Parker VanValkenburgh is Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant Professor of Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Brown University.
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Program in Early Cultures
Parker VanValkenburgh
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Research Interests
Art and Architecture of Ancient Rome, Art and Architecture of Ancient Mesoamerica, Archaeology, Religious Studies
Biography
Parker VanValkenburgh's research and publications employ archaeological methods to address anthropological research questions, with a particular focus on the long-term impacts of colonialism and imperialism on Indigenous people and environments in Andean Peru. Through the study of diverse materials and media––including architecture, ceramics, environmental datasets, and archival documents––he seeks to understand how relationships between people, institutions, and environments are transformed in the course of imperial histories, as well as how the strategies of survival and resilience that communities develop to deal with empires are passed down and reworked across generations. In the course of doing so, he strives to generate approaches that are widely applicable to the study of empire(s) beyond the Andean region and which contribute to interdisciplinary understanding of imperial legacies in the modern world. In this work, he draws amply on digital methodologies, including the tools of geographic information systems (GIS), to map and analyze social, political, and environmental change in space and time. He also applies a critical lens to the study of digital media and methodologies, asking not just how these techniques facilitate archaeological scholarship, but how digital mediation transforms the ways we work with collaborators, research subjects, students, and public audiences.
VanValkenburgh received his Ph.D. in 2012 from Harvard University and previously held positions at the University of Vermont (Assistant Prof. of Anthropology, 2013-15) and Washington University in St. Louis (Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry, 2012-13). Among other projects, he is currently co-director (with Carol Rojas Vega) of the Paisajes Arqueológicos de Chachapoyas (PACha) project, an investigation of long-term human-environment interaction in Peru's Chachapoyas region, grounded in the analysis of archaeological survey, archival research, remotely sensed datasets, and work with contemporary communities in the provinces of Luya, Chachapoyas, and Bongará, Amazonas (Peru). He is also a co-director, with Steven Wernke (Vanderbilt University), of GeoPACHA(Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, HIstory and Archaeology); and, with Alicia Odewale (University of Tulsa) Mapping HIstorical Trauma in Tulsa, 1921-2021. From 2008 to 2016, he directed the Proyecto Arqueológico Zaña Colonial, a project focusing on the impacts of Spanish colonial forced resettlement (reducción) on landscapes and political subjectivities in Peru’s North Coast region.
At Brown, VanValkenburgh directs the Brown Digital Archaeology Laboratory (https://browndigitalarch.wordpress.com/) and teaches courses on Geographic Information Systems, cartography, critical digital archaeology, the politics of space and landscape, historical anthropology, and the archaeology and anthropology of the Andean region.
Recent News
Published in Magdalena de Cao Viejo: An Early Colonial Town in Northern Peru, ed. J. Quilter.
During the early Colonial Period in the Americas, as an ancient way of life ended and the modern world began, indigenous peoples and European invaders confronted, resisted, and compromised with one another. Yet archaeological investigations of this complex era are rare. Magdalena de Cao is an exception: the first in-depth and heavily illustrated examination of what life was like at one culturally mixed town and church complex during the early Colonial Period in Peru.
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During the early Colonial Period in the Americas, as an ancient way of life ended and the modern world began, indigenous peoples and European invaders confronted, resisted, and compromised with one another. Yet archaeological investigations of this complex era are rare. Magdalena de Cao is an exception: the first in-depth and heavily illustrated examination of what life was like at one culturally mixed town and church complex during the early Colonial Period in Peru.
Published in Past Global Changes (PAGES) Magazine.
We seek to highlight how paleoecology, archaeology, and geoecology can add to the repertoires of ecotourism guides in Peru's Chachapoya region, providing informed portraits of the history of cloud forest ecology in Peru's northeastern Andes and raising concerns about the future conservation of these mountainscapes under human impact.
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We seek to highlight how paleoecology, archaeology, and geoecology can add to the repertoires of ecotourism guides in Peru's Chachapoya region, providing informed portraits of the history of cloud forest ecology in Peru's northeastern Andes and raising concerns about the future conservation of these mountainscapes under human impact.
Published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.
Archaeologists study many phenomena that scale beyond even our most geographically expansive field methodologies. The promise of collecting archaeologically relevant data beyond the scale of regional surveys is among the most exciting prospects of the “data revolution.”
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Archaeologists study many phenomena that scale beyond even our most geographically expansive field methodologies. The promise of collecting archaeologically relevant data beyond the scale of regional surveys is among the most exciting prospects of the “data revolution.”
Published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.
We report the results of drone lidar survey at a high-elevation archaeological site in the Chachapoyas region of Peruvian Amazonia. Unlike traditional airborne remote sensing, drone lidar produces very high-density measurements at a wide range of scan angles by operating at low altitudes and slow flight speeds.
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We report the results of drone lidar survey at a high-elevation archaeological site in the Chachapoyas region of Peruvian Amazonia. Unlike traditional airborne remote sensing, drone lidar produces very high-density measurements at a wide range of scan angles by operating at low altitudes and slow flight speeds.
Taylor & Francis Online
Parker VanValkenburgh, Big Archaeology: Horizons and Blindspots (Taylor & Francis, 2020)
Published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.
Big data have arrived in archaeology, in the form of both large-scale datasets themselves and in the analytics and approaches of data science. Aerial data collected from satellite-, airborne- and UAV-mounted sensors have been particularly transformational, allowing us to capture more sites and features, over larger areas, at greater resolution, and in formerly inaccessible landscapes. However, these new means of collecting, processing, and visualizing datasets also present fresh challenges for archaeologists.
Read Article
Big data have arrived in archaeology, in the form of both large-scale datasets themselves and in the analytics and approaches of data science. Aerial data collected from satellite-, airborne- and UAV-mounted sensors have been particularly transformational, allowing us to capture more sites and features, over larger areas, at greater resolution, and in formerly inaccessible landscapes. However, these new means of collecting, processing, and visualizing datasets also present fresh challenges for archaeologists.