PULLMAN–Karen Denise Lupo, associate professor of anthropology at Washington State University, has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist and has accepted an assignment in Chile.
Left: Lupo is pictured with an Aka elephant hunter and his grandson in May while Lupo was doing fieldwork in the Central African Republic.
Lupo is a zooarchaeologist. She studies animal bones recovered from archaeological sites. For the last 15 years Lupo has focused on modern hunter-gatherers in Africa.
“I’ve spent time watching hunter-gatherers butcher and consume prey, and I have collected the animal bones after they were discarded,” Lupo said. “I document the types, location and morphology of cutmarks and fracture patterns resulting from these activities. Some of these marks are diagnostic to function, such as a skinning mark. In this way, an archaeologist finding a similar mark in an archaeological collection of animal remains can infer function by analogy to my work.”
Lupo’s most recent work has focused on how different aspects of hunter-gatherer behavior such as food sharing, choice of hunting technology and the division of labor might be reflected in archaeological remains. “I am also using models derived from evolutionary theory to explain why these behaviors vary among contemporary peoples and how and why these behaviors might have emerged among our earliest ancestors,” she said.
“Karen Lupo is emerging as one of the leading international researchers in the field of ethnoarchaeology,” said Bill Andrefsky, chair of WSU’s Department of Anthropology. “Her longstanding investigations with African foragers has provided our profession with a much better understanding of the relationship between bone artifacts found on archaeological sites and the behavior responsible for creating those artifacts. This institution is fortunate to be able to count Karen as one of our own. She represents us well and is greatly deserving of this honor.”
“Our college has a tradition of attracting faculty whose work is known internationally,” said Erich Lear, dean of the College of Liberal Arts at WSU. “Knowing the reputation of Dr. Lupo’s research and the stature she has in her field, it comes as no surprise to hear she has been singled out for this honor.”
As part of her Fulbright Senior Specialist work, Lupo will lead a workshop in Santiago, Chile. It is the first Chilean zooarchaeological conference and will be sponsored by her host, the University of Chile Precolumbian Museum. The result of several years of collaboration among academic groups in Chile and Argentina, the gathering includes numerous workshops, which run Oct. 16–30.
“The workshops revolve around topics related to the analysis of faunal remains,” Lupo said. “Of particular interest to this group is the study of taphonomy, the study of the processes that influence animal remains from the time the animal dies until the bones are recovered from the ground. So this could cover natural and cultural processes. For example, when carnivores ravage discarded bones they damage the bones in very distinctive ways, or when humans butcher and process carcasses for consumption they often leave cutmarks and/or other types of bone damage.”
“As a researcher, I always hope that someone, somewhere, is reading my articles and listening to my conference papers,” Lupo said. “I always wanted to make some sort of contribution to the field.”
The Fulbright Senior Specialists Program is designed to provide short-term academic opportunities (two to six weeks) for U.S. faculty and professionals. It is a goal of the program to increase the participation of leading U.S. scholars and professionals in Fulbright academic exchanges, to encourage new activities that go beyond the traditional Fulbright activities of lecturing and research, and to promote increased connections between U.S. and non–U.S. post-secondary academic institutions.
“I am looking forward to interacting with other scholars in my field and hope to gain as much as I give in intellectual knowledge,” Lupo said.
For more information visit the Department of Anthropology’s website libarts.wsu.edu/anthro/. Informaiton on the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program can be found at www.cies.org/specialists/.
