September Lecture
Amedeo Sghinolfi – Western University
September 10, 2026 @ 7:30pm via zoom – Register Here
Title: At the Edge of States and Empires: Recent Survey and Excavations in the Carabamba Plateau, Northern Peruvian Highlands
Abstract: Located at the highland edge of polities that developed on the Northern Peruvian Coast, such as the Virú state, the Moche civic-religious centers, and the Chimú empire, the Carabamba Plateau (ca. 3,000-4,200 m.a.s.l.) has deep pasts of highland-coastal interaction and geopolitics, agropastoral practices and resilience, and waves of migration into ecological zones located at lower elevations. This talk presents a synthesis of novel survey and excavation data collected in the Carabamba Plateau and at the archaeological site of Cerro Sulcha during the 2024, 2025, and 2026 field seasons by the PAGuaL team (Proyecto Arqueológico sobre la Historia y Prehistoria de los Guacapongos y Llampas). The 2024 drone and pedestrian survey revealed an ancient landscape with a long past of communities, fortifications, roads, and water management systems that stretched from the Late Horizon (1470 – 1532 CE) all the way back to the Initial Period (1800 – 900 BCE). Our most recent excavations (2025) at the fortified hilltop settlement of Cerro Sulcha and subsequent laboratory analysis (2026) expanded upon these findings, exposing a deep and likely continuous agropastoral domestic occupation.
Bio: Dr. Amedeo Sghinolfi obtained a BA (2012) and an MA (2016) from the University of Padova in Italy and completed a PhD in Anthropology at Western University in 2021. He is currently an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Western University and a Field Technician at TMHC Inc. He has participated in various archaeological projects in Italy and Nunavik (Northern Quebec), and he has been conducting research in Northern Peru since 2016. Since 2023, he has been co-directing a project in the Carabamba Plateau (Northern Peruvian Highlands) with American and Peruvian archaeologists. His research interests include the study of past borderlands, settlement pattern analysis, the use of remote sensing in archaeology, and the development of complex societies in the Central Andean region.
