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New
World prehistory,
development of complex societies, archaeological and ethnohistorical
theory and method, Andean civilization.
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Current Research
- Past Research - Selected Publications
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| Personal
Statement |
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I am
an anthropological archaeologist who works with contact and prehistoric
societies of South America. My scholarly interests are focused on the
development of complex societies in the Americas. Other areas of
interest include the anthropology of myth and history, indigenous forms
of social organization and ritual systems in complex societies, and the
European - American contact period. My research projects generally
include a team of archaeology students to aid me in fieldwork as well
as a team of history students who work under my direction in the
archives. Most of my research has been centered in Cuzco, the former
capital of the Inca Empire. However, I have also conducted research on
the Islands of the Sun and the Moon in Lake Titicaca, and am just
beginning a new project in the area of Andahuaylas on the Chanka ethnic
group who were once rivals to the Inca for control of the central
Andes.
See our Andean
Anthropology web page for other UIC and Field Museum
archaeologists working in the Andes. |
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| Current
Research |
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| The Chanka
Archaeological
Project |
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I am
currently co-directing with Sabine
Hyland the Chanka Archaeological Project. Around AD
1438 two emerging states, the Inca and the Chanka, battled for control
of the Central Andes of Peru. The Inca, who emerged victorious, would
go on to become the largest empire of the New World. In contrast, the
Chanka were defeated by the Inca and their homeland was incorporated
into the Inca empire.
The core region of the Chanka, located in the
Andahuaylas region of central Peru, remains unexplored and the cultural
processes that lead to their rapid development and subsequent defeat by
the Inca have never been investigated. To address these concerns I am
currently conducting an NSF supported archaeological survey of the
Chanka heartland in conjunction with a large scale investigation of
archives in Cuzco, Lima, and Seville. |
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| Past
Research |
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 For
my
Ph.D
dissertation work (1990) I tested various models of Inca State growth.
The results, which have been published in a book (The Development of
the Inca State) and in a monograph (The Early Ceramics of the Inca
Heartland), provide the first study of Inca state formation based on
field and archival data. |
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 My
second major
project examined the ceque system of the Inca in the Cuzco Valley. The
ceque system was composed of 328 shrines organized along 41
hypothetical lines (or ceques) which radiated out of the Inca capital.
It is one of the most complex, pre-Hispanic indigenous ritual systems
known in the Americas. The results of the project are presented in the
book, The
Sacred Landscape Of The Inca: The Cuzco Ceque System.
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 Another
research project, co-directed by Dr. David Dearborn, involved an
analysis of Inca astronomy. The study was built on extensive field data
collected in 1991 and 1992 and comprehensive readings of the Spanish
chronicles of Peru. We asserted that the study of Inca astronomy is not
only an investigation of indigenous interpretations of celestial
movements and of the native calendar, but a study of the social-ritual
organization of Inca society (see publication, Astronomy and Empire in
the Ancient
Andes).
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 A
separate investigation, co-directed with Charles Stanish, involved the
Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca. The Island of the Sun was among the
most sacred places in the Inca Empire. We conducted a research program
on the islands, during 1995 and 1996, to determine the extent to which
the Inca's use of the island as a sacred center, was founded on and
developed from earlier religious traditions of the Lake Titicaca region
(see publication, Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes). |
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 Another
field project
involved a systematic survey of the Cuzco Valley. The full-scale survey
began in 1997 and was completed in 2000. The research has provided an
unprecedented database to test models of state development in the Cuzco
region and to reconstruct the social organization of the Inca heartland
since the first occupations (ca. 7000 BC) until the arrival of the
Spaniards (AD 1532) (see publication, Ancient Cuzco). |
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| Selected
Publications |
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2007 The History of the Incas. Translated and edited by Brian S. Bauer and Vania Smith. Austin University of Texas Press |
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2007 Kasapata and the Archaic Period of the Cuzco Valley. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. |
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 2004
Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin: University of
Texas Press. |
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2004 (With Charles Stanish) Archaeological Research on the Islands of the Sun and Moon, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia: Final Results from the Proyecto Tiksi Kjarka. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. |
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 2001 (With
Charles Stanish) Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes:
The Islands of the Sun and the Moon. Austin: University of Texas Press. |
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 1998
The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: the Cusco
Ceque System. Austin: University of Texas Press. |
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 1995
(With David Dearborn) Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient
Andes: The
Cultural Origins of Inca Skywatching. Austin: University of Texas Press. |
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1992 The Development of the Inca State. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
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