LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES PROGRAM

Home Department: Anthropology

For Daniela's dissertation project, she examines the ecologies of ancestors through an archaeology of Chachapoya mortuary landscapes and a community-engaged research design in Peru's northeastern Amazonian Andes. In collaboration with local and descendant communities, she combines land-based knowledge with aerial drone photogrammetry, architecture survey and dendro-archaeology to investigate how ancestral monuments mediated the relationship between people and the environment. She is the lead investigator and co-director for the MAPA-SACHA project, “Medio Ambiente, Paisaje y Arquitectura de los Sitios Ancestrales Chachapoya”, fellow with the University of Arkansas Spatial Archaeology Residential and Online Institute, 2019-2020 fellow with the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern, and affiliate with Northwestern's Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Andean Cultures and Histories programs. 

To learn more about Daniela and her work, visit her website (www.danielaraillardarias.com), or follow her project social media pages @MAPAchachapoya on Facebook and @mapa_sacha on Instagram.