Senate Faculty

Summary of Expertise

Archaeology of Colonialism; Andean Studies; Ethnohistory; Spatial Modeling 

Research Interests

Dr. Hernández Garavito’s current collaborative project investigates the pre-Hispanic and colonial period history of the region of Santo Domingo de los Olleros, a known pottery manufacturing hub in colonial and modern times. Her work explores the shift of a specific productive and commercial activity from a generalized craft to being associated with female gender roles and the impact of specialization on Indigenous definitions of community, gender, and heritage. Dr. Hernández Garavito uses an interdisciplinary approach, including photogrammetry, archival research, archaeological ethnography, spatial modeling, intrasite survey, excavation, and compositional ceramic analysis.

Biography, Education and Training

Dr. Carla Hernández Garavito (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 2019) is a Peruvian archaeologist investigating the reinvention of community identity in the Central Andes through successive colonization by the Inka (1450-1532 CE) and Spanish (1532-1821 CE) Empires. She has conducted research in the Peruvian North Coast and Cusco, but her main research area is Huarochirí, in the highlands of Lima. Her research connects her archaeological and historical interests through spatial modeling.

Honors, Awards and Grants

2023-2024, Faculty Award, National Endowment for the Humanities

2023 – Wenner Gren Foundation Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship

2019-2020 – Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Riverside

2018-2019 – Junior Fellow of Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 

2016-2017 – Mellon Graduate Fellow in the Center for Digital Humanities, Vanderbilt University

2015-2016 – National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant

2015-2016 – Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

2011-2016 – University Graduate Fellowship (“Topping Award”), Vanderbilt University 

Selected Publications

Peer-Reviewed

Carla Hernández Garavito, Gabriela Oré Menéndez, Negotiated Cartographies in the Relaciones Geográficas de Indias: The Descripción de la provincia de Yauyos Toda (1586), Ethnohistory 70(3):351-384, 2023

Chacaltana-Cortez, S., Baca, E. Hernández, Carla, Norman, S., and M.E. Gravalos, Inka and Local ceramic production and distribution networks: A view from the Chinchaysuyo and Colesuyo, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 48, 2023

Experiencing Community: Continuity and Transformation of Residential Life Under the Inka Empire in Huarochirí (Lima, Peru), Latin American Antiquity 32(2): 255.273, 2021

Producing Legibility Through Ritual: The Inka Expansion in Huarochirí (Lima, Peru), Journal of Social Archaeology 20(3):292-312, 2020

Hernández, Carla and Carlos Osores, Colonialism and Domestic Life: Identities and Foodways in Huarochirí During the Inka Empire, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 23:832-867, 2019

Book Chapters

Wernke, Steven A., Gabriela Oré, Carla Hernández, Aurelio Rodríguez, Abel Traslaviña and Giancarlo Marcone. Beyond the Basemap: Multiscalar Survey through Aerial Photogrammetry in the Andes. In: Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future, Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, 2016

Hernández, Carla and Gabriela Oré. Aproximaciones a los procesos de abandono del Complejo Maranga en los Periodos Tardíos. In: Arqueología Peruana Homenaje a Mercedes Cárdenas. Lima: Instituto Riva – Agüero, 2011

Makowski, Krzysztof and Carla Hernández. Las Casas del Sapan Inca In: Señores de los Imperios del Sol. Colección Arte y Tesoros del Perú. Lima: Banco de Crédito del Perú, 2010

Conference Proceedings

Farro, Carla Hernández Garavito, Aldair Mejía, Cecilia Méndez, Carlos Molina-Vital, Mariela Noles Cotito, Nelson Pereyra Chávez & Amanda Smith, Protests in Peru: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Structural Crisis, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 32:1, 157-175, 2023

Negociaciones Inscritas en Roca: Montañas, Afloramientos Rocosos, e Identidad en Huarochirí, In: Actas del Simposio Internacional “Paisaje y Territorio. Practicas Sociales e Interacciones Regionales en los Andes Centrales,” Editorial Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, 1995-221, 2021

Selected Recordings

2021 - Places: Aesthetics and Meaning of Special Settings in the Andean Past and Present, in conversation with Dr. Tom Dillehay and Dr. Christine Hastorf, SAR School for Advanced Research, Senses of Place summer series.

2020 - Wak’as, Plazas, and Conquest: The Children of Pariaqaqa and the Inka Empire (Huarochirí, Peru), Keynote Public Lecture at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Institute for Andean Studies, Berkeley, California