Perhaps the contributions of South American archaeology to the larger field of world archaeology have been inadequately recognized. If so, this is probably because there have been relatively few archaeologists working in South America outside of Peru and recent advances in knowledge in other parts of the continent are only beginning to enter larger archaeological discourse. Many ideas of and about South American archaeology held by scholars from outside the area are going to change irrevocably with the appearance of the present volume. Not only does the Handbook of South American Archaeology (HSAA) provide immense and broad information about ancient South America, the volume also showcases the contributions made by South Americans to social theory. Moreover, one of the merits of this volume is that about half the authors (30) are South Americans, and the bibliographies in their chapters will be especially useful guides to Spanish and Portuguese literature as well as to the latest research.
It is inevitable that the HSAA will be compared with the multi-volume Handbook of South American Indians (HSAI), with its detailed descriptions of indigenous peoples of South America, that was organized and edited by Julian Steward. Although there are heroic archaeological essays in the HSAI, by the likes of Junius Bird, Gordon Willey, John Rowe, and John Murra, Steward states frankly in his introduction to Volume Two that “archaeology is included by way of background” to the ethnographic chapters. Although these archaeological essays have been superseded by the last half-century of research, HSAI deservedly remains on the shelves of most South Americanists.
In 1999 the Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, edited in two volumes by Stuart Schwartz and Frank Salomon, included eight long and valuable essays on South American archaeology. It seems that the Cambridge volume is in some ways a handy successor to the HSAI, covering large areas in significant depth.
In the present volume, the chapters are shorter and many deal with smaller areas (or very interesting particular topics such as ancestor images, trophy heads, human sacrifices, and khipus), but the HSAA spans the continent and gives a much fuller picture of archaeological research in South America than the Cambridge volume intended to do. The HSAA chapters include the peopling of the continent and early occupations, the kinds of environments and the natural resources exploited in them, and many descriptions of the archaeology of areas hardly mentioned in any other guide to the archaeology of South America: for example, the southern Andes, Patagonia, Ecuador, Guianas and Surinam, the Peruvian cloud forest, and strikingly, Brazil, both the Amazonian part and the inland and coastal regions. Although Brazil comprises about half the area of the continent, there is only one recent volume of the archaeology of the entire country, and it is in French and—given the astonishing pace of research in Brazil—dated. The chapters by Oliver, Neves, Schaan,
Gaspar and colleagues, Noelli, Guapindaia, Heckenberger, and Bastos and Funari provide an up-to-date view on much that is going on in Brazilian archaeology.
It is in its theoretical contributions that I, as a non-South Americanist, am most interested. Authors of many chapters make clear that types and categories of societies derived from North Americanist social theory really do not apply to South American societies. Even the chief of South American chiefdoms, Robert Drennan, declares his discomfort with the type of “chiefdoms,” which tends unfairly to reduce the variation in societies that encompass more than a single local community with some degrees of social inequality. Other authors discuss non-agricultural “chiefdoms” or even how the term “evolution” tends to mask the amount of and reasons for change occasioned by migrations and exchange of goods and ideas. More than one author speaks of the history of societies, not their evolution. Some authors note that Julian Steward himself insisted on “multi-lineal evolution,” precisely because there were many hierarchies and kinds of hierarchies in the history of South America.
“Complexity” covers everything from enormous shell mounds (sambaquis) in southern Brazil, which are scenes of mortuary rites and feasting, to “towns” and complex regional organizations in the Amazon. The question about “complexity” in South America, just as it is for other parts of the world, is not “was a society complex?” but “how was it complex?” (as Ben Nelson has articulated in comparing the prehistoric Southwest and Northwest Mexico). The discussions of these issues are relevant beyond South America. Authors also have persuasively critiqued the use of “horizons” and “intermediate periods,” as if the latter were awaiting “horizonalization.”
The HSAA authors not only describe new archaeological work in South America but also place the work in the social context of archaeological research. For example, several essays are devoted to how archaeology forms part of the national identity of South American countries. This is particularly vivid in South America where nations have recently shaken off military rule and/or are challenging trends in globalization.
Several archaeologists are optimistic that archaeology can play a significant role in subverting colonial versions of their deep history. I have seen new Brazilian school texts in which archaeological research is now considered part of Brazilian history. As recognition grows that prehistoric Indians, on the coast and in the Amazon, created impressive monuments and works of art, lived in towns of considerable population, and both altered and lived successfully in rich environments, perhaps one can be optimistic that there will be changes in the already zestfully complicated Brazilian national identity and in social and political life.
Brazil is the only country in South America I know even in small measure since I have attended archaeological conferences there and visited sites. The first of these conferences brought archaeologists from the University of Arizona to southern Brazil, the second archaeologists from University of Michigan to a variety of Brazilian universities and the cultural resources management organization. Although it was wonderful to exchange ideas and consider new data on both sides, we visiting North Americans were surprised that Brazilian archaeologists had relatively little contact with other archaeologists in South America, especially the army of Peruvian archaeologists, and the considerable number of Argentinian ones, who are relatively nearby. The HSAA shows how important such ties among South American archaeologists need to be. On the one hand, several essays demonstrate how local prehistoric cultures were embedded in long-distance exchange networks. Archaeologists need to cross present borders in order to appreciate the dynamics of this interaction. Just as important, archaeologists from various regions in South America have much to learn from each other, about legal issues of cultural heritage that have continentwide roots, as well as about theoretical concepts such as agency, landscape, and appropriations of the past, which are subjects of many chapters in this volume.
The readers of this volume hold in their hands many treasures, and they will surely join me in applauding the editors who have cannily gathered these archaeologists, a mixture of younger and venerable scholars, and translated many of their essays.
Handbooks are not destined to have a long life, but the best of them delineate, as far as possible, the state of knowledge in a domain and thus influence the direction of research. The HSAA is not only a vade mecum of new findings and new ideas in South American archaeology, but it is also an enthusiastic demonstration of the importance of (and also the fun in doing) archaeology in South America.
Norman Yoffee
World History
