Luis Muro Ynoñán in Peru

Luis A. Muro Ynoñán is a Peruvian archaeologist, curator, and professor, specializing in the archaeology and heritage of the North Coast of Peru. He holds a Masters and PhD in archaeology from Stanford University and a Bachelors and Licenciatura from Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He is currently Assistant Curator of South American Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Before joining the Field Museum as a curator, he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), a Postdoctoral Scientist at the Field Museum, and a Pre-Columbian Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks of Harvard University. His academic interests include the study of religion, performance, and politics in the ancient Andes, as well as heritage ethics, cultural rights, and decoloniality in archaeology.

Over the past 15 years, he has led multiple archaeological programs in North Coast of Peru. He currently leads the Zaña Cultural Landscape Archaeological Program in Lambayeque, Peru, an interdisciplinary project studying the emergence of complex religions and religious monumental architecture in the Andes and its relationships to changes in the environment and ecology. He is the author of numerous articles and edited volumes in archaeology, including Beyond Death: Belief, Practices, and Material Expressions and Subaltern Archaeologies: Voices from Peru, Past and Present. As curator, he led the acclaimed exhibitions Death: Life's Greatest Mystery (Field Museum) and Taming the Desert: Resilience, Religion, and Ancestors in Ancient Peru (UCLA Fowler Museum). During this program his lectures will cover Peruvian archeology, history, and culture.

• Assistant Curator of South American Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History, 2024-present

• Director of the Zaña Cultural Landscape Archaeological Program in Lambayeque, Peru, 2022-present

• Lecturer in Archaeology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima, 2020-present

• Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 2022-2024

• Postdoctoral Scientist at the Field Museum, 2021-2022.

• Pre-Columbian Junior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks of Harvard University, 2018-2019

• MA ’14, and PhD ’19, anthropology/archaeology, Stanford University