In one of the world’s most extreme deserts, two cultures clashed in the late 15th century when the Inka Empire (the spelling preferred by the indigenous people) conquered the Kingdom of Huarco on the coast of Peru. The dry conditions there preserved much that would have perished in places with more rainfall.
For two decades, Anthropology Professor Joyce Marcus has studied this region. She will discuss many of her findings at a Distinguished University Professor Lecture at 4 p.m. April 1 in the Rackham Amphitheater.
The title of her lecture is “Ecology and Social Strategy in an Ancient Peruvian Kingdom.” Marcus is the Robert L. Carneiro Distinguished University Professor of Social Evolution and the curator of Latin American archaeology at the Museum of Anthropology.
She has excavated and studied the site of Cerro Azul, Peru since the 1980s. Her talk will focus on the history of fishing there. Were the people at Cerro Azul specialized fishermen before the Inka arrived? Or did the Inka impose this new way of life when they took over in 1470?
“Through our excavation, we learned a great deal about how one community could afford to become specialized in drying, storing, and exporting fish,” Marcus says.
Over the years at Cerro Azul, Marcus and her colleagues have found mummies, richly colored textiles, gourd and ceramic vessels. They’ve unearthed evidence of weaving: women with baskets of spindles and spindle whorls, brown cotton, white cotton, dyed thread and looms. And they’ve uncovered food remains including bones from fish, shellfish, llamas and sea lions, she says.
Marcus is an anthropologist who combines archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography to understand the past lifeways of ancient societies. She is the author or editor of 19 books.
She currently is the chair of anthropology in the National Academy of Sciences.
Distinguished University Professor lectures are given by professors chosen to receive one of the University’s highest faculty honors.
