Ethnoarchaeology in South America. Developments and perspectives.

POLITIS, G.; SILVA, F.

Handbook of South American Archaeology

Springer

Año: 2023;

From at least the beginning of the 20th century ethnographic data about SouthAmerican indigenous people were quite frequently used in interpreting the archaeology ofthe region. However, this information was usually labeled “direct ethnographic parallels”,a methodological approach heavily criticized due to its lack of established criteria by whichto properly develop its analogical argument. Awareness of these methodological gapsdrove most archaeologists away from using ethnographic information, especially thoseworking within the framework of American culture-history. It is thus not surprising thatone of the most important syntheses of South American archeology, written by GordonWilley (1971), was based almost exclusively on archaeological material with littlereference to South American indigenous peoples. However, due to a new theoretical turnin the 1970s, some ethnographic information started to be systematically collected byarchaeologists in various parts of the world, with special reference to the materialexpression of the human behavior (e.g. Binford 1978; White and Modjeska 1978; Gould1978; Hodder 1982). Among these pioneer researchers were several scholars such asWüst (1975, Fig. 1) and Miller (1975) , that although not South Americans in origin , wereliving and developing their careers in this continent . Since then, ethnoarchaeologicalresearch in the region has been sustained and vibrant and, with its own nuances, hascontributed to the sub-discipline. In this chapter we will summarize the development ofethnoarchaeology in the continent, highlight some of its accomplishments, and outline thepresent situation.