Hybridized Objects and Colonization Practices: Ceramics from Minaspata, Cuzco, Peru

Summary

In recent years, archaeologists studying ancient colonialism have shifted from a top-down view, emphasizing "colonizers" and "colonized," to a more careful consideration of how local social practices are situated in global colonial structures and dynamics. Material cultures and technologies play a crucial role in this colonial encounter, as material objects manifest and actively transmit signs of ideology, power and resistance. Minaspata, a local site located in the Cuzco Valley of the south-central Andes, provides an interesting case study to explore the role of material culture in colonization processes, particularly as these objects change due to cultural interaction and hybridization practices. This paper will present evidence from ceramics recovered during recent excavations at Minaspata, focusing primarily on surface decoration and paste composition, in order to explore certain facets of the materiality of these objects, and the social dynamics which such apparent cultural transference and appropriation might entail. In this discussion, I will explore two potential examples from Minaspata and the larger Cuzco region, both of which involve the social dynamics of colonialism, but in different ways: one involving the Wari colonization of the area during the Middle Horizon, and the other involving the consolidation of the Inca state.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Itinerant Matters and Hybrid Objects: Research on material transfers and contact products

Keywords

Spatial Coverage