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Christina Torres-Rouff

Associate Professor

Christina Torres-Rouff is a bioarchaeologist with research centered on human skeletal remains from complex societies. There are two main components to her work, both of which revolve around how populations reacted to social and environmental change. The first examines the way that the body was used as social symbol and a marker of identity that was influenced and modified by the world around it. The second views the same forces and how they affected individual well-being (i.e. health). These foci interrelate to create a more thorough understanding of ancient peoples and how they interacted with their neighbors and their space. Christina is currently in the midst of two projects that address these research questions concerning health and the interactions between members of a society and state level structures. The first project is a multi-year investigation of over twelve hundred individuals excavated in northern Chile where small groups of pre-Columbian agro-pastoralists interacted with the Tiwanaku state and the subsequent Inca Empire. The second focuses on approximately five hundred individuals from the site of Kish, a Mesopotamian city-state with influence and interactions that extended far beyond the Fertile Crescent.

Major Interests

  • Biological anthropology
  • Bioarcheology
  • Paleopathology
  • Cultural modifications of the body
  • Ethnicity
  • Andean South America
  • Mesopotamia

Personal Website

http://web.me.com/torresrouff/christina/Home.html

Regular Classes

  • AN101: Biological Anthropology
  • AN201: Human Evolution
  • AN202: Human Biological Variation
  • AN207: Prehistory of the Andes
  • AN301: Human Osteology
  • AN303: Bioarchaeology

View the Course Schedule >>

Education

    • Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003
    • M.A., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1998
    • B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1996

This is the Department of Anthropology