Gods, objects and merchandise: archaeology and national states in Peru and Argentina

Abstract

This text is focused on a comparison between the trajectories of formation of Peruvian and Argentinian archaeologies and national states, and its implication for the constitution of diverse collective -majorly political- identities. With that aim, a synthesis of the relationship between the histories of Peruvian and Argentinian archaeologies, both national states, their sociopolitical contexts and the configurations of diversity in both countries is presented. Some of the milestones in both histories are the political organization of the states, the disciplinary institutionalization, the emergence of the first generation of national archaeologists and their relationship with foreign scholars, the appearance of historical and identitarian narratives based on archaeology and, the implementation of mercantile developments related to them. Since all these comparative analyses it seems clear that senses and territorializations of old things and places have undergone a same set of sequential changes, which are featured in this text as the passage from gods to objects, and from these to goods.