Photographs as artefacts: visual archaeology and archaeological visibility of Indigenous material culture in Tierra del Fuego (southern South America).

FIORE, D.

Anthropos

Anthropos Institut

Lugar: Sainkt Agustin; Año: 2019 p. 57 - 77

0257-9774

This paper presents key concepts and methods used to develop a visual archaeology of two Indigenous societies of Tierra del Fuego (Shelk´nam, Yámana/Yagan). Photographs are conceived as artefacts which condense the traces of at least two agents: photographers and photographed subjects. These visual records are not only biased by the different photographers who took them, but also shed light on the different material culture patterns produced by each Indigenous society, which are visible on the images when studied in large samples. The paper discusses some results of systematic investigations carried out on a corpus of 847 photographs taken by 39 photographers to Shelk´nam and Yámana/Yagan persons (19th and early 20th centuries). These are compared to materials found in the archaeological record in order to generate new data about material culture manipulation by Fueguian hunter-gatherers.