The colonial Origins of Indigenous Archaeologies: Enduring stereotypes on Indigenous peoples and their territories

NACUZZI, LIDIA R.; LUCAIOLI, CARINA PAULA

Oxford Handbook of Global Indigineous Archaeologies

Oxford University Press

Lugar: Oxford; Año: 2022; p. 1 - 35

A review of several colonial stereotypes on South American Indigenous peoples, that influenced the archaeological research on them, is proposed here fromthe perspective of Historical Anthropology studies. The officials of theSpanish Crown, the missionaries and the travelers described nomad peoples fromthe Pampa and Chaco through a series of negative concepts that, for centuries,have overshadowed the understanding of their social and political organization.At the same time, in their attempts to control the territories under theirrule, they created a defensive system for their cities, known as frontera (frontier), which worked as aseparation strip between their own spaces and the so-called tierra adentro (interior lands), thespace under Indigenous sovereignty. The multiple interactions that took placein those two spaces were also tainted by prejudice and misunderstanding.