Dr. Van Buren’s research focuses on the development of empires and the relationship between expansive states and the societies conquered by them, with a particular focus on Inka and Spanish imperialism in the Andes. She has conducted fieldwork in Peru and Bolivia, and currently is investigating the social and technological organization of Inka and Spanish colonial silver mining at a complex of sites in southern Bolivia with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Van Buren has published work in American Anthropologist, Historical Archaeology, Latin American Antiquity, and the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, as well as contributed chapters in edited volumes, Domestic Architecture, Ethnicity, and Complementarity in the South-Central Andes and Approaches to the Historical Archaeology of Mexico, Central and South America. She is also co-editor of the book Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States.

Research

Andean South America; prehistoric and historic archaeology; complex societies; Spanish colonialism