The Historical Archaeology of Latin America

How has the study of past material cultures contributed to our comprehension of the Iberian colonial experience in the New World? How has an archaeology of the recent past been presented to the public and made socially relevant in contemporary Latin American nations? This course invites students to address these questions in the light of current Latin American thought, and to gain innovative perspectives on the different processes through which archaeological knowledge participates in the formation and transformation of cultural, social, and racial identities in present-day Latin America. Exploring a wide array of scholarly literature--principally produced in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico--this course will offer detailed insight into the achievements, limitations, possibilities, and future challenges of Latin American historical archaeology. Through this course, students will be familiarized with some of the main topics that have been approached in Latin America, which range from the study of cultural contact in early colonial settlements to the development of forensic archaeology as a therapeutic instrument facilitating the remembrance of a traumatic past. Class discussions will also delve into rich archaeological evidence testifying to the development of specific social spaces and categories, such as maroons, colonial borderlands, or gentrified households in republican urban centers. The careful analysis of each one of these highly varied topics, as described in local archaeological literature, will contribute to a better understanding of how the politics of cultural heritage plays out across Latin America.