Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:37:22.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nurturing and Balancing the World: A Relational Approach to Rock Art and Technology from North Central Chile (Southern Andes)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2019

Andrés Troncoso Open the ORCID record for Andrés Troncoso [Opens in a new window] ,
Felipe Armstrong ,
Francisco Vergara ,
Francisca Ivanovic  and
Paula Urzúa
Andrés Troncoso
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Universidad de Chile, Ignacio Carrera Pinto 1045, Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Felipe Armstrong
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Almirante Barroso 10, Santiago, Chile E-mail: [email protected]
Francisco Vergara
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, LondonWC1H 0BW, UK E-mail: [email protected]
Francisca Ivanovic
Affiliation:
FONDECYT Grant 1150776, Ignacio Carrera Pinto 1045, Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile E-mail: [email protected]
Paula Urzúa
Affiliation:
FONDECYT Grant 1150776, Ignacio Carrera Pinto 1045, Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Technology has been a central theme in archaeological discussion. Different approaches have been developed in order to understand and better explain the processes that lead to the production of objects and things. The anthropology of technology has been one such effort, with its focus on technological style and the chaîne opératoire. In this paper we argue that, despite their many contributions, these approaches tend to isolate the process of production, as well as to see it as the imposition of culture over nature. Instead, we propose a relational approach to technology, one that considers the multiple participants in the social actions involved, stressing the affective qualities of the different entities participating in the process of making. We focus this discussion on the production process of rock art in North Central Chile by Diaguita communities (c. ad 1000–c. 1540), arguing that making petroglyphs was a central activity that aimed at the balancing of the world and its participants, creating a mediating space that facilitated connectedness between the multiple members of the Diaguita world, humans and other-than-humans.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 239 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alfonso, M., Troncoso, A., Misarti, N., Larach, P. & Becker, C., 2017. Maize (Zea mays) consumption in the southern Andes (30°–31° S Lat.): stable isotope evidence (2000 BCE–1540 CE). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 164(1), 148–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, C., 2002. The Hold Life Has: Coca and cultural identity in an Andean community. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Allen, C., 2015. The whole world is watching: new perspective on Andean animism, in The Archaeology of Wak'as: Explorations of the sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes, ed. Bray, T.. Boulder (CO): University of Colorado Press, 23–46.Google Scholar
Álvarez, M., Fiore, D., Favret, E. & Castillo, R., 2001. The use of lithic artefacts for making rock art petroglyphs: observation and analysis of use-wear trace through optical microscopy and SEM. Journal of Archaeological Science 28, 457–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ampuero, G., 1994. Cultura Diaguita Chilena [Chilean Diaguita Culture]. Santiago: MINEDUC.Google Scholar
Ampuero, G. & Hidalgo, J., 1975. Estructura y proceso en la pre y protohistoria del Norte Chico de Chile [Structure and process in pre and proto-history of the semiarid north of Chile]. Chungara 5, 87–125.Google Scholar
Arnold, D. & Hastorf, C., 2008. Heads of State: Icons, power, and politics in the ancient and modern Andes. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Bednarik., R., 1998. The technology of rock art. Rock art Research 15(1), 23–35.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R., 2007. Rock Art Science: The scientific study of palaeoart (2nd edn). New Delhi: Aryan Books International.Google Scholar
Brady, L. & Bradley, J., 2014. Reconsidering regional rock art styles: exploring cultural and relational understandings in northern Australia's Gulf country. Journal of Social Archaeology 14(3), 361–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, L., Bradley, J. & Kearney, A., 2016. Negotiating Yanyuwa rock art: relational and affectual experiences in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia. Current Anthropology 57(1), 28–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, T., 2009. An archaeological perspective on the Andean concept of Camaquen: thinking through Late Precolumbian Ofrendas and Huacas. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3), 357–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, T., 2015. Andean Wak'as and alternative configurations of persons, power and things, in The Archaeology of Wak'as: Explorations of the sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes, ed. Bray, T.. Boulder (CO): University of Colorado Press, 3–19.Google Scholar
Conneller, C., 2011. An Archaeology of Materials: Substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. New York (NY): Routledge.Google Scholar
Coupaye, L., 2013. Growing Artefacts, Displaying Relationships. Yams, art and technology amongst the NyamikumAbelam of Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
De la Cadena, M., 2015. Earth Beings: Ecologies of practices across Andean worlds. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.Google Scholar
De Landa, M., 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage theory and social complexity. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Descola, P., 2013. Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Descola, P., 2014. Modes of being and forms of predication. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4(1), 271–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobres, M.A., 1995. Gender and prehistoric technology: on the social agency of technical strategies. World Archaeology 27(1), 25–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobres, M.A., 2000. Technology and Social Agency. Outlining a practical framework for archaeology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dobres, M.A., 2010. Archaeologies of technology. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34, 103–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobres, M.A. & Hoffman, C.R., 1994. Social agency and the dynamics of prehistoric technology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 1(3), 211–58.Google Scholar
Domínguez Rubio, F., 2015. On the discrepancy between objects and things. Journal of Material Culture 21(1), 59–86.Google Scholar
Earls, J. & Silverblatt, I., 1985. Sobre la instrumentación de la cosmología inca en el sitio arqueológico de Moray [On the instrumentalization of Inca cosmology in the archaeological site of Moray], in La tecnología en el mundo andino: Subsistencia y mensuración [Technology in the Andean world: subsistence and mensuration], eds Lechtman, H. & Soldi, A.. México: UNAM, 443–73.Google Scholar
Fiore, D., 2007. The economic side of rock art: concepts on the production of visual images. Rock Art Research 24(2), 149–60.Google Scholar
Fowler, C., 2013. The Emergent Past: A relational realist archaeology of Early Bronze Age mortuary practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gell, A., 1988. Technology and magic. Anthropology Today 4(2), 6–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gell, A., 1992. The technology of enchantment and the enchantment of technology, in Beyond Aesthetics: Art and the Technologies of Enchantment, eds Pinney, C. & Thomas, N.. Oxford/New York: Berg, 40–63.Google Scholar
Gell, A., 1998. Art and Agency. An anthropological theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
González, L., 2007. Bronces sin nombre [Bronzes without a name]. Buenos Aires: Ceppa.Google Scholar
González, P., 2010. Nuevos resultados en la sistematización de los patrones decorativos Diaguita-Inca: Variabilidad, simbolismo, oposiciones intervalle y contextualización [New results in the systematization of Diaguita-Inca decorative patterns: variability, symbolism, inter-valley oppositions and contextualization]. Actas del XVII Congreso Nacional de Arqueología Chilena, Tomo I. Valdivia: Ediciones Kultrún, 241–52.Google Scholar
González, P., 2013. Arte y Cultura Diaguita Chilena: Simetría, Simbolismo e Identidad [Chilean Diaguita art and culture: symmetry, symbolism and identity]. Santiago: Ucayali Editores.Google Scholar
Gosselain, O., 2000. Materializing identities: an African perspective. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 7(3), 187–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haber, A.F., 2009. Animism, relatedness, life: post-western perspectives. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3), 418–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilakis, Y., 2017. Sensorial assemblages: affect, memory and temporality in assemblage thinking. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27(1), 169–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, O., 2013. Relational communities in prehistoric Britain, in Relational Archaeologies: Humans, animals, things, ed. Watts, C.. London: Routledge, 173–89.Google Scholar
Harris, O., 2017. Assemblages and scale in archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27(1), 127–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, T. & Bouysee-Cassagne, T., 1988. Pacha, en torno al pensamiento aymara [Pacha, on Aymara thought], in Raíces de América, el Mundo Aymara [Roots of America, the Aymara world], ed. Albo, X.. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 271–81.Google Scholar
Hegmon, M. & Kulow, S., 2005. Painting as agency, style as structure: innovation in Mimbres pottery designs from southwest New Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12(4), 313–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I., 2012. Entangled: An archaeology of the relationships between humans and things. New York (NY): Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ingold, T., 1993. The temporality of landscape. World Archaeology 25(2), 152–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingold, T., 2011. Being Alive: Essays in movement, knowledge and description. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingold, T., 2013. Making. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, A. & Alberti, B., 2013. Archaeology after interpretation, in Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning materials to archaeological theory, eds Alberti, B., Jones, A. & Pollard, J.. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press, 15–35.Google Scholar
Kumar, G. & Krishna, R., 2014. Understanding the technology of Daraki-Chattan cupules: the cupule replication project. Rock Art Research 31(2), 177–86.Google Scholar
Latcham, R., 1926. El culto del tigre entre los antiguos pueblos andinos [The cult of the tiger among the ancient Andean peoples]. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 30, 125–36.Google Scholar
Latour, B., 2005. Reassembling the Social: An introduction to Actor Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lau, G., 2010. The work of surfaces: object worlds and techniques of enhancement in the ancient Andes. Journal of Material Culture 15, 259–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lechtman, H., 1977. Style in technology, some early thoughts, in Material Culture. Style, organization, and dynamics of technology, eds Lechtman, H. & Merrill, R.. St. Paul (MN): West Publishing, 3–20.Google Scholar
Lechtman, H., 1985. The significance of metals in Pre-Columbian Andean culture. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 38(5), 9–37.Google Scholar
Lemonnier, P., 1986. The study of material culture today: toward an anthropology of technical systems. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5, 147–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemonnier, P., 1992. Elements For an Anthropology of Technology. (Anthropological papers 88.) Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leroi-Gourhan, A. [1945] 1988. El Hombre y la Materia (Evolución y Técnica I) [Man and matter (evolution and technique I)]. Madrid: Taurus.Google Scholar
Leroi-Gourhan, A., [1964] 1993. Gesture and Speech. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Manheim, B. & Salas Carreño, G., 2015. Wak'as. Entifications of the Andean sacred, in The Archaeology of Wak'as. Explorations of the sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes, ed. Bray, T.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 47–72.Google Scholar
Mariscotti, A.M., 1978. Pachamama Santa Tierra, contribución al estudio de la religión autóctona en los Andes centro-meridionales [Pachamama Saint Earth, contribution to the study of indigenous religion in central-southern Andes]. Berlin: Gebr. Mann.Google Scholar
Mauss, M., [1935] 1973. Techniques of the body. Economy and Society 2(1), 70–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Méndez, C., 2008. Cadenas operativas en la manufactura de arte rupestre: un estudio de caso en El Mauro, valle cordillerano del Norte Semiárido de Chile. [Rock art chaînes opératoires: a case study from El Mauro, a mountainous valley in semiarid northern Chile]. Intersecciones en Antropología 9, 145–55.Google Scholar
Mitchell, W., 2013. What Do Pictures Want? Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Páez, C., 2016. Huancas and rituals of fertility in the farming landscape of the northern Calchaquí Valley (Salta, Argentina). Latin American Antiquity 27(1), 115–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, T., 2013. An Archaeology of the Cosmos: Rethinking agency and religion in ancient America. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pfaffenberger, B., 1992. Social anthropology of technology. Annual Review of Anthropology 21, 491–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, D., 2013. Transmorphic being, corresponding affect: ontology and rock art in south central California, in Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning materials to archaeological theory, eds Alberti, B., Jones, A. & Pollard, J.. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press, 59–78.Google Scholar
Saunders, N. (ed.), 1998. Icons of Power: Feline symbolism in the Americas. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schlanger, N., 1994. Mindful technology: unleashing the chaîne opératoire for an archaeology of mind, in The Ancient Mind. Elements of cognitive archaeology, eds Renfrew, C. & Zubrow, E.B.W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 143–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlanger, N., 2006. Introduction. Technological commitments: Marcel Mauss and the study of techniques in the French social sciences, in Marcel Mauss. Techniques, technology and civilization, ed. Schlanger, N.. New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 1–29.Google Scholar
Severi, C., 2015. The Chimera Principle: An anthropology of memory and imagination. Chicago (IL): Hau.Google Scholar
Severi, C., 2016. Authorless authority: a proposal on agency and ritual artefacts. Journal of Material Culture 21(1), 133–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigaut, F., 1994. Technology, in Companion Encyclopaedia of Anthropology, ed. Ingold, T.. London: Routledge, 420–59.Google Scholar
Sillar, B., 1996. The dead and the drying techniques for transforming people and things in the Andes. Journal of Material Culture 1(3), 259–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sillar, B., 2009. The social agency of things? Animism and materiality in the Andes. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3), 367–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sørensen, T., 2015. More than a feeling: towards an archaeology of atmosphere. Emotion, Space and Society 15, 64–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trigger, B., 1989. A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Troncoso, A., 1999. La Cultura Diaguita en el valle de Illapel: una perspectiva exploratoria [Diaguita culture in the Illapel valley: an exploratory perspective]. Chungara 30(2), 125–42.Google Scholar
Troncoso, A., 2005. El plato zoomorfo/antropomorfo Diaguita: una hipótesis interpretativa [Diaguita zoo-anthropomorphic bowl: an interpretive hypothesis]. Werkén 6, 113–23.Google Scholar
Troncoso, A., 2012. Arte rupestre y camélidos en el Norte Semiárido de Chile: Una discusión desde el valle del Choapa [Rock art and camelids in the semiarid north of Chile: a discussion from the Choapa valley]. Boletín del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino 17(1), 75–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Troncoso, A., 2018. Inca landscapes of domination: rock art and community in north Central Chile, in The Oxford Handbook of Inca Culture, eds Alconini, S. & Covey, A.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 453–69.Google Scholar
Troncoso, A., Vergara, F., Pavlovic, D., et al. , 2016. Dinámica espacial y temporal de las ocupaciones prehispánicas en la cuenca hidrográfica del río Limarí. [Spatial and temporal dynamics of the pre-Hispanic occupations in the Limarí basin]. Chungara 48(2), 199–224.Google Scholar
Troncoso, A. & Armstrong, F., 2017. Ontología, historia y la experiencia del arte rupestre en el centro norte de Chile [Ontology, history and the experience of rock art in north central Chile], in Sentidos Indisciplinados [Undisciplined senses], eds Pellini, J. R., Zarankin, A. & Salerno, M.. Madrid: JAS Arqueología, 307–46.Google Scholar
Valenzuela, D., 2007. Arte, tecnología y estilo: propuesta teórico metodológica para el estudio de la producción en grabados rupestres [Art, technology and style: theoretical-methodological proposal for the study of rock engravings]. Unpublished MA thesis, Universidad de Tarapacá.Google Scholar
Valle, R., 2015. Rock art on geological frontier – the problem of covariation between petroglyph graphic behaviour and geolithological setting from an Amazonian perspective. Arkeos 37/XIX International Rock Art Conference-IFRAO 2015, 125–34.Google Scholar
Van der Leeuw, S.E., 1994. Cognitive aspects of ‘technique’, in The Ancient Mind. Elements of cognitive archaeology, eds Renfrew, C. & Zubrow, E.B.W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 135–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Kessel, J., 1989. Ritual de producción y discurso tecnológico [Production ritual and technological discourse]. Chungara 23, 73–91.Google Scholar
van Kessel, J. & Condori Cruz, D., 1992. Criar La Vida. Trabajo y tecnología en el mundo andino [Creating life. Work and technology in the Andean world]. Santiago: Vivarium.Google Scholar
Vergara, F., 2013. El lado material de la estética en el arte rupestre [The material side of aesthetics in rock art]. Boletín del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino 18(2), 33–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vergara, F. & Troncoso, A., 2015. Rock art, technique, and technology: an exploratory study of hunter-gatherer and agrarian communities in Pre-Hispanic Chile (500 to 1450 CE). Rock Art Research 32(1), 31–45.Google Scholar
Vergara, F., Troncoso, A. & Ivanovic, F., 2016. Time and rock art production: explorations on the material side of petroglyphs in the semiarid north of Chile, in Paleoart and Materiality: The scientific study of rock art, eds Bednarick, R., Fiore, D., Basile, M., Huisheng, T. & Kumar, G.. Oxford: Archaeopress, 147–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, C., 2013. Relational archaeologies: roots and routes, in Relational Archaeologies: Humans, animals, things, ed. Watts, C.. London: Routledge, 1–20.Google Scholar