Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment

Welcome to IASCE

The Institute provides the physical and intellectual infrastructure to create and disseminate transdisciplinary knowledge about culture and the environment through seminars and working groups. We currently have four foci: 1) Evolutionary theory, both cultural and biological, 2) the Anthropocene, 3) Ancient diseases and nutrition, and 4) East African and Indian Ocean. We draw on faculty from across the College of Arts and Sciences and beyond including those in the sciences, humanities, and professional schools.

Spotlight on

Drone Mapping offers insight into Peru's "Band of Holes"

In a new study, led by IASCE Director Charles Stanish, drone mapping was used to examine the enigmatic site known as the “Band of Holes” (on Monte Sierpe in Peru’s Pisco Valley) and found that its ~5,200 holes are arranged in distinct blocks with numerical patterns reminiscent of the Andean accounting device called a khipu. Dr. Stanish had previously proposed the site functioned as an accounting/tribute mechanism, and his work underpins the new interpretation that the holes first served as a pre-Inca barter marketplace and later as an Inca recording system. Soil samples revealed maize pollen and reed fragments, supporting the exchange-and-storage hypothesis.