march, 2026
Event Details
Robyn Cutright (W. George Matton Professor of Anthropology, Centre College) "Beyond Ruins and Relics: Thoughts on Teaching Archaeology Through Daily Lived Experience" Friday, March 27,
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Event Details
Robyn Cutright
(W. George Matton Professor of Anthropology, Centre College)
“Beyond Ruins and Relics: Thoughts on Teaching Archaeology Through Daily Lived Experience”
Friday, March 27, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
951 Schermerhorn Extension
Register Here
Please note that all non-Columbia University affiliates must register for a QR campus access code.
The seminar will also be available on Zoom
Abstract
Most students in an introductory archaeology course will never take another course in the field. What is essential for students to learn about our discipline and our past in this one semester? And how can we teach a field with archaeology’s temporal depth, geographical breadth, and variety of lived realities to students in a windowless lecture hall? In this talk, I discuss how my recent book, Excavating Pedregal: Archaeological Explorations of Conquest and Daily Life in Ancient Peru, attempts to address these questions. I will discuss how the choices I make in the book reflect what I see as some of the pressing concerns in teaching archaeology at the present moment. In particular, I attempt to portray archaeology as a process of scientific inquiry, but also a lived experience, and a conversation about the past that is at its best when we collaborate across borders and identities. I suggest that the archaeology of the mundane—daily life, food, household practice—may be particularly well-situated to counter misconceptions about archaeology and engage students in connecting their own experiences in empathetic ways with people in the past.
Biography
Robyn is the W. George Matton Professor of Anthropology at Centre College and an archaeologist who conducts research on the north coast of Peru. Her teaching focuses on Latin America, domestic life and cuisine in ancient states, the Andes and South America, food and culture, and human-environment interactions. I often teach study abroad courses in Peru and elsewhere in Latin America, and enjoy mentoring undergraduate research. One of her favorite parts of teaching at Centre is being able to work with engaged students to learn new things, both in traditional class formats and in hands-on activities in and out of the classroom.
Her research focuses on everyday life on the north coast of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period (~1000-1400 AD), using a culinary perspective to explore the experiences and strategies of local rural communities in the Jequetepeque and Chira valleys as they were incorporated into the expansive Chimu empire. She is the author of two books: Excavating Pedregal: Archaeological Explorations of Conquest and Daily Life in Ancient Peru (Routledge, 2026) and The Story of Food in the Human Past: How What We Ate Made Us Who We Are (University of Alabama Press, 2021). Robyn is currently the Editor of Nawpa Pacha: the Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies.
Time
(Friday) 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Location
Columbia University, 951 Schermerhorn Ext.
