Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part I: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part I: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This symposium celebrates the career of Tom D. Dillehay and his impactful contributions to interdisciplinary anthropology and South American archaeology. From meticulously researched archaeological studies that transformed our understanding of early humans in the Americas to interdisciplinary historical investigations of colonialism and commitment to ethical ethnographic research among modern Indigenous communities, Tom’s career is a trailblazing example of an anthropological archaeologist. His broad research addresses issues of settlement, migration, interaction, identity, environmental transformation, agriculture, and development of complex societies in the Indigenous Americas, including in South America, the USA, and Mexico. Moreover, Tom has held professional appointments in 19 institutions across Latin America, where he has not only taught generations of archaeology students but also founded three departments of anthropology. In this two-part session, Tom’s former students and mentees (Part 1) and colleagues and collaborators (Part 2) discuss the influence of his extraordinary career on their scholarship or the discipline at large, as well as showcase regionally and thematically diverse papers that honor his career. All presentations connect to Tom’s tireless and ongoing pursuit of understanding how pre-complex and complex societies emerged, what propels social change, and how archaeology contributes key anthropological insights vis-à-vis interdisciplinary, collaborative, and theoretically grounded research.