The Materiality of Ancestors: Chullpas and Social Memory in the Late Prehispanic History of the South Andes (original) (raw)

Abstract

During the first half of the second millennium CE, South Andean peoples experienced a series of dramatic political transformations that included the formation of highly integrated multicommunity polities and two waves of conquest, first by the Inkas, and then by the Spaniards. In this paper I will consider the role played by ancestor veneration in these changes, putting emphasis on how certain forms of material culturespecifically, chullpa towers-contributed to inventing, remembering, contesting, and forgetting a past in which present social relations were always contained. This exploration will focus on archaeological data from the North Lipez region, in the southern Bolivian altiplano. First I will discuss some ideas regarding collective memory, social reproduction, and materiality to put into focus the theoretical background of this investigation.