Cristobal Gnecco

Against Typological Tyranny in Archaeology: A South American Perspective Cristobal Gnecco 2014 edition

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Jacket Description/Back: The papers in this book question the tyranny of typological thinking in archaeology through case studies from various South American countries (Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil) and Antarctica. They aim to show that typologies are unavoidable (they are, after all, the way to create networks that give meanings to symbols) but that their tyranny can be overcome if they are used from a critical, heuristic and non-prescriptive stance: critical because the complacent attitude towards their tyranny is replaced by a militant stance against it; heuristic because they are used as means to reach alternative and suggestive interpretations but not as ultimate and definite destinies; and non-prescriptive because instead of using them as threads to follow they are rather used as constitutive parts of more complex and connective fabrics. The papers included in the book are diverse in temporal and locational terms. They cover from so called Formative societies in lowland Venezuela to Inca-related ones in Bolivia; from the coastal shell middens of Brazil to the megalithic sculptors of SW Colombia. Yet, the papers are related. They have in common their shared rejection of established, naturalized typologies that constrain the way archaeologists see, forcing their interpretations into well known and predictable conclusions. Their imaginative interpretative proposals flee from the secure comfort of venerable typologies, many suspicious because of their association with colonial political narratives. Instead, the authors propose novel ways of dealing with archaeological data. Biographical Note: Cristobal Gnecco is professor in the Department of Anthropology, Universidad del Cauca (Colombia), where he teaches issues related to the political economy of archaeology, discourses on the other, and geopolitics of knowledge. Carl Langebaek is professor in the Department of Anthropology, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), where he teaches archaeology and ethnohistory. Table of Contents: Against typological tyranny. Cristobal Gnecco and Carl Langebaek.- Social complexity in ancient Amerindian societies: perspectives from the Brazilian lowlands. Cristiana Barreto.- Blind men and an elephant: exchange systems and sociopolitical organizations in the Orinoco basin and neighboring areas in pre-Hispanic times. Rafael Gasson.- Palenques and palisades: a revision of social complexity issues in contact- period eastern Venezuela. Rodrigo Navarrete.- Agricola est quem domus demonstrate. Alejandro Haber.- Social space and the archaeology of inequality: insights into social differences at Ambato valley, southern Andes, Argentina. Andres Laguens.- Poor chiefs: corporate dimensions of pre-Inca society in the southern Andes. Axel Nielsen.- Against the domain of master narratives: archaeology and Antarctic history. Maria Ximena Senatore and Andres Zarankin.- Testing a model of site location in the Alto Magdalena, Colombia. Victor Gonzalez.- Children of the creeks: cultural characterization of Nasa politics. Wilhelm Londono.- On hybrids recently unleashed. Cristobal Gnecco.- The role of place-making in chiefdom societies. Hope Henderson.- Words, things and text: El Infiernito, archaeology, documents and ethnology in the study of Muisca society. Carl Henrik Langebaek."Publisher Marketing: Using case studies from across South America to question received notions of archaeological typography, this volume argues that a more fluid approach to analyzing the meanings of symbols enables interpretations less dominated by colonial political narratives.

Contributor Bio:  Gnecco, Cristobal Juliet E. Morrow is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and station archaeologist with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey. She has published articles in "Current Research in the Pleistocene" and "American Antiquity. "Cristobal Gnecco is professor of anthropology at the Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, co-editor of "Arqueologia Suramericana, "and a contributor" to Under the Canopy" and" Archaeology in Latin America,"