Photographs as artefacts: a visual archaeology of three indigenous societies of Tierra del Fuego (Southern South America).

FIORE, D.; VARELA, M.L.

Londres

Congreso; Anthropology and Photography Conference; 2014

Royal Anthropological Institue of Great Britain and Ireland & British Museum

This presentation summarizes some of the results of systematicinvestigations carried out on a corpus of 1130 photographs taken of people fromthree native societies of Tierra del Fuego (Shel´knam, Yámana and Alakaluf)between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century, by 44 photographers. Thetheoretical and methodological framework used in this paper proposes a"visual archeology" of the photographs conceived as artefacts whichcondense the traces of two agents: photographers and photographed subjects.Thus, these visual records shed light on the biases generated by the differentphotographers who took them, and on the different material culture patternsproduced by each indigenous society. This framework has helped identify data ofhigh and low visibility in the traditional archaeological record, including theuse of structures (huts, windshelters, cabins, etc.) and the manipulation ofartifacts (tools, clothes, ornaments, etc.) handled by more than 4000 photographedindividuals. The information recorded includes demographic data (estimated ageand gender) of the native individuals, and has allowed the identification ofintra-society differences in the use of material culture items according to theage and gender of the individuals involved. At an inter-society level,differential patterns of material culture manipulation have been identified.All these data are relevant to distinguish specific socio-cultural patternsthat characterize each Fueguian society.