Heather Lechtman attended Vassar College as an undergraduate, graduating in 1956 with a B.A. in Physics.  Later, she went to New York University, receiving an M.A. in Fine Arts and Archaeology, as well as a diploma in Archaeological Conservation in 1966.  She wrote her master’s thesis on neutron activation autoradiography of oil paintings, setting the foundation for her later studies of metals. 

 

Lechtman’s research is truly interdisciplinary.  She uses laboratory analysis of ancient materials to reconstruct technological style.  In 1975, Lechtman co-edited the volume on technological style that came out of an American Ethnological Society meeting with Robert Merrill.  In the introduction, she outlined the theoretical framework and methodology for testing the idea on cultural material.  She argues that archaeologists are capable of reconstructing technologies of the past and that through this reconstruction, can understand the social processes underlying change and behavior.  Technology is part of a total social system and by linking it to other subsystems, Lechtman argues that we can better understand the rest of the social system.  Though it is criticized for its passive take on cognition in technology (see Hegmon 1992:529), that 1975 volume still stands as the most explicit treatise on technological style.

 

Her focus is on pre-Columbian Andean metallurgy and archaeometry, though she does not favor the use of this term.  She has especially analyzed surface technology, alloys, smelting, metalworking facilities in the New World, and extraction.  Lechtman also uses experimental archaeology to reconstruct ancient technologies and the operational sequence.

 

In a 2005 interview with a Getty Institute conservator, Lechtman stated that art historians were headed in the right direction when undertaking technical studies, but that students’ educations no longer include much hands-on interaction with art objects.  She has long been a proponent of interdisciplinary research, cutting across the fields of technical studies, conservation, art history, anthropology, and archaeology.  

 

From 1984 to 1989, Lechtman received the “Genius Award,” the prestigious, no-strings-attached John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.  These awards go to scholars in any field who demonstrate a penchant for original, self-motivated research; the program was begun in 1981.  Known for her unique expertise, Lechtman is often consulted by museums and other institutions caring for ancient Andean metalwork to advise on conservation, authenticity, and elemental makeup.

 

As an MIT professor and director of the consortium of eight Boston-area universities, Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology, Lechtman teaches courses that include archaeological theory, Andean archaeology and art history, metals, bone, general materials science, and the human material experience.