Rate My Professor Matthew Sayre

Sayre's scholarly work centers on paleoethnobotany and archaeology of the ancient Andes, with a particular emphasis on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Chavín de Huántar in Peru. His research examines plant and animal use, ritual practices, economic production, trade networks, and adaptations to climate change in pre-Columbian societies. He edited the volume Social Perspectives on Ancient Lives from Paleoethnobotanical Data (Springer, 2017), co-authored with Maria Bruno, which advances social interpretations of environmental archaeological data. Notable publications include "Llamas on the Land: Production and Consumption of Meat at Chavín de Huántar, Peru" (Latin American Antiquity 27(4): 497-511, 2016, with Silvana A. Rosenfeld); "Isotopic evidence for the trade and production of exotic marine mammal bone artifacts at Chavín de Huántar, Peru" (Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 8(2): 403-417, 2016, with Melanie J. Miller and Silvana A. Rosenfeld); "A River Runs through it: Ritual and Inequality in the La Banda Sector of Chavín de Huantar" (in Reconsidering the Chavín Phenomenon in the Twenty-First Century, 2023, with Silvana Rosenfeld); and "You can’t grow Potatoes in the Sky: Agriculture and Climate Change in Andean Peru" (Culture, Agriculture, Food, and Environment 39(2): 100-108, 2017, with Tammy Stenner and Alejandro Argumedo). Sayre has contributed to fields like digital archaeology, cultural heritage management, and sustainability education, including a study on student learning outcomes (International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 2017). His collaborations span international teams, enhancing understandings of ancient ontologies, psychoactive plant use, and communal rituals. As department chair, he oversees the Sociology and Anthropology program, fostering student research and service learning. Sayre has delivered public lectures, such as on daily life at Chavín de Huántar.