Current Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Archaeology of the Southern Cone

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Current Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Archaeology of the Southern Cone" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A growing body of research in historical and contemporary archaeologies in southern South America has developed over the last decades. Novel issues are being discussed within different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. This symposium aims to integrate current trends in studies while articulating future lines of research. In general terms, the expansion of historical archaeology in South America has followed a path similar to that in the Global North, although with a more recent development. At first, an important part of the work focused particularly on the corroboration of data recorded in historical documents through the work on ruins, forts, and urban centers. Over time, these studies incorporated new frameworks and broader scales of analysis. Historical archaeology of the southern cone now includes the study of the expansion of capitalism, the processes of change, resistance and/or resilience in contact situations, ideology and power, gender and racism studies, the rural occupation of ranches and missions, and life in cities, among others. Current case studies illustrate the diversity involved in this knowledge area, exemplifying archaeology’s crucial role in the study of social processes close to the present.