Gary Urton

Gary Urton
Urton in a dig in Rio Branco, Brazil. (Summer 2018)
Born	(1946-07-07) July 7, 1946 Clovis, New Mexico
Titel	Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard University.
Awards	MacArthur Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowship
Academic background
Bildung	Eastern New Mexico University 1964-1966 - (no degree) University of New Mexico 1966-1969 - B.A. (History) University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 1969-1971 - M.A. (Ancient History) University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.1971-1979 - Ph.D. (Anthropology)
Academic work
Discipline	Anthropology Archaeology
Sub-discipline	Pre-Columbian and early colonial Andean cultural and intellectual history
Institutions	Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Colgate University (1978 - 2002) Department of Anthropology at Harvard University (2002 - present)
Website	https://anthropology.fas.harvard.edu/people/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 2002. He received his B.A. from the University of New Mexico in 1969, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1971 and 1979, respectively. He is married to artist and anthropologist Julia Meyerson.

Urton is a specialist in Andean archaeology, particularly the quipu (khipu) numerical recording system used in the Inca empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. Along with anthropologist Sabine Hyland, he is one of the most prominent advocates of the theory that the quipus encode linguistic as well as numerical information. From 2001 to 2005 he was a MacArthur Fellow.

His teaching Specialties include 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.

Sexual harassment allegations

In May 2020 Urton was named (along with two fellow Harvard anthropology professors) in an article published in The Harvard Crimson on sexual harassment and assault in Harvard's Anthropology Department. Harvard determined there was no evidence for violation of policy. In early June, more accusation of misconduct came up in viral tweet by anthropologist Jade d'Alpoim Guedes of UCSD. She claims he made improper suggestions when she was a graduate student at Harvard.

Selected publications

• Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2017.
• The Khipus of Laguna de los Condores/Los Khipus de la Laguna de los Cóndores. Lima, Peru: Forma e Imagen 2008.
• Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003. Spanish edition: Signos del Khipu Inka: Código Binario. Cusco, Peru: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas, 2005.
• Inca Myths. London: British Museum Press and Austin, TX: Press, 1999. (Translated into Spanish, German, Russian, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, and French).
• The Social Life of Numbers: A Quechua Ontology of Numbers and Philosophy of Arithmetic. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1997. Spanish edition: La Vida Social de los Numeros: Una Ontologia de los Números y la Filosofía de la Aritmética Quechuas. Cusco, Peru: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas, 2003.
• The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1990. Spanish edition: Historia de un Mito: Pacariqtambo y el Origen de los Inkas. Cusco, Peru: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas, 2004.
• At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An Andean Cosmology. Latin American Monographs, no. 55, 1981. paperback edition, 1988. Spanish edition: En el Cruce de Rumbos de las Tierra y el Cielo. Cusco, Peru: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas, 2004.

External links

• Gary Urton's homepage at Harvard