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Dr Elizabeth DeMarrais PhD
Fellow
Liz DeMarrais is a Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and supervises Churchill students in a range of topics in archaeology. Since 1993, she has been directing an archaeological field project in the Calchaquí Valley, located in the Andes of north-west Argentina. This project investigates the rise of social inequality and the emergence of centralised polities in the centuries before the Inka conquest (ca. AD 1430). She is currently excavating the site of Borgatta in order to understand the organisation of the community and to identify material evidence for incipient social inequality and leadership. The fieldwork involves mapping and excavation of public buildings and plazas, earthen mounds, and houses within this large settlement of approximately 1000 inhabitants. Cambridge students have accompanied her to Argentina in recent years, some of them undertaking independent projects to analyse artefacts ranging from obsidian to pottery to faunal remains (animal bones). other research interests include archaeological theory, architecture, and pottery studies.