Go Matsumoto (PhD, archaeology) completed his MA thesis this August and continues studying in the PhD program. This fall and subsequent spring will be spent to fulfill the course requirements and to prepare for the upcoming excavation of the Sicán shaft tombs on the northern north coast of the Central Andes next summer, based on which he is planning to write his dissertation. His major interest is in the reconstruction of belief systems and related institutions of Sicán culture through the detailed contextual analysis of burial practices.

         After finishing his MA thesis this summer, he took part in the Pachacamac Archaeological Project, directed by Dr. Izumi Shimada (SIUC). Together with the co-director of the project, he was in charge of the tomb excavation in front of the inferred most sacred temple of the site, the Temple of Pachacamac. This widely reported excavation provided several new important findings including the recovery of nearly 40 mummy bundles from a single pre-Incaic tomb. Go is planning to write on this excavation and present it at the 34th Annual Midwest Conference on Andean and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory at Nashville next year.

He is also supposed to present a paper on his GIS-based digital site mapping of Pachacamac at the 38th Annual Chacmool Archaeological Conference at the University of Calgary, Canada (November 12, 2005). Geographic Information Systems and their applications in archaeology and anthropology are still fascinating him and will be one of his research issues for years to come.

He got a year-round half-time assistantship from the College of Education and Human Services. He is in charge of facility management of the Microcomputer Lab and providing on-site trouble shooting for the users.

 


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