Colloquium Series: Tiffiny Tung, Vanderbilt University

Violence, Food Insecurity, & Body Desecration: A Bioarchaeological & Isotopic Study of Climate Change & Imperial Collapse in the Peruvian Andes
Tiffiny Tung is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. She is an anthropological bioarchaeologist who studies mummies and skeletons from archaeology sites. In particular, she investigates how ancient imperial policies and practices structure health status, exposure to violence, and lived experience of ruling and subject peoples. Her research on the ‘bioarchaeology of imperialism’ has focused on the Wari Empire of the Peruvian Andes. Her current, NSF-funded research now examines the decline of the Wari Empire, including possible explanations for Wari decline, as well as the health effects of that collapse.