Biography
Rachel Johnson is an archaeology PhD candidate specializing in the archaeology of the Andes, the Upper Amazon, and archaeometric ceramic analyses. Prior to coming to Tulane, she earned a B.A. in anthropology, a B.S. in geology, and a minor in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh.
Her research examines the dynamic interplay between craft production, material expression of identity, political economy, and human-environmental interactions. Through a combination of formal ceramic analysis, ceramic thin-section petrography, and portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF), her research aims to identify shared technological practice and reconstruct past interaction networks. Her current project develops a diachronic model of ceramic technological practice in the Huaritambo Valley, eastern Ancash, Perú (1100 BCE - 900 CE), to evaluate the social and economic changes accompanying the rise of the Chavín Horizon - a unifying cultural period (c. 950-400 BCE) characterized by widespread exchange networks - its subsequent decline, and reorganization to Recuay polities. Other ongoing research traces interaction networks between the eastern highlands and the Upper Amazon, examining the role of lowland societies in the development of early highland Andean civilization. This work has been supported through collaboration with several ongoing archaeological projects and the reanalysis of museum collections within the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (University of California, Berkeley), the American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Institution. Johnson's research has been supported by the Rust Family Foundation and the National Science Foundation.