Lynch Sally
Biography
I completed my B.A. Honours at the University of Toronto with a specialist in Archaeology and minor in Art History. I continued on at the University of Toronto to complete a Master of Science (Msc) under Dr. Edward Swenson. My thesis used statistical methods to analyze ceramic distribution patterns to examine feasting rituals and commensal politics at the site of Huaca Colorada, a Late Moche (500-800 AD) ceremonial centre in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru.
My current PhD research continues this trajectory of ceramic analysis from this important ceremonial site. Huaca Colorada is thought to be a locus of valley-wide congregations during religiously significant times of the calendar cycle. Additionally, my research is concerned with the processes of cultural interaction from the perspective of ceramic technology and "technological styles" during this period of intensified highland-coastal interaction that characterizes the Late Moche period and proceeding Transitional period. In my doctoral work I plan to explore ancient Andean cultural interaction from the choices and techniques made by potters using a variety of macroscopic and microscopic methodologies. My archaeological research focuses on the relationship of pottery (production, distribution, and use) and cultural interaction of coastal Peruvian societies prior to the "collapse" of the Moche state.