Lynn Swartz Dodd was awarded a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA in 2002. She currently is a faculty member in Religion at the University of Southern California and directs the Archaeology Research Center. Her archaeological projects are located in the Middle East (www.utarp.org) and in southern California’s Native American cultural landscape. She researches the politics of the past in antiquity and in contemporary society; and ancient linkages between technical innovation and cultural change. Dodd is co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian Archaeology Work Group and the Institute for Shared Heritage.