Challenging the tales of extinction: Natives in historical representations and the analysis of Panama Viejo ceramic collections

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper, I discuss the process of conducting decolonial research to make visible the contribution of non-European groups in the construction of colonial Panama. In general, archaeologists have researched Spanish settlements in the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, focusing mostly on the restoration and preservation of archaeological sites and examining the Spanish way of living, as well as European materiality. In these contexts, historical narratives tend to present the extinction or assimilation of native communities and the success of the Spanish economic expansion. This abrupt interruption of natives’ lives is also implicitly represented in the archaeological gap between pre-Columbian and colonial Panama. Contrary to this approach, I bring forward the agency of non-European groups through the analysis of production and distribution of ceramics. Compositional and technological analysis through neutron activation and petrographic methods of 192 sherds from Central and Eastern Panama inform the recipes and techniques used for ceramic production during the pre-Columbian and colonial periods. Rather than disappearance and replacement, the results show the configuration of new communities of practice for pottery production. The analysis contributes to creating an alternative narrative to include diverse descendants of colonialism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52130