Keynote Speakers
Ruth Shady
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Throughout her long career Dr. Ruth Shady has undertaken some of the most important investigations of the evolution of sociopolitical complexity in ancient Peru, working on the coast, in the highlands, and in the distant cloud forests. Today, Dr. Shady is the President of ICOMOS-Peru, Professor and Co-ordinator of the Master of Archeology graduate program at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, and founder and Director of the Special Archeological Project Caral-Supe/INC, the title of the project being a unique honor conferred by Peru in addition to other special recognitions she has received from the government. Dr. Shady has worked at Caral since 1994, totally changing our understanding of the rise of early civilization in the Central Andes -- moving back its date of inception to the early fourth millennium BC and indicating the importance of irrigation agriculture. Under her vision the Caral Project also has become an extraordinary example of community engagement, public interpretive outreach, and economic development – not just in Peru but worldwide. Dr. Shady also has been Director of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Antropología del Perú, Director of the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at San Marcos. |