Gaspar Morcote-Rios is an associate professor in Amazonian archaeology and archaeobotany at the Institute of Natural Sciences of the National University of Colombia, Bogota. His research has addressed questions related to the colonisation and adaptations of human groups during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene in the Colombian Amazon, and has utilised archaeobotanical techniques to study the agrarian technology of Anthropic Black Soils.

Gaspar specialises in the study of phytoliths as a method to explore paleoenvironmental reconstruction, processes of plant domestication, and the impacts of anthropogenic action on vegetation distribution. He has developed an extensive phytolith collection for Amazon flora, with a focus on improving taxonomic resolution for palm species.