Impermanent Architecture, Monumentality, and Landscape Transformation in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From AD 100 to AD 1600, the northern and southern faces of of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta were permanently transformed by preHispanic societies who built hundreds of stone and rammed earth towns throughout an area encompassing over 7,000 square kilometers. Despite the extent and scale of their work, only the stone foundations of their towns remain, hidden beneath forests, pastures and farmland, as the standing architecture was all built from perishable materials. How then can we reconcile impermanence with monumentality and analyze in more subtle, varied, and complex ways how societies seek to signify, change, and transform the places they inhabit?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38842.0