Current and former students of the Department of Anthropology formed an all-Washington University contingent on the team of the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) in Bolivia this past summer. From the left are BrieAnna Langlie, a first-year graduate student; José Capriles, MA 2006 and a PhD candidate; Maria Bruno, PhD 2008; and Katherine Moore, AB 1978. TAP, directed by Christine Hastorf of Berkeley, involves intensive collaboration between archaeologists, paleoethnobotanists (Bruno and Langlie), zooarchaeologists (Moore and Capriles), and geomorphologists.

The project draws on the heritage of  Washington University in three ways. In 1974 and 1975, David Browman led a Washington University team to excavate the Formative site of Chiripa, fieldwork that was followed by TAP excavations starting in 1992. This year, TAP fired up its SMAP-style flotation machine again to process hundreds of samples from the nearby site of Kala Uyuni under Langlie’s supervision. Thirty-four years ago, Moore first learned to use this machine along the Green River in Kentucky under Professor Patty Jo Watson’s guidance. Photo by Eduardo Machicado.