Overview
I am an anthropological bioarchaeologist who uses skeletal and isotopic analyses to understand how past populations navigated periods of uncertainty, as embodied through phenomena like mobility, violence, diet, gender, and health. My primary area of interest is the late pre-Hispanic (ca. 500–1500 CE) south-central Andean highlands. My research has been funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Atkinson Center for Sustainability. From 2023–2025, I directed excavations and laboratory analyses of a large complex of pre-Hispanic burial caves in Huanca Sancos, Peru. Using a life-history approach, I have investigated how individuals who were interred at this site between approximately 700–1400 CE contended with the upheaval that resulted from the dissolution of the Wari Empire and the onset of the Medieval Climate Anomaly. My next project will focus on the development of trepanation (ancient skull surgery) at a regional scale during this same time period.
Publications
Under review Whittemore, Anna Fancher. “Curation in-context: A contemporary archaeology of surface assemblages in 'looted' tombs.” Submitted to Public Archaeology.
Accepted Rolando Espinoza, Lorena Liz, Anna Fancher Whittemore. “Excavaciones del Proyecto de Investigación Bio-arqueológico de Sancos - Temporada 2023 [Excavations of the Sancos Bioarchaeological Research Project - 2023 Season],” Actas del XI Congreso Nacional de Arqueología - Edición Bicentenario. Lima, Peru: Ministry of Culture, Directorate General of Archaeological Patrimony Property.
2024 Tung, Tiffiny A., Anna Fancher Whittemore, Thomas J. Snyder. “Dietas de los Lactantes y las Madres en Conchopata: Un Estudio de Isótopos Estables de Carbón y Oxígeno [Diets of Infants and Mothers from Conchopata: A Study of Stable Carbon and Oxygen Isotopes].” Chungará: Revista de Antropología Chilena 56(2), 273–286.
2024 Whittemore, Anna Fancher, BrieAnna S. Langlie, Elizabeth Arkush, Matthew C. Velasco. “Isotopic insights into quinoa agriculture at an Andean hillfort town (cal AD 1250–1450).” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 33(3), 393–406.