Recent graduate Dr. Sarah Joy Martini has received the Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award in Prehistoric or Protohistoric Archaeology. The award was presented at the XXI World Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences held in Poznań, Poland. Her dissertation “Social Interaction in the Andes Bajos between 500 BCE and 700 CE” critically examines previous treatments of the area around the modern Ecuador-Peru border as an ancient cultural borderland based on the results of two excavation projects she directed in Piura, Peru. In addition to providing new information from this understudied region, her application of Ecuadorian geographer Galo Ramón Valarezo’s transnational concept of the Andes Bajos serves to emphasize connectivity over separation, and the distinctive nature of the communities that developed, not as marginal peripheries, but on their own terms. Martini’s work furthermore foregrounds the important role of non-elite individuals in building and maintaining long-distance relationships. The meticulous presentation of these two case studies highlights global possibilities afforded by transnational research, bottom-up approaches, and considerations of non-elite, local agency in investigations of culture contact and interaction.