Michelle Young

Assistant Curator, South American Archaeology, Curator-in-Charge, Central American Archaeology

Assistant Professor, Richard Gilder Graduate School

Headshot of Michelle Young who is wearing glasses and has shoulder length dark hair.

Education

  • May 2020        Ph.D., Anthropology, Yale University
  • May 2015        M.Phil., Anthropology, Yale University
  • May 2009        B.A., Anthropology and Art History; Minor: Spanish, University of Virginia

Research Interests

Specializations 

Anthropological archaeology; archaeometry; interregional interaction and long-distance exchange; non-western economies; material culture and social identity; communities; ceramics; pigments; ritual and religion; social difference; gender; museums and heritage.

Summary 

My research seeks to understand the role of interregional networks of mobility, exchange, and ritual practice in the development of large-scale, intercultural social formations. As a material culture specialist, I undertake detailed material studies that integrate both humanist and empirical methods to produce richly textured interpretations of the Indigenous past in the Peruvian Andes, a region where I have worked for the last 16 years. I have directed teams of experts to employ constellations of archaeometric methods that include radiocarbon AMS dating, ceramic attribute analysis, ceramic petrography, chemical characterization and sourcing of obsidian and pigments, stable isotope analyses of teeth and bone, microbotanical identification of plants, and osteological analyses. As an archaeologist, I contribute to the wider discipline of anthropology by providing a deep-time perspective on human nature and the historical trajectory of human societies in the Andean region. I conceptualize my research as part of a larger intellectual project to afford dignity to contemporary native peoples by recognizing their histories as characterized by great sophistication, innovation, and complexity.

Between 2014 and 2017, I directed the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Atalla, carrying out mapping, survey, excavation, sample collection, and laboratory analyses of materials from Atalla, Peru, in collaboration with Peruvian and international students, scholars, and local workers. This project investigated the contexts in which new forms of social behavior – such as sedentary village life, long-distance exchange, new forms of ceremonialism, superregional identity formation, and social inequality – emerged in the Andes during the early 1st millennium BCE. This project also established a multi-year program of community outreach and education with Quechua-speaking and mestizo communities in the Huancavelica region of Peru.

Since 2019 I have directed the Cinnabar Roads Project (PIA Rutas de Cinabrio), an archaeological survey and excavation project studying the ancient exchange routes between the highlands and the coast of southern Peru. This project aims to understand the economic and social mechanisms that supported the exchange of products across distant ecological zones. You can follow the project on Instagram and Facebook @cinnabarroadsproject to learn more.

I am also currently the director of the Pre-Columbian Pigments Project, a collections-based research initiative that is exploring new methodologies for geochemical identification and sourcing of pigments. This project, which I began at Yale University and continued through a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Museum of the American Indian, aims to understand how the long-distance exploitation, exchange, and meaning of pigments varied both regionally and through time.

I have conducted archaeological field work, laboratory analyses, and collections-based research in the United States, Belize, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Madagascar. My research has been generously supported by funding from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, Smithsonian Institution, Rust Family Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Previously I taught in the Anthropology department at Vanderbilt University.

Publications

Young, M., C. Cooke, R. Burger, E. Kaplan, G. Prieto, J. Bongers, J. Dalton, F. Usama, S. Yuan, and H. Hintelmann. 2025. Mass spectrometry measurements of mercury isotope ratios support geochemical sourcing of cinnabar. PLoS One 20(7): e0326414.

Young, M. and E. Kaplan. 2023. Pigment traditions across the ancient Central Andes: Insights from the NMAI collections. Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences15 (182). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-023-01864-8

Young, Michelle E. and Anita Cook. 2023. Just scratching the surface: Post-fire engravings as ancient Andean writing. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 70 (101510).

Bongers, Jacob L., Vanessa Muros, Colleen O’Shea, Juliana Gómez Mejía, Colin A. Cooke, Michelle E Young, and Hans Barnard. 2023. Painting personhood: red pigment practices in southern Peru. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, (69):1-20.

Wolin, Daniela M, ME Young and N López Aldave. 2020. Bilateral congenital radioulnar synostosis in an Early Horizon subadult burial from the site of Atalla, Peru. Brief Communication. International Journal of Paleopathology (28): 1-5.

Young, Michelle E. 2017. De la Montaña al Mar: Intercambio entre la sierra centro-sur y la costa sur en el Horizonte Temprano. Boletín de Arqueología Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (22): 9-34.

Book chapters 

Young, Michelle E. forthcoming. Mining and its economic implications for Andean societies. In Oxford Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by M. Aldenderfer, M. Sepulveda and E. Neves.

Young, Michelle E. 2023. Horizon, interaction sphere, cult? A view of the ‘Chavín Phenomenon’ from Huancavelica. In Reconsidering the Chavín Phenomenon in the 21st Century, edited by RL Burger and J Nesbitt. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.

Weber, Sadie L. and Michelle E. Young. 2023. Eating local, drinking imported: Chicha recipes, emulative desire, and identity formation at Atalla, Huancavelica, Peru. In Food, Diet, and Cuisine in the Ancient Andes, edited by MP Alfonso-Durruty and DE Blom. University of Arizona Press.

Young, Michelle E. 2022. Barreras y oportunidades de una identidad interseccional en la práctica de la arqueología en el Perú. In Mujeres del Pasado y del Presente: Una Vision desde la Arqueologia Peruana, edited by C Tavera and L Santana Quispe. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru.

Dissertation

Young, Michelle E. 2020. The Chavín Phenomenon in Huancavelica, Peru: Interregional interaction, ritual practice, and social transformations at Atalla. PhD Dissertation. Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Teaching Experience

Teaching appointments

Assistant Professor, Division of Anthropology and Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History, Aug 2025-present

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Jan 2022- Aug 2025

Adjunct Faculty, Department of History and Art History, George Mason University, July-Dec 2020

Past Courses Taught 

Origins of Social Inequality (ANTH 4201W), Vanderbilt University.

Ancient Civilizations of the Andes (ANTH 2231 / ANTH 5231), Vanderbilt University.

Art and Architecture of the Ancient Americas (ANTH 2214), Vanderbilt University.

Contested Ground: Sacred Sites Across the Ancient World (ANTH 2229W / RLST 2229W), Vanderbilt University.

Anthropological Research Design (ANTH 9001), Vanderbilt University,

Survey of Latin American Art (ARTH 204), George Mason University.