Looting and the politics of archaeological knowledge in Northern Peru

Abstract

A closer examination of the ways archaeological knowledge is spoken about and represented locally provides significant insights into social divisions and power struggles within Peru. In an account of the ambivalent relations between archaeologists and local experts in the prehispanic past, this article considers how the authority that enables the construction and maintenance of sociopolitical models (such as the ‘nation’) is itself constructed, not just from above, but also at the local level. The relationship between power and authority grants legitimacy to historical discourses justifying sociopolitical inequality and reinforces the centralized power structure of the Peruvian state. The article discusses the implications of these local perceptions for archaeology, both as a discipline practiced within the local setting, and as a category through which the Peruvian government expresses tropes of a unified modern identity.

Keywords:

• Knowledge
• authority
• politics of archaeology
• looting
• gender
• Peru

Acknowledgments

Research for this paper was conducted primarily between April 1997 and November 1998, with additional trips in 1995, 1996, and 2000. Funding for 19971998 was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Small Grant 6000) and the University of Chicago. An earlier version of the essay was presented at the American Anthropological Association's 1999 meetings in Chicago, IL; another was included in my dissertation. Many thanks are due the Brujo research team for permitting me to work at the site in 1997. I am also grateful to Andrew Apter, Dominic Boyer, Gísela Cánepa, Laurie Frederik, Jackie Harvey, Eduardo Kohn, Smita Lahiri, Richard Leventhal, Paul Liffman, Claudio Lómnitz, Chris Nelson, David Nugent, Adolfo de Oliveira, Joanna Overing, Victor Pimentel, Tristan Platt, Steve Plog, Paul Ryer, Johanna Schoss, Helaine Silverman, Terry Turner, Denis Vargas, and Hylton White for comments on various editions of this essay and related papers. Y ante todo, gracias a Arturo y a los caveros por su generosidad en compartir una parte de sus vidas conmigo.

Notes

1. For three months in 1997, I volunteered as an archaeological assistant at a 2000-year-old platform mound currently under excavation.

2. The lack of connection to the historic landscape derives from hacienda-period agricultural practices. Workers rotated constantly through a landscape divided into numbered work areas. Archaeological remains were renamed after corresponding sector numbers (e.g., la huaca 31). Such historical spaces were thus emptied of more specific social meanings, becoming simply examples of huacas (Smith 2001).

3. Kirkus Reviews (Kirkpatrick 1992, back cover).

4. Huaqueros obviously do not publish their information. Nonetheless, they frequently catalog their finds through photographs of individual artifacts. In addition, since many huaqueros have collaborated in archaeological digs, they are aware of the importance of contexts, and some even record this information. Furthermore, every huaquero I have asked about a specific artifact can tell me exactly where it came from - information central to the perception of validity in archaeological (scientific) knowledge. This data - the provenience of an artifact - is essential to drawing conclusions about relationships among artifacts, archaeological sites, and prehispanic populations. However, although provenience of a given item may be known it is not readily available, since huaqueros' data is unpublished (in fact, it is deemed unpublishable by the academic community - perhaps precisely because to publish something, within these contexts, means to validate its authority).

5. . Huaqueros are also frequently scapegoats for archaeologists, who occasionally poke around sites (using ‘looters’ tools') in frankly unscientific manners in order to locate sites for later excavation. It is much easier to claim that a huaquero found a site than to produce records of (nonexistent) methodical surveys.

6. Cf. Foucault (1972:15 fn. 2, 194).

7. Honored guests and strangers are treated similarly in northern Peruvian homes. This intentional ambiguity permits later re-interpretations of a visit, particularly when ‘honored guests’ are not well known or completely trusted. It is also worth noting that Peruvian patrimonial law does not specifically prohibit the hiring of huaqueros as team members; this may be a reflection of the great number of Peruvian archaeologists (and public officials) who are also collectors.

8. When Arturo originally informed the banker of the existence of the site, he was only aware that the banker was known as a benefactor and sponsor of archaeological projects, not that he was a collector. This information became common knowledge only after the banker built a house in the village where he kept part of his collection. It was also rumored that the banker paid townspeople to loot tombs on weekends - tombs spatially located not far from the official archaeological investigations he was also sponsoring.

9. ‘Quedárselos’ is an idiomatic Peruvian expression meaning ‘to keep [the referenced objects] for oneself.’

10. Similar myths occur in Mayan areas (Richard Leventhal, personal communication, March 2002). In my dissertation (Smith 2001), I consider at length various tropes linking the archaeological past with (foreign) colonial exploiters, arguing that the northern Peruvian attitude toward the archaeological past is a highly ambivalent one, productive of both fear and desire, precisely because of its foreign associations.