Archaeology project unearths, preserves culture

PUNO, PERU “”mdash; The history of Western influence in Peru has been, for the most part, an unpleasant tale.

Since the Spanish conquest of the Incan empire in 1532, the presence of foreigners on Peruvian soil has often resulted in the exploitation, forced religious conversion and slaughter of thousands of indigenous people.

It is no wonder, then, that the collective instinct among Peruvians, especially in remote agrarian communities, is to distrust foreigners.

These outward sentiments, though gradually improving, still pose a major impediment to American and otherwise Western archaeological research in the area.

Researchers intending to survey and excavate cultural artifacts and historical sites must earn the trust of local communities and landowners in order to conduct research.

And the process of earning trust as an outsider is not easy; many Peruvians incorrectly assume that Westerners are interested in finding and seizing gold and other historical treasures.

Locals also worry that if they cooperate with researchers, their land could be designated as cultural patrimony by the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, or National Institute of Culture, nullifying their rights to ownership.

In addition to providing financial compensation to the locals for the use of their land, researchers take part in ritual burnt offerings of animal fetuses, plants and grains, helping to ease the locals’ superstitions about excavating.

The researchers also make the results of their work known by publishing articles, speaking to local communities, and sometimes constructing museums to showcase their findings and the historical narrative created therefrom.

As is the nature of archaeological work, the history being studied and retold by researchers is often the first record of cultures and peoples that disappeared or were wiped out by later powers such as the Inca.

Consequently, the researchers end up educating modern residents about their ancestors.

“It’s actually a very difficult thing to disambiguate, if you will, their relationship and their feelings towards the people who lived here previously and who are in fact most likely their direct antecedents. But it has been 500 years since the Spanish conquest, so we are talking about sort of a deep time,” said Aimee Plourde, an American researcher and co-principal investigator with the Programa Collasuyo who is excavating a fortified hilltop site near the town of Tiquillaca.

Plourde explained that while Peruvians vary greatly in terms of their interest and identification with their distant ancestors, many take great pride in both their living cultural traditions.

But because most modern Peruvians identify with the Catholic faith imposed by the Spanish conquest, they consider themselves to be quite different from the pre-Hispanic cultures.

Digging into history

Even amid this pervasive apathy, there are those who do place great stock in their pre-Hispanic ancestors.

Javier Chalcha is a Peruvian craftsman who has been working with researchers from Programa Collasuyo since he graduated high school in 1996. Now an expert field archaeologist, Chalcha has become a skilled draftsman and is nearly unmatched by other research participants and academics in his ability to identify animal bones and pottery fragments from different eras.

Though he has been especially successful, many Peruvians gain skills and training through their work on dig sites that can, with the certification of project leaders, help to get future jobs.

Together with the asset that is his education, Chalcha’s annual earnings have significantly increased because of his participation in the research work.

His increased pay has given him a substantive degree of upward mobility and he now owns a home in Chucuito, where he lives with his wife and kids.

“Now my work is more technical, more prepared than before because I have learned to draw and analyze the ceramics,” Chalcha said in a translated interview. “I also wash the ceramics, I draw a lot. I have learned about surveying and excavating.”

Chalcha said he holds in the highest esteem the American researchers with whom he has worked and learned, and expressed his confidence in their ability to aptly study and interpret Peruvian cultural history.

“To interpret and express a complete experience in the high plateau, and the people of the place, (one must) live a lot of time here, and both Stanish and Steadman have done so,” he said, alluding to Charles “Chip” Stanish, director of the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and another researcher with whom he has worked.

Other Peruvians, whose families began working with researchers a generation or two ago, have experienced an exponential degree of mobility.

Luperio Onofre is a professor of education and social studies at the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, and worked during college on the dig sites of Stanish and his Peruvian co-director Cecilia Chavez Justo.

His father, who collaborated with Stanish and Justo, worked in a role analagous to Chalcha’s current one.

Onofre’s current social status, he says, is due in part to the experience and money he gleaned from working with archaeologists years ago.

“The project has supported us with some money to work on our thesis. That is why I have done my thesis in archaeology,” he said in an interview that was later translated.

Now, as an archaeologist and professor, Onofre’s perspective on Stanish and Chavez’s work is qualified by his own experience doing research

But working on his own has not curtailed his praise for the researchers and their work.

“Chip’s experience is very important … because he knows well this area, he has lived with its people; he has entered to know its culture and that helps him a lot. It’s not enough to study archaeological remains,” he said.

“To me, it seems that their experience and humility have allowed them to do a deep and real investigation.”