Robyn E. Cutright
I am the Grissom Associate Professor of Anthropology at Centre College and an archaeologist who conducts research on the north coast of Peru. My 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 my 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.
My research focuses on everyday household life on the north coast of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period (~1000-1400 AD). My dissertation investigated how the expansion of the Chimu state into the Jequetepeque, in the 14th century AD, might have impacted the lives and foodways of rural families. My research at the site of Ventanillas deals with rural household life in the multiethnic borderlands of the middle Jequetepeque Valley, at the edges of the coastal Lambayeque and Chimu states. I am interested in the ways in which which rural communities affiliated themselves with coastal polities during the LIP, and in the political and economic strategies of coastal states in administering the middle valley.
I am currently serving as the Editor of Nawpa Pacha: the Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies.
