Staff
Melissa Hagstrum
Melissa Hagstrum
melissahblinman@cs.com
Melissa Hagstrum studies craft technologies in the Andean region. She has done ethnoarchaeological investigations of pottery production in the Mantaro region of the central Andes of Peru, where she looked at the role of ceramic manufacture as part of the annual cycle of farming, specifically as potters engaged in their craft between the harvest and planting times over the course of one to two months per year. More recently, Dr. Hagstrum has been studying what she calls "intersecting technologies," examining the role of pottery in the ancient pyrotechnologies-metallurgy, ceramics, and cooking in the Peruvian and Argentinean Andes. Another research interest is in "complementary technologies," where she is looking at the interdigitation of modern craft (especially pottery, weaving, knitting, the dying of fibers) in daily, monthly, and yearly activities of peasants in the Mantaro region.