Dr. Christopher Milan decided to become an archaeologist while an undergraduate student at DePaul University. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he went to Yale University to earn his Ph.D. in Anthropology, specializing in Andean archaeology. Teaching at DePaul brings him full circle as he is able to give students the same opportunities his professors gave him.
Dr. Milan is primarily interested in the Initial Period (2000 – 800 BC) and Early Horizon (800 – 200 BC) occupation of the central coast of Peru. He has excavated both U-shaped temples and nearby villages to look at how the two types of sites related to one another. Early temples brought distant farming communities together into larger social groups, but at the same time these communities still found ways of expressing their own autonomy. Dr. Milan wants to look at how much power, and how far reaching, was the influence of leaders at early temples, by exploring the highland region of Huarochiri.
Outside of his own research, Dr. Milan is an enthusiastic spatial analyst. He uses GIS to make maps for his colleagues in the Andes. He has also made a series of interactive labs for DePaul; these labs allow students to see how archaeologists conduct their own research and teach students how we draw conclusions about the past from the materials we find in the field.