Tamara Bray

Tamara Bray

I am a theoretically-oriented archaeologist specializing in the study of the Inca Empire and the late pre-Columbian societies of the northern Andes. I earned my doctoral degree from SUNY-Binghamton in the early 1990s and landed a job shortly thereafter at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History where I helped to establish the Office of Repatriation. In 1995, I joined the faculty at Wayne State University. In addition to teaching a wide array of undergraduate and graduate courses here, I also served as director of the Grosscup Museum of Anthropology for 21 years, from 1995 to 2016. I was named Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year in 2013 by the President’s Council of State Universities of Michigan.

My research focuses on strategies of ancient imperialism through the study of craft production, foodways and iconography; material agency and non-western ontologies; interregional interaction; and the politics and place of archaeology in the modern world. I have over 30 years of field and research experience in the highlands of Ecuador, where I began my professional career with an investigation of imperial Inca strategies of control in the Quito basin. Since then, I have directed several interdisciplinary projects focused on long-distance trade and Andean-Amazonian relations, imperial frontiers, Inca architecture, sacred landscapes and Inca pottery in the countries of Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Peru. My new book, entitled "Objects of Empire: The Ceramic Tradition of the Imperial Inca State" (University of Texas Press) will be available in early 2025.

In 2020, I initiated a new archaeological field project in southern highland Ecuador with co-PI Catherine Lara that explores the role of craft specialists, colonization and technologies of ceramic production in the context of imperial Inca expansion. My analyses of archaeological materials recovered in excavations at the site of Copacabana in Bolivia are also on-going, as are my comparative studies of imperial Inca pottery from around the Empire and research into the ways in which imperial objects of various types aid in the construction of empires around the world. In addition to teaching and research, I also serve on several scientific advisory and editorial boards, including the new journal, "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways;" the journal Arqueología y Patrimonio published by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH); and the journal "Antropología: Cuadernos de Investigación" published by the Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE); I also served as a member of the Advisory Board of Senior Fellows for the Pre-Columbian Studies Program at Dumbarton Oaks from 2017-2022.

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

• Andean archaeology
• Complex societies
• Inca Empire
• Ecuadorian archaeology
• Early imperialism and statecraft
• Food and feasting
• Art and iconography
• Materiality-sociality
• Museum studies

Education

• Ph.D. in Anthropology, SUNY-Binghamton, 1991
• M.A. in Anthropology, SUNY-Binghamton, 1985
• B.A. in Anthropology, Beloit College, 1980

Awards and grants

• 2024: Fulbright Senior Specialist, Yachay Museum of Archaeology, Yachay Tech, Urcuqui, Ecuador.
• 2023: Elected to membership in Ecuador's National Academy of History
• 2020: Rust Family Foundation Grant for Archaeological Research in Ecuador
• 2020: H. & T. King Grant for Precolumbian Archaeology, Society for American Archaeology
• 2019: Advanced Seminar Award, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe
• 2018: Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellow Award, Board of Governors, Wayne State University
• 2018: Elected to Academy of Scholars, Wayne State University
• 2016: Wenner-Gren Grant for Archaeological Research on sacred landscapes of the Inca at Copacabana, Bolivia
• 2016: Marilyn Williamson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship Award, Humanities Center, Wayne State University
• 2013: Named Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year by the Presidents' Council of State Universities of Michigan

Selected publications

• Forthcoming, "Blurring Binary Thinking: Latin American Visual Culture from the Deep Past to the Present" (co-edited volume with Carolyn Dean). University of Texas Press, Austin
• Forthcoming, "Rethinking Empire: Materiality, Metaphysics, and Imperial Politics" (co-edited volume with Lori Khatchadourian). SAR Press, Santa Fe, NM
• 2025: "Objects of Empire: The Ceramic Tradition of the Imperial Inca State." University of Texas Press
• 2024: "Una comparación de los centros imperiales incas de Tomebamba y Caranqui: ¿Cambios de latitud, cambios de actitud?" Cuadernos de Antropología 30:173-190
• 2023 "Inca mitmaqkuna, technologies of pottery production, and communities of practice in the northern Andes." Latin American Antiquity 35 (3):1-18. Co-authored with Catherine Lara, Gabriel Ramón
• 2022: "The vital matter of food." In "Food, Diet and Cuisine in the Ancient Andes," Marta Alfonso-Durrurty and Deborah Blom (eds.). Arizona University Press, Tucson
• 2021: "La arqueología de los waka’s: exploraciones del sagrado en los Andes precolombinos." Ediciones el Lector S.R.L., Universidad Peru, Arequipa. (Spanish translation of 2015 volume)
• 2020: "Imperial Inca-style pottery from Ecuador: Insights into provenance and production using INAA and ceramic petrography." Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 34(A):1-11. (co-authored with Leah Minc)
• 2019: "Recientes excavaciones en Intinqala: un sitio de ocupacion incaica en Copacabana, Bolivia." Boletin de la Sociedad de Investigacion de Arte Rupestre de Bolivia 33:43-71
• 2019: "Temporal plurality and temporal transgressions: Time and things in an early colonial mortuary assemblage from northern highland Ecuador." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 23(4):816-831
• 2018: "Partnering with pots: The work of materials in the imperial Inca project." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28(2): 243-257
• 2018: "The Inca centers of Caranqui and Tomebamba in northern Chinchaysuyu," in Oxford Handbook of the Inca, S. Alconini and A. Covey (eds.), pp. 159-178. Oxford University Press, Oxford
• 2018: "Al final del Tahuantinsuyu: avances imperiales en la frontera norte," en El imperio Inca, Izumi Shimada (ed.), pp. 679-712. Fondo Editorial, PUCP, Lima
• 2015: "The Archaeology of Wak’as: Explorations of the Sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes." University Press of Colorado, Boulder
• 2014: "Analytical applications of fine-scale terrestrial lidar at the imperial Inca site of Caranqui, northern highland Ecuador." World Archaeology 46(1):1-18. (co-authored with Boleslo E. Romero)
• 2013: "Water, ritual and power in the Inca Empire." Latin American Antiquity 24(2):164-190
• 2012: "Ritual commensality between human and non-human persons: Investigating native ontologies in the late pre-Columbian Andean world." eTopoi:J ournal for Ancient Studies (Berlin), online journal
• 2009:  "An archaeological perspective on the Andean concept of camaquen: Thinking through the objects of late pre-Columbian ofrendas and huacas." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3):359-368
• 2003: "Inca pottery as culinary equipment: Food, feasting and gender in imperial state design." Latin American Antiquity 17(1):1-22

For a complete listing of publications, see wayne.academia.edu/TBray.

Citation index

• Google Scholar

Courses taught by Tamara Bray

Winter Term 2025 (future)

• ANT2200 - Lost Cities and Ancient Civilizations
• ANT3220 - The Inca and their Ancestors
• ANT6510 - The Inca and their Ancestors

Winter Term 2024

• ANT2200 - Lost Cities and Ancient Civilizations
• ANT6555 - Cultural Resource Management and Public Archaeology

Fall Term 2023

• ANT2500 - Archaeology of the Great Lakes
• ANT5600 - Museum Studies

Winter Term 2023

• ANT2200 - Lost Cities and Ancient Civilizations
• ANT7780 - Conceptualizing the Dissertation

Fall Term 2022

• ANT5600 - Museum Studies
• ANT6510 - The Inca and their Ancestors
• ANT3220 - The Inca and their Ancestors

Winter Term 2022

• ANT5270 - Concepts and Techniques in Archaeology
• ANT7630 - Seminar in Problems and Concepts in Cultural Anthropology