following a project on the upper columbia river in washington (state), collier’s work took him to ecuador from 1941 to 1942. he worked with john victor murra to identify chavin culture sites. in 1946, he became a part of the viru valley project “a cutting edge cooperative undertaking at the time, the results of which were to have a profound and long-enduring effect on the interpretation of peruvian prehistory”. the research he did for the project, during which he undertook archaeological survey work with gordon willey, served as the basis for his ph.d. dissertation.