Elizabeth DeMarrais | University of Cambridge (original) (raw)
Papers by Elizabeth DeMarrais
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Oct 1, 2004
The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2015
British Academy eBooks, May 17, 2012
This chapter examines the far southern boundary of Quechua's spread throughout the Andes. It ... more This chapter examines the far southern boundary of Quechua's spread throughout the Andes. It argues that Quechua reached north-west Argentina in Inka times and that it was widely used during the colonial period as well. The rationale for this argument is based primarily on evidence for (1) the extent of Inka resettlements in Argentina; (2) the nature of Inka relations with local peoples in the far south; and (3) continued use of Quechua under the Spaniards, as described in the documentary sources. Less clear are the precise population movements that brought Quechua speakers initially to Santiago del Estero, as the archaeological record suggests that the Inka frontier lay higher up the slopes in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, and Catamarca, where the majority of Inka installations are found. The documents reveal that activities of the Spaniards had further, far-reaching consequences for Quechua's presence in the south Andes, and that ultimately Quechua was replaced in most of north-west Argentina by Spanish.
World Archaeology, Mar 15, 2014
World Archaeology, 2016
Interest in the nature and dynamics of consensus, coalition-building, and collective action has i... more Interest in the nature and dynamics of consensus, coalition-building, and collective action has increased dramatically in archaeology during recent years. In a volume edited almost 80 years ago, Margaret Mead (1937, 8) defined cooperation as ‘the act of working together to one end’, acknowledging the obvious fact that people working together achieve far more than isolated individuals. At the same time, her title, Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, emphasized contrasting modes of human interaction. Archaeologists have, understandably, placed great emphasis on understanding competition – for resources, for territory and for power – in the human past. This issue, focusing on the archaeology of coalition and consensus, reflects expanding interest in consensus, in its diverse manifestations, in the archaeological record. As outlined in more detail below, theoretical approaches are also diverse, encompassing archaeologies of lived experience and daily life (Overholtzer and Robin 2015; McGuire 2008; Robin 2013), practice theory and relational approaches (Hastorf 2010; Watts 2013; Pauketat 2013), as well as political economy perspectives (Dye 2008; Price and Feinman 2012b). Contributors to this issue seek to identify and interpret the archaeological correlates of coalition-building and consensus, to adapt and refine theoretical ideas and to investigate, through case studies, conditions that allowed ‘more corporate’ or consensus-based forms of interaction to take hold and persist in past societies.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Sep 20, 2011
Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, Dec 1, 2013
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Oct 1, 2013
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Jun 1, 2011
This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the grou... more This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the group (in forms such as rock-art, images painted on pottery and three-dimensional caches of figurines) can help us understand the nature of collective experience in the past. Current research has concentrated on individuals (and their experiences) in past societies, while group dynamics have been neglected. Attention should be re-directed to the wide range of emotional experiences that we know affected individuals, particularly as part of their interactions with others, during rituals and other collective events in the past. Investigation of figurative representations over a sustained period provides one means of reconstructing the repetitive, stereotyped emotions, local rules, ‘non-rational’ propensities, moral sentiments, and shared emotions that shaped group life in past societies.
World art, Mar 1, 2013
Abstract This article asks how art makes society, investigating the ways art objects were used by... more Abstract This article asks how art makes society, investigating the ways art objects were used by past peoples to shape and to give expression to emotions. Archaeology reveals a rich diversity of images and objects used by people as part of processions, performances, dances, or feasts. Reflecting enormous variation, art evoked wide-ranging sensory experiences, some of them powerfully affecting, transformative, and lasting in their impacts. Employing Armstrong's notion of the ‘affecting presence’, the author considers how archaeologists might reconstruct past emotions. A case study involving decorated burial urns from northwest Argentina during the Regional Developments Period, AD 950–1430, is explored in detail to consider the figured world of infant burial and mourning.
Introduction: art as archaeology and archaeology as art (Colin Renfrew et al) Art for archaeology... more Introduction: art as archaeology and archaeology as art (Colin Renfrew et al) Art for archaeology (Colin Renfrew) Making and display: our aesthetic appreciation of things and objects (Chris Godsen) The art of decay and the transformation of substance (Joshua Pollard) Segsbury Project: art from excavation (Simon Callery) Making space for monuments: notes on the representation of experience (Aaron Watson) The pot, the flint and the bone and House Beautiful (Anwen Cooper et al) Unearthing displacement: surrealism and the 'archaeology' of Paul Nash (Christopher Evans) Art of war: engaging the contested object (Nicholas J Saunders) Art as process (Anthony Gormley) Contemporary Western art and archaeology (Steven Mithen).
Annual Review of Anthropology, Oct 23, 2017
Collective action theory, as formulated in the social sciences, posits rational social actors who... more Collective action theory, as formulated in the social sciences, posits rational social actors who regularly assess the actions of others to inform their own decisions to cooperate. In anthropological archaeology, collective action theory is now being used to investigate the dynamics of large-scale polities of the past. Building on the work of Margaret Levi, collective action theorists argue that the more principals (rulers) depended on the populace for labor, tribute, or other revenues, the greater the agency (or “voice”) a population had in negotiating public benefits. In this review, we evaluate collective action theory, situating it in relation to existing theoretical approaches that address cooperation, consensus building, and nonelite agency in the past. We draw specific attention to the importance of analyzing agency at multiple scales as well as how institutions articulate shared interests and order sociopolitical and economic interaction. Finally, we argue for a new synthesis of political economy approaches with collective action theory.
Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, 2013
This article employs insights from postcolonial theory for understanding the “discrepant experien... more This article employs insights from postcolonial theory for understanding the “discrepant experience” of imperial personnel and subject populations within the Inka Empire. Analysis of material culture reveals processes –including acculturation, emulation, co-optation, and
Ancient Colonizations : Analogy, Similarity and Difference
Published in Ancient Colonizations: Analogy, Similarity & Difference, 2005, (eds. H Hurst &am... more Published in Ancient Colonizations: Analogy, Similarity & Difference, 2005, (eds. H Hurst & S Owen) Duckworth (London), pp. 73-96.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2002
... In my perception, it is a strength of the book that the author rarely mentions 'cult... more ... In my perception, it is a strength of the book that the author rarely mentions 'cultures' and 'ages' but moves freely across the terrain, linking simi-lar ... The controlled fragmen-tation of anthropomorphic figurines in the Cucuteni-Tripolye group: towards an archaeology of gesture ...
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011
This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the grou... more This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the group (in forms such as rock-art, images painted on pottery and three-dimensional caches of figurines) can help us understand the nature of collective experience in the past. Current research has concentrated on individuals (and their experiences) in past societies, while group dynamics have been neglected. Attention should be re-directed to the wide range of emotional experiences that we know affected individuals, particularly as part of their interactions with others, during rituals and other collective events in the past. Investigation of figurative representations over a sustained period provides one means of reconstructing the repetitive, stereotyped emotions, local rules, ‘non-rational’ propensities, moral sentiments, and shared emotions that shaped group life in past societies.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2013
Archaeological studies of specialized craft production in hierarchies often highlight the crucial... more Archaeological studies of specialized craft production in hierarchies often highlight the crucial roles of prestige goods in ancient political economies. Yet elaborate crafted items are also produced and circulated widely in heterarchically-ordered societies, where powerful elites are absent. In this latter case, attributing crafting to the agency of elites — or to the demands of political economy — is unconvincing. This article investigates the alternative cultural logic underlying crafting in heterarchies, seeking to understand both the contexts of crafting and the nature of the ‘social projects’ in which artisans were engaged. Expectations for archaeological signatures of craft activity are developed and applied to a case study, drawing upon recent excavations in northwest Argentina.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Oct 1, 2004
The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2015
British Academy eBooks, May 17, 2012
This chapter examines the far southern boundary of Quechua's spread throughout the Andes. It ... more This chapter examines the far southern boundary of Quechua's spread throughout the Andes. It argues that Quechua reached north-west Argentina in Inka times and that it was widely used during the colonial period as well. The rationale for this argument is based primarily on evidence for (1) the extent of Inka resettlements in Argentina; (2) the nature of Inka relations with local peoples in the far south; and (3) continued use of Quechua under the Spaniards, as described in the documentary sources. Less clear are the precise population movements that brought Quechua speakers initially to Santiago del Estero, as the archaeological record suggests that the Inka frontier lay higher up the slopes in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, and Catamarca, where the majority of Inka installations are found. The documents reveal that activities of the Spaniards had further, far-reaching consequences for Quechua's presence in the south Andes, and that ultimately Quechua was replaced in most of north-west Argentina by Spanish.
World Archaeology, Mar 15, 2014
World Archaeology, 2016
Interest in the nature and dynamics of consensus, coalition-building, and collective action has i... more Interest in the nature and dynamics of consensus, coalition-building, and collective action has increased dramatically in archaeology during recent years. In a volume edited almost 80 years ago, Margaret Mead (1937, 8) defined cooperation as ‘the act of working together to one end’, acknowledging the obvious fact that people working together achieve far more than isolated individuals. At the same time, her title, Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, emphasized contrasting modes of human interaction. Archaeologists have, understandably, placed great emphasis on understanding competition – for resources, for territory and for power – in the human past. This issue, focusing on the archaeology of coalition and consensus, reflects expanding interest in consensus, in its diverse manifestations, in the archaeological record. As outlined in more detail below, theoretical approaches are also diverse, encompassing archaeologies of lived experience and daily life (Overholtzer and Robin 2015; McGuire 2008; Robin 2013), practice theory and relational approaches (Hastorf 2010; Watts 2013; Pauketat 2013), as well as political economy perspectives (Dye 2008; Price and Feinman 2012b). Contributors to this issue seek to identify and interpret the archaeological correlates of coalition-building and consensus, to adapt and refine theoretical ideas and to investigate, through case studies, conditions that allowed ‘more corporate’ or consensus-based forms of interaction to take hold and persist in past societies.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Sep 20, 2011
Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, Dec 1, 2013
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Oct 1, 2013
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Jun 1, 2011
This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the grou... more This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the group (in forms such as rock-art, images painted on pottery and three-dimensional caches of figurines) can help us understand the nature of collective experience in the past. Current research has concentrated on individuals (and their experiences) in past societies, while group dynamics have been neglected. Attention should be re-directed to the wide range of emotional experiences that we know affected individuals, particularly as part of their interactions with others, during rituals and other collective events in the past. Investigation of figurative representations over a sustained period provides one means of reconstructing the repetitive, stereotyped emotions, local rules, ‘non-rational’ propensities, moral sentiments, and shared emotions that shaped group life in past societies.
World art, Mar 1, 2013
Abstract This article asks how art makes society, investigating the ways art objects were used by... more Abstract This article asks how art makes society, investigating the ways art objects were used by past peoples to shape and to give expression to emotions. Archaeology reveals a rich diversity of images and objects used by people as part of processions, performances, dances, or feasts. Reflecting enormous variation, art evoked wide-ranging sensory experiences, some of them powerfully affecting, transformative, and lasting in their impacts. Employing Armstrong's notion of the ‘affecting presence’, the author considers how archaeologists might reconstruct past emotions. A case study involving decorated burial urns from northwest Argentina during the Regional Developments Period, AD 950–1430, is explored in detail to consider the figured world of infant burial and mourning.
Introduction: art as archaeology and archaeology as art (Colin Renfrew et al) Art for archaeology... more Introduction: art as archaeology and archaeology as art (Colin Renfrew et al) Art for archaeology (Colin Renfrew) Making and display: our aesthetic appreciation of things and objects (Chris Godsen) The art of decay and the transformation of substance (Joshua Pollard) Segsbury Project: art from excavation (Simon Callery) Making space for monuments: notes on the representation of experience (Aaron Watson) The pot, the flint and the bone and House Beautiful (Anwen Cooper et al) Unearthing displacement: surrealism and the 'archaeology' of Paul Nash (Christopher Evans) Art of war: engaging the contested object (Nicholas J Saunders) Art as process (Anthony Gormley) Contemporary Western art and archaeology (Steven Mithen).
Annual Review of Anthropology, Oct 23, 2017
Collective action theory, as formulated in the social sciences, posits rational social actors who... more Collective action theory, as formulated in the social sciences, posits rational social actors who regularly assess the actions of others to inform their own decisions to cooperate. In anthropological archaeology, collective action theory is now being used to investigate the dynamics of large-scale polities of the past. Building on the work of Margaret Levi, collective action theorists argue that the more principals (rulers) depended on the populace for labor, tribute, or other revenues, the greater the agency (or “voice”) a population had in negotiating public benefits. In this review, we evaluate collective action theory, situating it in relation to existing theoretical approaches that address cooperation, consensus building, and nonelite agency in the past. We draw specific attention to the importance of analyzing agency at multiple scales as well as how institutions articulate shared interests and order sociopolitical and economic interaction. Finally, we argue for a new synthesis of political economy approaches with collective action theory.
Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, 2013
This article employs insights from postcolonial theory for understanding the “discrepant experien... more This article employs insights from postcolonial theory for understanding the “discrepant experience” of imperial personnel and subject populations within the Inka Empire. Analysis of material culture reveals processes –including acculturation, emulation, co-optation, and
Ancient Colonizations : Analogy, Similarity and Difference
Published in Ancient Colonizations: Analogy, Similarity & Difference, 2005, (eds. H Hurst &am... more Published in Ancient Colonizations: Analogy, Similarity & Difference, 2005, (eds. H Hurst & S Owen) Duckworth (London), pp. 73-96.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2002
... In my perception, it is a strength of the book that the author rarely mentions 'cult... more ... In my perception, it is a strength of the book that the author rarely mentions 'cultures' and 'ages' but moves freely across the terrain, linking simi-lar ... The controlled fragmen-tation of anthropomorphic figurines in the Cucuteni-Tripolye group: towards an archaeology of gesture ...
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011
This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the grou... more This article focuses on the social group, asking how approaches to the representation of the group (in forms such as rock-art, images painted on pottery and three-dimensional caches of figurines) can help us understand the nature of collective experience in the past. Current research has concentrated on individuals (and their experiences) in past societies, while group dynamics have been neglected. Attention should be re-directed to the wide range of emotional experiences that we know affected individuals, particularly as part of their interactions with others, during rituals and other collective events in the past. Investigation of figurative representations over a sustained period provides one means of reconstructing the repetitive, stereotyped emotions, local rules, ‘non-rational’ propensities, moral sentiments, and shared emotions that shaped group life in past societies.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2013
Archaeological studies of specialized craft production in hierarchies often highlight the crucial... more Archaeological studies of specialized craft production in hierarchies often highlight the crucial roles of prestige goods in ancient political economies. Yet elaborate crafted items are also produced and circulated widely in heterarchically-ordered societies, where powerful elites are absent. In this latter case, attributing crafting to the agency of elites — or to the demands of political economy — is unconvincing. This article investigates the alternative cultural logic underlying crafting in heterarchies, seeking to understand both the contexts of crafting and the nature of the ‘social projects’ in which artisans were engaged. Expectations for archaeological signatures of craft activity are developed and applied to a case study, drawing upon recent excavations in northwest Argentina.