Alejandra Sánchez Polo
| AREA | RESEARCH GROUP | INSTITUTE |
|---|---|---|
| Prehistory | Durius Research Group |
I graduated in History from the University of Salamanca (USAL), after having completed the 4th year at the University of Granada with a SICUE-Séneca scholarship. Since then, I enjoyed a predoctoral contract, during which I obtained the Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in 2011. I received my PhD in 2021 at the USAL with a thesis on rituality in the Bronze Age of the Meseta. In it, besides using ethnoarchaeology and handling an extensive review of European archaeological contexts thanks to several research stays in Canada (Simon Fraser University in Vancouver), United States (University of California-Berkeley) and Ireland (University College Dublin), I carried out archaeometric studies by receiving a brief training in France (Université Paris-Nanterre) on thin-film petrography. I am currently a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher.
Part of my professional career has been developed in Ecuador, where in addition to working as a researcher for the National Institute of Cultural Heritage, I was a curator at the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art Casa del Alabado. There I was able to continue researching part of my academic interests. At the museum I conducted several studies, some of which led to temporary exhibitions. We analyzed pigments applied to pre-Columbian sculptures of high symbolic value or studying anthropologically and dating the first urn burial in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Also as a curator, I developed together with MASAV-Terra Levis a temporary exhibition in 2019 for the Diputación de Ávila revaluing the figure of a pioneer of Avila archaeology, Antonio Molinero Pérez. I have participated in several national and international research projects, configuring an extensive and interdisciplinary network of highly competitive researchers. Between 2021 and 2022 I have directed two regional research projects.
I am currently developing two lines of research, which are somehow separate from the thesis: one on taphonomic processes in prehistoric ceramics and another on prehistoric earthen architecture, using macroscopic and archaeometric studies.
My vision is to contribute to the knowledge of the diverse prehistoric societies from feminist archaeological assumptions.