Constructions of Time and History in the Pre-Columbian Andes

Constructions of Time and History in the Pre-Columbian Andes
Author: Edward Swenson
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2018-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1607326426

Constructions of Time and History in the Pre-Columbian Andes explores archaeological approaches to temporalities, social memory, and constructions of history in the pre-Columbian Andes. The authors examine a range of indigenous temporal experiences and ideologies, including astronomical, cyclical, generational, eschatological, and mythical time. This nuanced, interdisciplinary volume challenges outmoded anthropological theories while building on an emic perspective to gain greater understanding of pre-Columbian Andean cultures. Contributors to the volume rethink the dichotomy of past and present by understanding history as indigenous Andeans perceived it—recognizing the past as a palpable and living presence. We live in history, not apart from it. Within this framework time can be understood as a current rather than as distinct points, moments, periods, or horizons. The Andes offer a rich context by which to evaluate recent philosophical explorations of space and time. Using the varied materializations and ritual emplacements of time in a diverse sampling of landscapes, Constructions of Time and History in the Pre-Columbian Andes serves as a critique of archaeology’s continued and exclusive dependence on linear chronologies that obscure historically specific temporal practices and beliefs. Contributors: Tamara L. Bray, Zachary J. Chase, María José Culquichicón-Venegas, Terence D’Altroy, Giles Spence Morrow, Matthew Sayre, Francisco Seoane, Darryl Wilkinson

Archaeology of Wak'as

Archaeology of Wak'as
Author: Tamara L. Bray
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 149201270X

In this edited volume, Andean wak'as—idols, statues, sacred places, images, and oratories—play a central role in understanding Andean social philosophies, cosmologies, materialities, temporalities, and constructions of personhood. Top Andean scholars from a variety of disciplines cross regional, theoretical, and material boundaries in their chapters, offering innovative methods and theoretical frameworks for interpreting the cultural particulars of Andean ontologies and notions of the sacred. Wak'as were understood as agentive, nonhuman persons within many Andean communities and were fundamental to conceptions of place, alimentation, fertility, identity, and memory and the political construction of ecology and life cycles. The ethnohistoric record indicates that wak'as were thought to speak, hear, and communicate, both among themselves and with humans. In their capacity as nonhuman persons, they shared familial relations with members of the community, for instance, young women were wed to local wak'as made of stone and wak'as had sons and daughters who were identified as the mummified remains of the community's revered ancestors. Integrating linguistic, ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological data, The Archaeology of Wak'as advances our understanding of the nature and culture of wak'as and contributes to the larger theoretical discussions on the meaning and role of–"the sacred” in ancient contexts.

Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes

Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes
Author: Justin Jennings
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0826359957

Andean peoples recognize places as neither sacred nor profane, but rather in terms of the power they emanate and the identities they materialize and reproduce. This book argues that a careful consideration of Andean conceptions of powerful places is critical not only to understanding Andean political and religious history but to rethinking sociological theories on landscapes more generally. The contributors evaluate ethnographic and ethnohistoric analogies against the material record to illuminate the ways landscapes were experienced and politicized over the last three thousand years.

Andean Ontologies

Andean Ontologies
Author: María Cecilia Lozada
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2019-06-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813057140

Andean Ontologies is a fascinating interdisciplinary investigation of how ancient Andean people understood their world and the nature of being. Exploring pre-Hispanic ideas of time, space, and the human body, these essays highlight a range of beliefs across the region’s different cultures, emphasizing the relational aspects of identity in Andean worldviews. Studies included here show that Andeans physically interacted with their pasts through recurring ceremonies in their ritual calendar and that Andean bodies were believed to be changeable entities with the ability to interact with nonhuman and spiritual worlds. A survey of rock art describes Andeans’ changing relationships with places and things over time. Archaeological and ethnographic evidence reveals head hair was believed to be a conduit for the flow of spiritual power, and bioarchaeological remains offer evidence of Andean perceptions of age and wellness. This volume breaks new ground by bringing together an array of renowned specialists including anthropologists, bioarchaeologists, historians, linguists, ethnohistorians, and art historians to evaluate ancient Amerindian ideologies through different interpretive lenses. Many are local researchers from South American countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, and this volume makes their work available to North American readers for the first time. Their essays are highly contextualized according to the territories and time periods studied. Instead of taking an external, outside-in approach, they prioritize internal and localized views that incorporate insights from today’s indigenous societies. This cutting-edge collection demonstrates the value of a multifaceted, holistic, inside-out approach to studying the pre-Columbian world. Contributors: Catherine J. Allen | Richard Lunniss | Matthew Sayre | Nicco La Mattina | Luis Muro | Luis Jaime Castillo | Elsa Tomasto | Giles Spence-Morrow | Edward Swenson | Mary Glowacki | Andres Laguens | Bruce Mannheim | Juan Villanueva | Andrés Troncoso

Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance

Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance
Author: Omar Rivera
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350173770

Informed by Gloria Anzaldúa's and José Carlos Mariátegui's work, as well as by Andean cosmology, Omar Rivera turns to Inka stonework and architecture as an example of a “Cosmological Aesthetics.” He articulates ways of sensing, feeling and remembering that are attuned to an aesthetic of water, earth and light. On this basis, Rivera brings forth a corporeal orientation that can be inhabited by the oppressed, one that withdraws from predominant modern/Western conceptions of the human. By providing an aesthetic analysis of cosmological sensing, Rivera sets the stage for exploring physical dimensions of anti-colonial resistance, and furthers the Latinx and Latin American tradition of anti-colonial and liberatory philosophy. Seeing aesthetic involvements with the cosmos as a source for embodied modes of resistance, Rivera turns to the work of María Lugones and Enrique Dussel in order to make explicit the aesthetic dimensions of their work. Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance creates a new dialogue between art historians, artists, and philosophers working on Latin American thought, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. It weaves together a Latin American philosophy that connects pre-Columbian cosmologies with contemporary thinkers. Rivera's original approach introduces us to the living, evolving and aesthetic alternatives to coloniality of power and of knowledge, overhauling current understandings of decolonial theory and opening the tradition in transformative ways.

Foodways of the Ancient Andes

Foodways of the Ancient Andes
Author: Marta P Alfonso-Durruty
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2023-04-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816548706

Eating is essential for life, but it also embodies social and symbolic dimensions. This volume shows how foods and peoples were mutually transformed in the ancient Andes. Exploring the multiple social, ecological, cultural, and ontological dimensions of food in the Andean past, the contributors of Foodways of the Ancient Andes offer diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that reveal the richness, sophistication, and ingenuity of Andean peoples. The volume spans time periods and localities in the Andean region to reveal how food is intertwined with multiple aspects of the human experience, from production and consumption to ideology and sociopolitical organization. It illustrates the Andean peoples’ resilience in the face of challenges brought about by food scarcity and environmental change. Chapters dissect the intersection of food, power, and status in early states and empires; examine the impact of food during times of conflict and instability; and illuminate how sacred and high-status foods contributed to the building of the Inka Empire. Featuring forty-six contributors from ten countries, the chapters employ new analytical methods, integrating different food data and interdisciplinary research to show that food can provide not only simple nutrition but also a multitude of strategies, social and political relationships, and ontologies that are otherwise invisible in the archaeological record. Contributors Aleksa K. Alaica Sonia Alconini Marta Alfonso-Durruty Sarah I. Baitzel Véronique Bélisle Carolina Belmar Carrie Anne Berryman Matthew E. Biwer Deborah E. Blom Tamara L. Bray Matthew T. Brown Maria C. Bruno José M. Capriles Katherine L. Chiou Susan D. deFrance Lucia M. Diaz Richard P. Evershed Maureen E. Folk Alexandra Greenwald Chris Harrod Christine A. Hastorf Iain Kendall Kelly J. Knudson BrieAnna S. Langlie Cecilia Lemp Petrus le Roux Marcos Martinez Anahí Maturana-Fernández Weston C. McCool Melanie J. Miller Nicole Misarti Flavia Morello Patricia Quiñonez Cuzcano Omar Reyes Arturo F. Rivera Infante Manuel San Román Francisca Santana-Sagredo Beth K. Scaffidi Augusto Tessone Andrés Troncoso Tiffiny A. Tung Mauricio Uribe Natasha P. Vang Sadie L. Weber Kurt M. Wilson Michelle E. Young

Ancient Art Revisited

Ancient Art Revisited
Author: Christopher Watts
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2022-09-21
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000643689

Ancient Art Revisited develops new perspectives on ancient art by weaving together diverse strands within archaeology and art history, exploring it through recent developments in archaeological theory. In order to foster dialogue among various subfields, contributors are drawn from a wide range of domains. Classical archaeology, Aegean prehistory, Near Eastern archaeology, Egyptology, Pre-Columbian South America, and North America are brought together to explore ancient art from multiscalar perspectives and through the lenses of entanglement theory, network thinking, assemblage theory, and other recent theoretical developments. Representing a new wave in research on ancient art, considering both the proximal and distributed operations of artworks, Ancient Art Revisited provides broad and inclusive coverage of ancient art and offers a cohesive approach to a fragmented area of study. This book will be suitable for archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians wishing to understand the latest thinking on ancient art.

The Fabric of Historical Time

The Fabric of Historical Time
Author: Zoltán Boldizsár Simon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2023-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1009117416

This Element sketches a theory of historical time as based on a distinction between temporality and historicity. It pays special attention to the more-than-human temporalities of the Anthropocene, the technology-fueled historicities of runaway changes, and the conflicts in the fabric of historical time.

The Ancient Andean States

The Ancient Andean States
Author: Henry Tantaleán
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351599100

The Ancient Andean States combines modern social theory, recent archaeological literature, and the experience of the author to examine politics and power in the great Andean pre-Hispanic societies. The ancient Andean states were the great shapers of Peruvian prehistory. Social complexity, architectural monumentality, and specialized economic production, among others, were features of these sophisticated societies known by professionals and travelers from around the world. How and when these states emerged and succeeded is still debated. By examining Andean pre-Hispanic societies such as Caral, Sechín, Chavín, Moche, Wari, Chimú, and Inca, this book delves into their political and economic structures as well as explores their ideological worldviews. It reveals how these societies were organized and how different social groups interacted in the states. Archaeologists and anthropologists interested in Peruvian archaeology and the political and social structures of ancient societies will find this book to be a valuable addition to their shelves.

Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru

Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru
Author: Ilana Johnson
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1646420918

Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru provides insight into the organization of complex, urban, and state-level society in the region from a household perspective, using observations from diverse North Coast households to generate new understandings of broader social processes in and beyond Andean prehistory. Many volumes on this region are limited to one time period or civilization, often the Moche. While Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru does examine the Moche, it offers a wider thematic approach to a broader swath of prehistory. Chapters on various time periods use a comparable scale of analysis to examine long-term continuity and change and draw on a large corpus of prior research on states, rulership, and cosmology to offer new insight into the intersection of household, community, and state. Contributors address social reproduction, construction and reinforcement of gender identities and social hierarchy, household permanence and resilience, and expression of identity through cuisine. This volume challenges common concepts of the “household” in archaeology by demonstrating the complexity and heterogeneity of household-level dynamics as they intersect with institutions at broader social scales and takes a comparative perspective on daily life within one region of the Andes. It will be of interest to both students and scholars of South American archaeology and household archaeology. Contributors: Brian R. Billman, David Chicoine, Guy S. Duke, Hugo Ikehara, Giles Spence-Morrow, Jessica Ortiz, Edward Swenson, Kari A. Zobler