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G
ustavo
G. P
olitis
Reflections on Contemporary Ethnoarchaeology
42
PYRENAE,
núm.
46
vol.
1
(2015)
ISSN: 0079-8215 EISSN: 2339-9171 (p. 41-83)
Introduction
In this article, I reflect upon the contemporary praxis of ethnoarchaeology from a Latin
American perspective, a region that, supposedly, neither is, nor was, at the core of the
development of this research strategy. To achieve my goal, I discuss some ethnoarchaeo-
logical trends present in the region and I examine a few case studies. This article is not a
complete and detailed summary of ethnoarchaeology in the region, and, therefore, I will
concentrate on the areas and subjects I know best. Moreover, ethnoarchaeology in Latin
America cannot be detached from ethnoarchaeology in the rest of the world, so I refer to
global developments in the field in order to contextualize my comments and ideas.
In the 1960s, disappointed by the lack of interest ethnography showed in material
culture and by the lack of detail in the reports produced by ethnographers about the pro-
duction, use, and deposit of objects, archaeologists set out to find that information—which
they considered crucial for “theory building in archaeology”—themselves. Even though
ethnoarchaeology was, and still is, much more methodological than theoretical, it was a
derivative of explicit theoretical intent and of the “loss of innocence” that characterized
the archaeological debate in the beginning of processual archaeology. During the last fifty
years, archaeologists have carried out fieldwork basically—but not exclusively—in traditio-
nal societies to help answering questions regarding the interpretation of the archaeological
record and to develop and refine analogies; thus, ethnoarchaeology was turned into one
of the main sources of archaeological analogies.
Although it is not widely recognized, ethnoarchaeology has been central to the deve-
lopment of contemporary archaeology. Its contributions can be summarized in four points:
a
) it has generated a better understanding of non-western traditional societies, both from
the past and the present;
b
) it has produced a great number of analogical references in
an operational way, for them to be applied to the archaeological interpretation;
c
) it is
a resource for proposing and testing hypotheses about many dimensions of past human
societies; and
d
) it has aided the process of theory-building in archaeology. In spite of
these contributions, this subdiscipline has not been exempt from criticism and debate (see
summary in Yu, 2014: 2540-2544). Most of it was, and still is, related to the applicability
of ethnoarchaeological models to the interpretation of the archaeological record (Sullivan,
2008a; González-Ruibal, 2008), or questioning the ethical or the moral dimensions of the
practice of ethnoarchaeology (Gosden, 1999).
In the last two decades, several books and papers (Fernández Martínez, 1994; David and
Kramer, 2001; González-Ruibal, 2003; Politis, 2004, 2014; Roux, 2007; Lane, 2006; Skibo,
2009; Gallay, 2011; Lyons, 2013; Marciniak and Yalman, 2013; Yu, 2014, among many
others) have summarized and revealed developments in the field and the current status of
ethnoarchaeology. Views on this subdiscipline have even been presented from an autobio-
graphical perspective (i.e., Gifford-González, 2010; Hudson, 2010; Siegel 2014). With few
exceptions (i.e., González-Ruibal, 2003; Politis, 2004; Gallay, 2011; Marciniak and Yalman,
2013), however, the contributions from non-Anglo-American researchers and the peculi-