Professor Calogero M. Santoro
Calogero Santoro, PhD in Anthropology-Archaeology from the University of Pittsburgh (1995), MA in Archaeology from Cornell University (1987), BA in Archaeology from the Universidad del Norte (1981).
Between 1976 and 1981 he was a professor at the Universidad del Norte, Arica, and since 1982 he has been a professor at the Universidad de Tarapacá. He has developed broad interdisciplinary research in socio-cultural ecology to address the processes of social continuities and discontinuities of the human societies that have inhabited and transformed the contrasting ecosystems of the Atacama Desert, expressed in diverse political, economic and ideological structures, from the late Pleistocene to the present. His research seeks that the history of the life systems developed in the Atacama Desert contribute to the future of humanity and the planet, with greater inclusion and equity, and with the aim of contributing to the construction of a more peaceful and ecocentric paradigm for the sustainability of humanity and planet Earth. He has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and France, as well as lectures on the history of the Andes and the Atacama Desert to the public, tour guides, primary and secondary school students, and local community and ethnic leaders. He has contributed to the production of more than 200 scientific and popular science articles and books. He is a regular contributor to local and national newspapers and radio stations, and participates in documentaries and television programmes in Chile, USA, UK and Australia, showing and discussing the cultural and natural history of the Atacama Desert and other parts of the world. In 2021 he became a corresponding member of the Academia Chilena de Ciencias (National Academy of Science), and in 2023 he was named Hijo Ilustre de Arica 2023 (Distinguished Citizen of Arica), by the I. Municipalidad of this city
At Clare Hall, he will be accompanied by Dr. Javiera Carmona, professor at the Universidad de Tarapacá, who is dedicated to museum studies, critical heritage studies and Latin American visualities from early modernity to contemporaneity. She also studies the African diaspora in Latin America from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Select publications
- Ugalde, Paula C., Delphine Joly, Rafael Labarca, Eugenia M. Gayo, Mikhaela Simunovic, Virginia McRostie, Claudio Latorre, Calogero M. Santoro
2024 The first peoples of the Atacama Desert lived among the trees: A 11,600- to 11,200-year-old grove and congregation site. PNAS 121(18):e2320506121. DOI:10.1073/pnas.2320506121. - Correa-Lau, Jacqueline, Carolina Agüero, Ester Echenique, Tracy Martens, Jeffrey Splitstoser, Calogero M. Santoro
2023 Inka Unku: Imperial or Provincial? State-Local Relations. PlosOne, 18(2): e0280511. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280511. - Caro, Francisco J., Rafael Labarca, Francisco J. Prevosti, Natalia Villavicencio, Gabriela M. Jarpa, Katherine A. Herrera, Jacqueline Correa-Lau, Claudio Latorre & Calogero M. Santoro
2023 First record of cf. Aenocyon dirus (Leidy, 1858) (Carnivora, Canidae), from the Upper Pleistocene of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontologye e2190785. DOI:10.1080/02724634.2023.2190785. - Capriles, José M., Magdalena García, Daniela Valenzuela, Alejandra I. Domic, Logan Kistler, Francisco Rothhammer, and Calogero M. Santoro
2022 Pre-Columbian Cultivation of Vegetatively Propagated and Fruit Tree Tropical Crops in the Atacama Desert. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10:993630. DOI:10.3389/fevo.2022.993630. - Ugalde, P.C., V. McRostie, E.M. Gayo, M. García, C. Latorre, C.M. Santoro
2021 13,000 years of socio-cultural plant use in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 30(2):213-230. DOI:10.1007/s00334-020-00783-1. - Hendon, J.A., C.M. Santoro
2020 If education, arts and culture were the main threads of the socioecological fabric, would another rooster sing on the planet? Latin American Antiquity 31(4):661-663. DOI:10.1017/laq.2020.71. - Santoro, C.M., V. Castro, J.M. Capriles, J. Barraza, J. Correa, P.A. Marquet, V. McRostie, E.M. Gayo, C. Latorre, D. Valenzuela, M. Uribe, M.E. De Porras, V.G. Standen, D. Angelo, A. Maldonado, E. Hamamé, D. Jofre
2018 Acta de Tarapacá. “pueblo sin agua, pueblo muerto” / The Tarapacá declaration: “a waterless people is a dead people”. Chungara Revista de Antropología Chilena 50(2):169-174. DOI:10.4067/S0717-73562018000200169. - Santoro, C.M., E.M. Gayo, J.M. Capriles, M.E. De Porras, A. Maldonado, V.G. Standen, C. Latorre, V. Castro, D. Angelo, V. McRostie, M. Uribe, D. Valenzuela, P. Ugalde, P.A. Marquet
2017 Continuities and discontinuties in the socio-environmental systems of the Atacama Desert during the last 18,000 years. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 46(June): 28-39. DOI:10.1016/j.jaa.2016.08.006.
Select awards
- 2023 Named Distinguished Citizen of Arica (Hijo Ilustre de Arica 2023)
- 2009 – 2010 Postdoctoral fellowship Dumbarton Oaks Fellow, Washington, D.C, USA
- 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award, Rotary Club Chinchorro, Aric
- 2000 Best Academic Achievement of the Year Award, Universidad de Tarapacá.