Ryan Clasby

Ryan Clasby is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in Andean and Amazonian prehistory with a research interest in interregional interaction and exchange, complex societies, ritual and religion, human adaptations to tropical forest landscapes, and the importance of provincial museums in Latin America to cultural identity and scientific investigation. More specifically, his research is based in the eastern Andean tropical montane forest and is aimed at examining early interregional exchange networks between the Andes and the Amazon and the impact that these relationships had on long term cultural and sociopolitical developments within western South America. His research has been supported by an NSF as well as postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Dumbarton Oaks, American Council of Learned Societies), published in journals such as Latin American Antiquity, and is exemplified in his edited volume The Archaeology of the Upper Amazon. Complexity and Interaction in the Andean Tropical Forest which brought together scholars working in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador to demonstrate the complex cultural accomplishments of the upper Amazon’s indigenous people.