Chérrepe in Fragments: Time, Place and Representation in Andeanist Historical Archaeology

Summary

One of the core interpretive mechanisms of Andeanist archaeology since the early 20th century has been the use of ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources to add narrative, structural, and processual detail to descriptions of past worlds. However, Andeanist archaeologists have yet to develop a sustained conversation about the role that the interpretations of texts, images, and the spoken word play in the study of archaeological remains, and the direct historical approach remains the dominant mode of engaging these materials with each other. In this paper, I argue that historical archaeologists are uniquely positioned to retool historical interpretation in Andean studies by exposing the fragility of time and place in the colonial past. A study of the combustible relationship between a name (Cherrepe) and a series of landscapes, buildings, communities, and officials in Peru’s lower Zaña Valley during the 16th and 17th centuries C.E. serves as the central case study.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Las preguntas que cuentan: Ideas and interpretations in Latin American Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-33,14