Rose Bryson on “Reconstructing the History of William Duncan Strong’s Peruvian Skeletal Collection”

march, 2025

7mar4:30 pmRose Bryson on "Reconstructing the History of William Duncan Strong's Peruvian Skeletal Collection"

Event Details

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The seminar will also be available on Zoom

Abstract
In the 1940s and 50s, former Columbia University professor William Duncan Strong led archaeological expeditions along the coast of Peru. His team uncovered incredible cultural sites, including the “Tomb of a Warrior God.” Strong is credited with helping to shape the field of Archaeology by establishing a crucial cultural timeline in Peru. Throughout this work, Strong and his team exhumed many human skeletal remains, some of which were brought to Columbia University but were never thoroughly investigated. The collections exhibit incredible taphonomic preservation and cultural modification of ancient Peruvian remains. This presentation synthesizes an analysis of the Peruvian skeletal collection stored at Columbia and archival research into these expeditions, investigating an important part of Archaeological history. *This presentation will include images of skeletonized human remains*

Biography
Dr. Rose Bryson is a biological anthropologist specializing in skeletal bioethics, forensic anthropology, and geometric morphometrics. She received her doctoral degree from University of Florida and has worked in the forensic, museum and academic fields. In Fall 2024 Rose conducted an inventory and archival record analysis of the human skeletal collections within Columbia University’s Anthropology and EEEB departments, which led to this presentation. She now works as a Forensic Anthropology Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Oahu, Hawaii.