Anita G. Cook is an archaeologist who specializes in the Central Andes. She is professor emerita at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and has served as a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Anita has conducted archaeological tours in the Andes since 1987 and was a visiting professor of anthropology at the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru. As director of the Lower Ica Valley Archaeological Project and co-director of the Conchopata Archaeological Project in Ayacucho, her research focuses on the emergence of early Andean states and empires—in particular the Wari and Tiwnaku, predecessors of the Inca—with a particular focus on material culture, the visual arts, and iconography. She received Municipal Honorary Recognition and a medal for defending and preserving the site of Conchopata.

Anita’s research has been internationally recognized through grant and fellowship awards including the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, the National Gallery of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

She is an author and co-editor of the forthcoming volume Empire of the Ancestors: The Wari of the Middle Horizon, and previously published Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru and a book in Spanish about pre-Inca civilizations, as well as numerous articles. She has been a consultant for national and international museum exhibits and research seminars and she is active in conservation efforts to protect threatened cultural remains in Andean South America.