Claire Conrad

Settlement patterns in the Andes have been studied as an important evidence of changes in power relationships and resource use. Especially the expansion of the Inca Empire has shown an important impact on the settlement patterns and architectural features in many conquered areas. My investigation understands these changes as a representation of shifting resource dependencies.

My research focuses on the changes in settlement patterns in the Vilcabamba region in the southern Andes in Peru. Having been conquered early on by the expanding empire, the region also played an important role during its final years as the retreat of the Inca ruler Manco Inka and his sons. Revising the settlement patterns from the Late Intermediate Period through the Late Horizon to the Early Colonial Period will allow an insight into changing resource dependencies in relation to the occupants and their respective need of resources in the area.

As part of the Research Group The Archaeology of Dependency (ArchDepth): Resources, Power and Status Differentiation, I use archaeological and ethnohistoric methods in order to revise the link between resource use and settlement patterns as well as functional and imperial architecture.

2020–2023                 
Ph.D. in Anthropology of the Americas, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

2019–2021                 
M.A. in Anthropology of the Americas, University of Bonn, Germany

2016–2019                 
M.A. in Archaeology and Heritage, University of Leicester, England

2013–2015                 
B.A. in Ancient American Studies, Ethnology and Archaeology, University of Bonn, Germany

2020–present             
Research Associate in Research Group The Archaeology of Dependency (ArchDepth): Resources, Power and Status Differentiation, University of Bonn, Germany

2019–2020                 
Student Assistant, Department for Anthropology of the Americas, University of Bonn, Germany

2014–2015                 
Student Assistant in the archaeological project "Beni/Bolivien" at the Commission for Archaeology of Non-European Cultures (KAAK), Bonn, Germany