Chavin cornice

Calendar
Roster

Andean Archaeology Working Group

Sponsored by the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies



Coordinators: Daniel Contreras (Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropological Sciences) and John Rick (Associate Professor, Anthropological Sciences)


Upcoming Events


If you'd like to be added to the mailing list, please email Dan.

Stanford is now home to a substantial core of archaeologists whose research focus is the Andes, primarily in the Department of Anthropogical Sciences.  The purpose of the Andean Archaeology Working Group over the last two years has been to encourage interaction amongst these scholars, provide opportunities for participants to share their work and receive feedback, and facilitate interaction with other relatively local scholars with similar interests.  In 2005-06, the Working Group focused on hosting a small two-day conference on the Central Andean Formative Period, involving scholars from all over the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Peru.  A brief description of the Stanford Symposium on the Central Andean Formative is on the web.

The regular activities of the Andean Archaeology Working Group involve hosting speakers on Andean Archaeology, as well as providing a forum in which members may present ongoing work.

Planned activities for the 2006/07 academic year include occasional talks during Autumn and Winter Quarters, and a seminar in the Spring Quarter (co-taught by Rick and Contreras)--Topics in Andean Archaeology--which will feature visits by several prominent Andeanists.  Planned thus far: Dan Sandweiss of UMaine (10-11 April), John Verano of Tulane (1-2 May), and Izumi Shimada of SIU Carbondale (7-8 May).  A calendar is posted; whenever possible these visits to the seminar will be accompanied by a more public talk as well.


Active roster of regular participants in the Working Group:

Ignacio Cancino (Ph.D. Student, Anthropological Sciences)

Dante Angelo (Ph.D. Candidate, Cultural and Social Anthropology)
“I am interested in the way materiality intersects and it is intrinsically confronting social world where objects 
(past and present) are mobilized in order to conform to notions of identity and community. I want, from this 
approach, to contribute to insert archaeology into a wider debate addressing social and cultural issues as an 
active tool of cultural and political critique to interpellate hegemonic and exclusionary uses of the past. My 
current work, being developed in the northwestern Argentina, deals with emergent communities and the articulation 
of identity issues within and around discourses of the past and its materiality.”
Dave Keefer (Research Geologist, US Geological Survey)
Geomorphologist, working on Holocene landscape change in and around Chavín de 
Huántar and El Niño events in prehistory in the Moqegua Valley on the south coast of Peru.
Christian Mesia (Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropological Sciences)
“I investigate the relationship between skilled craft workers and authorities at Chavin de Huantar 
in the context of emerging social inequality.”
Rosa Rick

Silvana Rosenfeld (Ph.D. Student, Anthropological Sciences)
 
Research interests include the use of faunal analysis to better understand domestic activity 
during the Middle Horizon period in Peru.
Matt Sayre (Ph.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley, Anthropology)
Dissertation research focused on examining the domestic life of past inhabitants of Chavin de Huantar 
with a particular emphasis on paleoethnobotanical analysis.
Geraldine Slean (Stanford Coordinator, Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development)
Research interests include environmental history of the Andean region and modern ecotourism and 
sustainable development in the region.
Nicole Slovak (Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropological Sciences)
Research interests include Andean archaeology, mortuary theory, empire expansion, and bioarchaeology.
She is currently working on her dissertation research, which involves the analysis of skeletal and cultural 
material from the pre-Colombian site of Ancón, Peru.
Using archaeological and isotopic analyses, she hopes to determine the nature and extent of foreign, highland 
cultural and/or political influence in the area.
John Wolf (Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropological Sciences)

“Dissertation Title: Crossing the Rio Mosna and Spanning the Initial Period and Early Horizon: Investigations of a Highland Formative Community, Ancash, Peru .  The focus of my dissertation is
an archaeological site in the north central Peruvian Andes. The site, La Banda, lies on the eastern bank of the Río Mosna and directly across the river from monumental temple complex of Chavín de Huántar. My dissertation focuses on detailing the archaeological history in La Banda, describing the excavations that I have directed (beginning in 2000) and re-defining the ceramic sequence associated     with the temple complex.”

Return to Top