Gary Urton

Who is Gary Urton?

Gary Urton is the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard University. He was previously Professor of Anthropology at Colgate University from 1978 to 2001. Dr. Urton is a specialist in Andean archaeology, particularly the quipu numerical recording system used in the Inca empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. He is the most prominent advocate of the theory that the quipus encode linguistic as well as numerical information. From 2001 to 2005 he was a MacArthur Fellow.

Degrees: BA University of New Mexico 1969; MA, PhD University of Illinois 1971, 1979

Teaching Specialties: South America – the Andes, Amazonia; Native people and cultures of North and South America; topics: social/cultural anthropology, anthropology and history, primitive art, state formation.

Gary Urton's homepage at Harvard