Watch video of Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Tom D. Dillehay’s April 20 lecture titled “Ontology, Scale, and Time: Inferring the Origins of Andean Religion and its Practice.” Dillehay addresses the question of how the origins of religious and ideological practices in ancient civilizations without writing systems are studied and inferred. The empirical and ontological bases of inferred religious and ritual practices are discussed primarily for the Andean region and related to death and funerals, political organization, and kinship geographies. Dillehay also considers the different scales of empirical and temporal evidence required to approach this topic.
In addition to his Vanderbilt appointment, Dillehay is Professor Extraordinaire and Honorary Doctorate at the Universidad Austral de Chile.
The lecture was the annual Divinity School Harrod Lecture and the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture Spring Lecture.
Contact: Barbara Kaeser, barbara.r.kaeser@vanderbilt.edu