Dr. Michelle Young

(American Museum of Natural History) 

“Mastery on the Move: Mobile Specialists and the Making of the Chavín Phenomenon”

Friday, December 5, 4:10 PM to 6:10 PM

951 Schermerhorn Extension

Register Here

Please note that campus access is restricted for those not affiliated with Columbia University. Although registration will remain open until the time of the event, unaffiliated visitors are strongly encouraged to register by 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 4 to ensure timely access to campus. A QR code for entry will be sent via email after 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 4. For any questions or concerns, please contact the Center for Archaeology at the address below.

Abstract

Chavín was once considered the earliest civilization in the Central Andes. Today it is recognized as a widespread cultural, artistic, and/or religious phenomenon that developed in the Peru between 850 and 550 BCE. This phenomenon is identified primarily through shared material patterns of temple construction, iconography, and ceramics. The intensification of long-distance trade and the development and spread of new craft technologies also suggest that this period was one of widespread cooperation and interaction. This talk will reconsider previous approaches to the study of the Chavín Phenomenon – as a mother culture, horizon style, and complex society – to demonstrate how epistemic artefacts from culture-history and neoevolutionary schemas have limited archaeologists’ ability to interpret the Chavín phenomenon into the present. An exploration of archaeological evidence from the Chavín center of Atalla, located in the highlands of Huancavelica, Peru, produces a vision of the Chavín Phenomenon as the result of pericentric and translocal processes. This new framing highlights the agency of mobile artisans and ritual specialists in the creation of a dynamic and interconnected Andean World.