Rate My Professor Matthew Sayre

Matthew Sayre serves as Chair and Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at High Point University. He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and both his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining High Point University in 2018, Sayre was an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Dakota, where he conducted research and taught courses in anthropology and archaeology.

Sayre's scholarly work centers on paleoethnobotany and archaeology of the ancient Andes, with a particular emphasis on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Chavín de Huántar in Peru. His research examines plant and animal use, ritual practices, economic production, trade networks, and adaptations to climate change in pre-Columbian societies. He edited the volume Social Perspectives on Ancient Lives from Paleoethnobotanical Data (Springer, 2017), co-authored with Maria Bruno, which advances social interpretations of environmental archaeological data. Notable publications include "Llamas on the Land: Production and Consumption of Meat at Chavín de Huántar, Peru" (Latin American Antiquity 27(4): 497-511, 2016, with Silvana A. Rosenfeld); "Isotopic evidence for the trade and production of exotic marine mammal bone artifacts at Chavín de Huántar, Peru" (Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 8(2): 403-417, 2016, with Melanie J. Miller and Silvana A. Rosenfeld); "A River Runs through it: Ritual and Inequality in the La Banda Sector of Chavín de Huantar" (in Reconsidering the Chavín Phenomenon in the Twenty-First Century, 2023, with Silvana Rosenfeld); and "You can’t grow Potatoes in the Sky: Agriculture and Climate Change in Andean Peru" (Culture, Agriculture, Food, and Environment 39(2): 100-108, 2017, with Tammy Stenner and Alejandro Argumedo). Sayre has contributed to fields like digital archaeology, cultural heritage management, and sustainability education, including a study on student learning outcomes (International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 2017). His collaborations span international teams, enhancing understandings of ancient ontologies, psychoactive plant use, and communal rituals. As department chair, he oversees the Sociology and Anthropology program, fostering student research and service learning. Sayre has delivered public lectures, such as on daily life at Chavín de Huántar.