Warren DeBoer

(Ph D UCB, 1972; Prof) Ethnoarchaeology; South America ()

Interests: DeBoer's research has focused on ethnoarchaeology, that is, the enlisting of ethnographic observations for archaeological purposes; this approach has led to fieldwork among the Shipibo-Conibo of Peru and the Chachi of Ecuador in order to couple studies of contemporary material cultures with their archaeological antecedents; current projects include an analysis of native North American dice games (Of Dice and Women: Gambling, Gender, and Exchange: to be delivered in September 00), stone axes in the Upper Amazon (Axes of Variability, a trial version delivered to the annual Ursula LeGuin lecture, Berkeley, last year), and preColumbian dogs in North America.

Selected Publications

• 1999 (with Alice Kehoe) Cahokia and the archaeology of ambiguity. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9(2): 261-267.
• 1997 Ceremonial centers from the Cayapas to Chillicothe. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7(2): 225-253.
• 1996 Traces Behind the Esmeraldas Shore: Prehistory of the Santiago-Cayapas Region, Ecuador. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
• 1986 Pillage and production in the Amazon: A view through the Conibo of the Ucayali Basin, eastern Peru. World Archaeology 18(2): 231-246.
• 1979 (with Donald Lathrap) The making and breaking of Shipibo- Conibo ceramics. (in) Carol Kramer (ed.) Ethnoarchaeology: Implications of Ethnography for Archaeology, pp. 102-138. New York: Columbia University Press.

PhD Program in Anthropology - The CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309
phone: 212.817.8005 fax: 212.817.1501 email:

This departmental publication supplements the official Bulletin of The Graduate School as well as the current Graduate Center Student Handbook and "Announcement of Courses."