Professor Heather Lechtman

Heather Lechtman carries out her fieldwork in the Andean zone of South America where she has spent over 30 years investigating the prehistoric systems of technology Andean peoples developed to manage a vertical, ecologically diverse, and high-stress environment. Her area of specialty is prehistoric Andean metallurgy. Her areas of training include anthropology, archaeology, conservation of archaeological artifacts, history of art, physics.

Professor Lechtman's research interests in the cultural dynamics that prejudice the ways in which societies develop systems of technology are furthered by combining the methods of archaeology and materials analysis. From her field and laboratory studies Andean metallurgy emerges as a technology quintessentially Andean, distinct from the early metallurgies of western Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Ongoing research programs involve a comparison of New World and Old World bronze metallurgies, including determination of the properties of copper-arsenic, copper-arsenic-nickel, and copper-tin bronze alloys; analysis and experimental reconstruction of the crucible ore smelting technology practiced at 5th millennium BCE Tal-i Iblis, Persia; and a comparative study of the production of copper ship's fasteners manufactured in the United States by Paul Revere, for installation in the USS Constitution, and those made by British shipbuilders in the 18th century.