Luis A. Borrero
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientÃficas y Tecnicas, (CONICET)
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Primary Section: 51, Anthropology Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2021)
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Biosketch
Luis Alberto Borrero is an archaeologist recognized for his work on bone taphonomy, particularly in relation with the process of human peopling of South America. He was involved with some of the main projects related with the early human arrival to Patagonia in Tierra del Fuego, Ultima Esperanza Sound and the Pali Aike Volcanic Field. Borrero was born in Río Gallegos, in Patagonia, Argentina and grew up in several cities in Argentina. He graduated from the Universidad de Buenos Aires with a degree in Anthropology (specialty in Archaeology) in 1978 and a Ph.D. in 1986. He worked as a researcher for the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) since 1983 and as a professor of archaeology at the Universidad de Buenos Aires since 1982. In 2004 he received the Bernardo Houssay Award for Scientific and Technological Research in Social and Human Sciences, Ministry of Education, Argentina. In 2014 he received the Award for Excellence in Latin American and Caribbean Archaeology from the Society for American Archaeology. He has been vice-president of the International Council for Archaezoology and member of the Board of Directors of the Society for American Archaeology, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Research Interests
Luis Alberto Borrero specializes in the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, particularly in relation with the colonization of new lands. He directed field projects in several little studied areas of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego like Lago Argentino, Cape Virgenes, the Pali Aike Volcanic Field and San Sebastian Bay. He studied the process of cultural divergence of human populations in Tierra del Fuego that started when the island was cut-off from the mainland during the Early Holocene. He also published models of human colonization of different South American environments that helped to reevaluate the velocity and other characteristics of the process of human dispersal. Part of his field studies are focused on the taphonomy of terrestrial and marine mammal bones, trying to differentiate those resulting from human subsistence activities from those incorporated from natural deaths. As a result of his evaluations many bone assemblages were reevaluated, and new standards of bone recovery and interpretation were conceived.
He is now involved in a multi-disciplinary project related with the initial peopling of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego and in the exploration of the Southwestern archipelagos of Southern South America.
