosemary Joyce has a nice personal tribute on her blog: Liz Brumfiel will always be remembered « Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives.