Doctor Kevin Lane
Nationality: Gibraltar
Year: 2001
Subject Area: Arts and Humanities
My PhD concentrated on a reassessment of existing concepts concerning agro-pastoralist adaptations in the Pre-Columbian Andes of North-Central Peru. The focus was on the social, economic and technological developments in the highland areas (3000-5200m) of the Cordillera Negra valleys of the Rio Loco and Chaclancayo (Ancash Province, Peru) during the Late Intermediate Period and Late Horizon (c.1000AD-1537AD). This study of hydrological technology countered prevalent models of Andean culture history that emphasise agriculture over herding. This study thereby highlighted the importance of pastoralism within Andean socio-political development.
My current Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Manchester builds on this research. New investigations in North-western Argentina as well as continuing work in Peru study monumental technological architecture as an important proxy indicator of human engagement with the natural setting and examine the role that hydrological technology has had in engineering the socio-political structures and cosmologies of Pre-Hispanic Andean communities in these areas.