CLARKSON UNIVERSITY TO HOST ESTEEMED ARCHAELOGIST DANIEL SANDWEISS For Explorations of Climate and Ancient Peruvian Societies

Clarkson University’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment’s (ISE) 2026 Hopke Lecture Series will host Daniel H. Sandweiss, esteemed scholar and American archaeologist and geoarchaeologist. Sandweiss will deliver his presentation, “El Niño: Stress and Resilience on the Coast of Peru.” Thursday, March 26 at 4 p.m. in the Clarkson Multipurpose Rooms (MPR) in the Student Union. Members of the public are encouraged to attend.

Sandweiss will discuss how the El Niño global climatic phenomenon affects human life and how four El Niño varieties are particularly important for Peru. He’ll illuminate what each does to coastal Peru, and summarize the positive and negative consequences for pre-Contact inhabitants of the region. The role of archaeology in helping understand El Niño behavior over the last 10,000 years; the archaeological record and the paleoclimatic archive will be further illuminated.

Sandweiss is a professor of anthropology and quaternary and climate studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maine, Orono. He has carried out field research in Peru since 1978 and has also worked in Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, and Honduras. His research interests are climate change and cultural dynamics, and use of the archaeological record as a climate proxy, and prehistoric coastal adaptations primarily in coastal Peru.

Sandweiss’s research has revealed some of the earliest human occupations of South America. He applies his expertise to investigate the effects of climate change on cultural development, the prehistory of the (ENSO) phenomenon, and rising sea level during the last deglaciation, all factors affecting the development and organization of complex societies in the coastal setting.

Clarkson’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment’ is a campus-wide effort to promote environmental and sustainability education, outreach, and collaborative sustainability efforts and research initiatives. The Hopke Lecture is supported by the Philip K. and Eleanor F. Hopke Endowment for the Institute for a Sustainable Environment (ISE).

Location of Lecture: Clarkson University, Clarkson Multipurpose Rooms (MPR) in the Student Union, 52 Wáhta Dr, Potsdam, NY 13699