Alana Kathleen Cordy-Collins is Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Diego. She is an archaeologist whose primary specialization is Peruvian prehistory.
She was born June 5, 1944, in Los Angeles, California. Her father was Mayanist Napoleon Cordy. A cousin, Ross Cordy, is an anthropologist specializing in Polynesian civilizations, who is chief archaeologist for the state of Hawaii’s Historic Preservation Division and teaches at the University of Hawaii.
She received her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her current venture is the Ulluchu Project, a botanical research project on the north coast of Peru. Her secondary specialization is shamanism, where she is developing a project in Mongolia. In addition to her professorship, she is director of the David W. May Indian Artifacts Gallery and curator of the collection. She is also a former curator of the Latin American collections at the San Diego Museum of Man.
Cordy-Collins has played a major role in the excavation of several important Moche tombs in Peru since she began working there in 1972, including the Royal Tombs of Sipan and Dos Cabezas. Sipán, excavated in 1987, is one of most important archaeological discoveries of Peru. It includes some of the few tombs that had been undisturbed by grave robbers, and the artifacts, which included gold, ornate pottery and other findings, toured the United States. The excavation of the Dos Cabezas pyramid in 1997-2002 revealed treasure-filled tombs with a surprising amount of metalwork and ceramics, as well as a family of “giants” – mummies of men who would have stood about 6 feet tall, compared with the typical Moche, who averaged between 4-foot-10 and 5-foot-6. The noblemen suffered from Marfan syndrome, an inherited form of gigantism. These are the first recorded instances of gigantism in prehistoric South America. Cordy-Collins has lectured both nationally and internationally about the Moche "giants."