Images and Captions from the Colca Valley, Fall 1984

Introduction:  If you read the other posts on this blog (and please do) you realize it takes me a lot of time to research and then compose the entries.  Therefore, this post is a much lighter, more fun, ever changing post which I will 'publish' every time I add a new image and caption.  At the same time it will be in a format where I can collect my thought, gather some information and provide an overall structure to this blog.  Enjoy!  Feedback and comments are always appreciated.

 

AT LEAST THERE WASN'T SNAKES - Most of the sites we excavated were covered in a variety of cactus and were exposed to the full sun and subject to both wind and water erosion.  The climate was harsh and typically we worked mornings until 1 or 2 pm.  By 2:30 - 3:00 on most days, winds blowing up the valley would strengthen and pick up minerals mixed in with the sand, causing compass needles to spin and resulting in a haze that would distort sight lines and make survey work inaccurate.  Yet, the greatest threat to us personally was boredom.  (This is a photo of Achomany.)

Location of the 1984 excavatoins by Beloit College students under the direction of Dr. Dan Shea (Nov. 5, 1941 - June 19, 2012): 

 

The area outlined and designated ACHOMA is one of 20 districts within the province of Caylloma.  (Think of it as being equivalent to a township in US municipal government terms although its real, geographical function is that of a glacial watershed.)  The double-dashes outline the glacial water run-off area that feeds the extensive system of irrigation channels flowing into and over the agricultural terraces.  The Colca Valley is one of the riches agricultural areas in all of South America and was reserved as a personal estate for the Pizarro half-brothers during the era of conquest (Nov. 16, 1532 to April 10, 1548).

This is a view of ACHOMANY (one of our main excavation sites) and the 'modern' village of Achoma in the foreground.  If you look on the ridgeline in the photo, the lone tree to the right of center is at the extreme (right) edge of the Achomany site.  The small area to the right of this tree is the site of SAN MIGUEL, a chulpa (burial) complex. This image was taken from Pilloni Pata, another residential area although smaller than Achomany and also has an associated chulpa complex although different than San Miguel as some of the burial are in excavated caves as opposed to rock-lined pits.

 

The elevation of the plaza of Achoma is 11,260 feet above Pacific sea level while the site of ACHOMANY is approximately 11,850 feet.  This image shows the switchback 'trail' that leads up to and across the terraces to the Achomany site.  Achomany is to the immediate left of the 'lone tree' and constitutes a residential hamlet or grouping.  Protecting this section of the valley from possible raiders/invaders are two 'fortresses', CORICANCHA and AUQINIKINA.  The 'bump' on the ridge at the extreme upper left corner of this image is the second or lower fortress of Coricancha and is at an elevation of 12,000 feet.  The initial fortress, Auqinikina,  lies below the edge of the PUNO and is at approximately 12,500 feet in elevation.  The PUNO is the large, mostly flat desert at approximately 14,000 to 15,000 feet that exists between valleys and the glacier capped peaks of the Andes.  Prior to the Conquest Era (1532-1548), native inhabitants would climb up to the PUNO, travel to their destination using mountain peaks and celestial navigation aids and then drop down into the appropriate valley.  Therefore these fortresses where critical as they were the portal to the valleys.

 

An image of the PUNO about half-way between Achoma and the southern city of Arequipa.  The elevation is approximately 15,000.

This is a image of ACHOMANY looking up-hill in the direction of CORICANCHA.  It was impossible to draw an accurate map of this site using the Brunton compasses we had due to a limited number of people with mapping experience, changes in elevation and thick growth of cactus.  We did complete an accurate house count, measurement and orientation of the said houses as well as an understanding of the defensive walls.  Water distribution resources were also identified but an overall understanding of the channels and how water was distributed on the site was never obtained.  In retrospect, that was a very important component of the story and I know an element of the site survey that Dan really wanted to focus on. 

 
Ecavations were carried out by 9 Beloit College students of the anthropology department from August until November of 1984.  This was part of a much larger project under the direction of Dr. William Denevan (Principal Investigator) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Geography.  The UW-Madison graduate students and Dr. Denevan had returned to the United States prior to our arrival, although we did have contact with a number of native Peruvian archaeologists, graduate students and a variety of international engineers who were completing the multi-decade irrigation project known as M.A.J.E.S.  An International Monetary Fund (IMF) project to bring glacial waters from the high desert (PUNO) to the coastal region via the Valley Colca, River Colca and River Majes.  Below is the 'old' system of irrigation along the River Majes, Department of Arequipa.  

... and then there were Many: Kinship and Intellectual Incest in the World of Peruvian Archaeology - An Introduction

Abstract:  Triangles and circles are employed to describe the Kinship of many cultures and the comprising family units.  Yet the kinship of the archaeologists themselves is not examined to the same standard.  And the few times it has been (such as in Willey and Sabloff  A History of American Archaeology (1974)), intellectual incest (my term, not theirs) - the imprint of our mentors and colleagues - is largely ignored as it is seen as our epistemology and the fundamental building blocks that allow new theories and interpretations to be put forth.  It is these relationships between mentor and student, colleagues, project / expedition participants and even who was and who was not in attendance at a particular symposium or conference that influences our understanding of the cultures studied.

Kroeber:  History and Science in Anthropology (1935)
Students and scholars familiar with the Great Debate in anthropology from the mid 1930s to the early 1960s are probably moaning by now.  My intention is not to re-hash "historical reconstruction", the attack on James Albert Ford (1911 - 1968), Walter Willard Taylor, Jr. (1913 - 1997) epic 1948 tome, Louis Robert Binford (1931 - 2011) 1962 publication on new archaeology (processual archaeology), the cultural ecology of Julian Haynes Steward (1902 - 1972) or the cultural evolution theories of  Leslie Alvin White (1900 - 1975).  (Hopefully, I have done sufficient name-dropping to convince readers I am familiar with the development and history of archaeology and anthropology.) 

Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876 - 1960) noted that history in Europe is the subject and that archaeology is the discipline while history in the United States is both a subject and a discipline.  Duality, which I think Americans are particularly good at (or biased by), many times translates into confusion and can be a very muddled message.  Archaeologists are at times decent second or third tier historians, especially individuals like John Victor Murra (1916 - 2006) and ethnographers as a whole.  However, I do not know of a historian who has a professional affiliation as an archaeologist.  (See my comments on Philip Ainsworth Means (1892 - 1944) further into this post as his credentials would certainly suggest the designation of historian / archaeologist.)  Certainly, one could argue that Franklin Pease G.Y. (1939 - 1999) came the closest, but his background was neither pure history (humanities) or his work archaeological in nature, rather his work enhanced the archaeological record.  The same can be said of Nobel David Cook (BA 1962, MA 1964 & PhD 1973) another cross-disciplinarian who comes to mind and known in Latin American and Iberian studies as a demographer and ethnographer - already acknowledged for their archival abilities.  The fact that Pease and Cook were friends is not missed by the author and really my point for this essay.  Cook benefited from his introduction to Franklin and Mariana Pease in 1968 and, I would argue, enhanced his own scholarship and studies through the scholarship and studies of Pease.

(Side note:  I have realized in the past year that my missed opportunity in archaeology was my own love for history.  IF I could go back in time and re-set my career path, the three individuals named above -Murra, Pease & Cook - would have been logical choices with whom to pursuit graduate studies.  Murra retired in 1982 and Pease and Cook were never discussed as options, let alone explored if viable.  For that matter, University of Texas, Cornell, Berkeley and Florida International University were not presented or discussed either and I believe all could have been excellent fits for my own dual interests in history and archaeology.)     

The study of Peru is perhaps the perfect laboratory for understanding the discipline while researching the subject as the History of Archaeology in Peru correlates seamlessly with the development of Archaeology and Anthropology as disciplines.   First, the dates overlap.  Adolph F A Bandelier (1840 - 1914) did some brief survey work in Peru in the 1890s just as archaeology and anthropology were defining their own parameters and perimeters within other disciplines.  Funded by Henry Villard (1835 - 1900) and affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History (New York), this work was very preliminary and I would suggest even sketchy as to its overall contributory significance.  Still, it provided a foundation and it created an interest as he challenged some of the conventional thoughts about the antiquity of Peru.  Importantly, he was influenced by Louis Henry Morgan (1818 - 1881), who's own scholarship is considered anthropology.  Although Bandelier did some myth-busting he also created and perpetuated some myths that Kroeber and Strong would work hard to dis-credit in the 1920s and 1930s and replace with a more accurate understanding of the passage of time.

German contemporaries of Bandelier included Arthur Baessler (1857 - 1907) a German ethnographer who travels in Peru, 1896 to 1898, resulted in his 4 volume publication in 1902 and 1903, Ancient Peruvian Art:  Contributions to Archaeology of the Empire of the Incas, and Adolph Bastian (1826 - 1905) who employed a young Franz Boas (1858 - 1942) at Berlin's Royal Museum and most likely passed through Peru in the 1870s or 1880s and who's writings had profound effect on the emerging anthropology discipline.

Then there is Uhle, Friedrich Max Uhle (1856 - 1944) , who did more at the time to show the antiquity of Peru and lay the foundation for modern archaeological work in Peru than anyone else.   If John H Rowe (1918 - 2004) is the Father of Peruvian archaeology, which I and many contend, then Max Uhle was grandfather or perhaps a better analogy would be great-uncle.  And, to enrich the very topic of intellectual incest, his relationship with benefactor Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst (1842 - 1919) - the monetary founder of the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley - also plays upon the East Coast v West Coast rivalry.  The Uhle-Hearst-Berkeley relationship is truly a matter of truth-is-stranger-than-fiction and one that the yellow journalism of her son's empire could not even approach in terms of complexity.  (Compare Villard & the America Museum of Natural History (AMNH) with that of Hearst & the Lowie Museum of Anthropology.)

To be thorough, I do need to back up a few decades and mention William Hickling Prescott (1796 - 1859) and his epic A History of the Conquest of Peru  (1847).  Prescott, of course, was the historian's historian of the day and identified as the first American scholar to employ scientific methodology to his research and writings.  Today, his account is still lauded as a fabulous read, but his interpretations are disputed as too European Centric in content and lacking everything but military and political narration.

And in terms of popular writings and paintings of the mid- to late 19th century I should also mention US Navy Lt William Lewis Herndon & Midshipman Lardner Gibbon 1851 travels from Lima to the mouth of the Amazon via the Andes and their subsequent 1853 publication documenting this journey for the average U.S. reader, James Orton's (1830 - 1877 and who died in Peru) Andes and the Amazon (first edition 1870), Dr. Francis Land Galt (1833 - 1915) early 1870s treatise "Medical Notes on the Upper Amazon" and his subsequent The Indians of Peru included in the Smithsonian's 1877 Annual Report .   Frederic Church's Heart of the Andes landscape painting exhibited in New York in 1859 add the visual dimension to the emerging literary dimension and was soon followed by landscapes by George Catlin, James Whistler, Titian Peale and Louis Mignot.

This built upon the rich travel account / natural history appeal begun by Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859) and his five year journey through Latin America, 1799 - 1804.  Perhaps the most notable contribution of Alexander von Humboldt to the development of Peru was realization of the guano deposits on small islands off the coast of Peru and the commercial fertilizer potential they represented.  Guano, the droppings of sea birds and the subsequent build up of hundreds of feet of the stuff over thousands of years, is a fascinating side bar to this study for its political, economic and, yes, archaeological role it would play by a very unlikely suspect, noted art historian George Kubler (1912 - 1996).

Equally as well known as Alexander von Humboldt is the 1863 appointed U.S. Commissioner to Peru  Ephraim George Squier (1821 - 1888).  His Peru:  Incidents and Explorations in the Land of the Incas (1877) is a descriptive blend of travel, archaeological sites and ethnographic observations & notes.  His background in newspapers and affiliation with Frank Leslie fleshed out his ability to highlight, promote and sensationalize.   The real value of his work is his period photographs (published as lithographs) and descriptions from that time period although they can hardly be taken as gospel.

Then, of course, was that other travel account, The Voyage of the Beagle,  published in 1839 by the grandson of a potter (Wedgewood) and a physician (Darwin) and his later works of 1859 (The Origin of Species) and 1871 (The Descent of Man) which had a profound affected on archaeology, anthropology and our understanding of earth antiquity.

All of this set the stage for the development of archaeology in Peru as archaeology itself was evolving.  Add in the emerging role of anthropological collections and museum theories, Peru becomes a birthplace for modern archaeological employment.  That is not to say Peru is the birthplace, but rather archaeology as a discipline in Peru did not suffer from decades and centuries of pre-conceived ideas about culture, history and the development of civilization.  Or to be blunt, unlike the Middle East, Egypt, Europe and Meso-America where studies had been carried out for a long period of time, Peru was remote enough, rugged enough and distant enough (a lost corner) that no one had really mucked about it until some assemblance of modern archaeology had been conceived and employed.

(True students of the early development of archaeology will want to substitute other letters in the word mucked!)

Peru, of course, did suffer from centuries of European pre-conceived structure and the passage of time.  Early anthropological awareness in the 19th century suggested some cultures as being child-like in their development and lacking maturity and complexity.  It was common for museum collections to be arranged in an uni-linear fashion, showcasing the rise of technology with cultural achievement, meaning that those using the bow-and-arrow could be expected to have a specific level of accomplishment while possession of the wheel suggested a different level of sophistication.   Some of the great museums and anthropological (ethnographic) collections of the world were arranged on a grid system so that the student of culture had only to shuffle forward or back and then side to side in order to gain visual comparison of cultures and their placement in evolutionary time.  (see Willey & Sabloff, 1993 publication - 3rd edition)

My history advisor at Beloit College, Nelson Van Valen, would mention Philip Ainsworth Means as an example of the duality between anthropology and history just as he would mention Charles Austin Beard (1874 - 1948) as an example of the duality between history and political science.  Although I never had the personal relationship with Van that I had with my anthro advisor, Dan Shea, I did have an enjoyable and rewarding academic relationship with him.  He taught me a lot about the discipline of history and how to assess historical works and their authors.  In fact, my earlier comments about first tier, second tier and third tier historians is terminology I learned from him.  He also introduced me to Kroeber's 1935 work I referenced above and much more than Dan, he tried to provide me with a synthesis between history and archaeology.

Wendell Clark Bennett (1905 - 1953) wrote a tribute to P. A. Means in the American Anthropologist that I believe is very fair and a better assessment than what I could write here.  Bennett noted and even praised him for his publications, love of Peru & scholarship and then noted "Means had little interest in the technicalities and details used by the “dirt” archaeologists in their chronological studies" (Bennett, American Anthropologist (1946) Vol. 48, Issue 2, page 235).  Means had intended to write a trilogy on Peru, the first being Ancient Civilizations of the Andes (1931) and the second Fall of the Inca Empire and the Spanish Rule in Peru:  1530 - 1780 (1932).  Like so many authors, Means became distracted by other projects and larger works as he began the final volume and it was never developed.  These two publications on Peru followed his very helpful and insightful Biblioteca Andina, Part One (1928). 

Means was a member of Bingham's 1914-1915 Yale Peruvian Expedition (Hiram Bingham III, 1875 - 1956), the first of five journeys into and around Peru with his final trip being in 1933 - 1934.  (Bingham had re-discovered Machu Picchu in 1911; again more explorer than archaeologist.)  He supervised excavations at Piura and then served as the Director of the National Museum from 1920 to 1921.  Bennett notes his approach was synthetic, not descriptive and he never published an excavation or survey report.  He goes on to mention Means would supplement his field research in the leading centers of the United States and Europe and that chronology was based on artistic development and universal art trends, not the "dirt" approach stated above.  Again, this tribute is very balanced and Bennett states Means realized some of the short-comings of his scholarship and had intended to revise it using archaeological evidence and analysis developed after 1930. 

So, Means a historian - absolutely.  Means as an archaeologist - only in the 19th century style or "armchair archaeology" sense. 

Chroniclers had been present in Peru since the beginning of the historical era (November 16, 1532) but the writings were not well known or accessible until the later half of the 19th century.  This was really a matter of re-discovery of what had been published in the 16th and 17th centuries and then largely ignored for many different reasons.  Prescott, himself, relied heavily on the known works of El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539 - 1616), Pedro Cieza de Leon (c 1520 - 1554) - part one only, Pedro Sarimento de Gamboa (1532 - 1592) and Diego Fernandez (c 1520 - c 1581).

As it was when re-published or in the case of Pedro Cieza de Leon's Volumes 2 through 4 did not see publication until the mid-1800s through the early 1930s, these works suffered from poor translations and sloppy para-phrasing and interpretation by scholars of the time.  Perhaps the one stain on his otherwise stellar career and scholarship was John H Rowe's 1945 Absolute Chronology in the Andean Area article in which he dismissed ("diss-ed" to be exact for his rather snotty tone) a number of excellent chroniclers and their penned works as being inferior interpretations (mere book reports) of other earlier works OR suspect in their content and accuracy.  Two points must be added to Rowe's criticism; first, the translations he refers to were inferior examples of the true works and, secondly, it was early in his career and perhaps the "young whippersnapper" defense should be employed.  (And, third, who I am to criticise John Howland Rowe?)

John Murra, born Isak Lipschitz in Odessa and raised in Bucharest, realized the true potential and scholarship of so many chroniclers and the vast, untapped archival resources available to Andeanists.  Craig Morris noted that until Murra, the chroniclers were seen as being definitive in their history of the Inca, but were not valued for the insight they could provide on the earlier cultures of Peru.  Murra represents the greatest attribute of Archaeology in Peru and why I contend its short history is so worthy of study; the Archaeology of Peru is a diverse, eclectic field encompassing many disciplines and many individuals. 

Why Murra did, what he did, when he did it can be best summarized by the phrase, "his past caught up with him" and as a result he was forced to sit on the sidelines.  He spent this time in research repositories and wrote two of his greatest works,  The Economic Organization of the Inca State (1956) and Cloth and Its Functions in the Inca State (1962).  Thus, after having spent years doing field work in the Andean world, this "research time" was really a supplement to a tremendous knowledge base he had already acquired.  He returned to fieldwork in Peru with a three year grant in 1964 during which time my undergraduate advisor Daniel Edward Shea (1941 - 2012) worked with him, Donald Enrique Thompson (1931 - ) and Edward Craig Morris (1939 - 2006) at Huanaco Pampa (Huanaco Viejo as it is more commonly referred to by Andeanist).  (Dan Shea was a grad student of Don Thompson at UW-Madison at the time.)

The work at Huanaco was part of Murra's Provincial Inka Life project and included a "staff" of professionals coming and going as needed and as funding would allow.  The complete "team" also included Manuel Chavez Ballon (1918- 2000) , Luis Barreda Murillo (1928 - ), Ramiro Matos Mendieta (1937 - ), Gordon Haddon, Rogger Ravines (1942 - ), John Cotter (1911 - 1999), Cesar Fonseca, Peter Jenson (1936 - 2010); the ethnobotantist Robert Bird and two historians, Emilio Mendizabal Losack (1922 - 1979) and Juan Ossio Acuna (1943 - ).

The research at Huanaco Pampa is probably best known by the 1987 publication Huánuco Pampa: An Inca City and Its Hinterland written by Morris and Thompson as well as additional articles penned by them both together as well as solo on Hernando Pizarro's passing through Huanaco in 1533.  Murra would also go on to research and write Formaciones económicas y políticas del mundo andino (1975) with its incredible fold out chart of the qolqa contents at Huanaco Viejo.  Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco (1915 - ?; historian) and John Hyslop (1945 - 1993; archaeologist) both wrote about the Huanaco Pampa area in reference to the Royal Highway ("Highway of the Sun" in von Hagen speak) as have numerous others. 

As part of Craig Morris' 1967 PhD dissertation on Inka warehousing, titled Storage in Tawantinsuyu he took a look at a supposed chicha party Hernando Pizarro and his men had at Huanaco.  (Chicha is a beer made from maize.)  He would go on to write an article in 1979 titled Maize Beer in the Economics, Politics and Religion of the Inka Empire, published in a book titled Fermented Food Beverages in Nutrition by Gastineau, et al, (editors).

Although I had the first-hand opportunity to taste and enjoy chicha a number of times in Peru (and the best I found was in Cabanaconde!), my fasicination with Morris' chicha referrences is purely academic (an argument used for the consumption of alcohol by generations of undergrads!)  Dan Shea's Master thesis was a statistical analysis of the above named chicha party, the ceramic vessels of beer having been smashed to sherds as they leaned against walls.  What makes me curious is the added inter-change of Dan Shea and Craig Morris' names in subsequent editions of John Hemming & Edward Ranney's Monuments of the Incas.  In the first edition (1982 printing), Dan Shea is credited with being the grad student responsible for the restoration of the kallankas - the entrance structures to the royal lodgings - at the eastern end of the plaza.  The second and third editions swap out Dan Shea for Craig Morris and Hemming and Ranney comment on the "admirable job of rebuilding the walls".

I remember well the lecture Dan gave one Friday afternoon in his 300 level course on South American Archaeology about his graduate research at Huanaco Viejo.  It was the Spring of 1984 and my participation in Dan's fall sabbatical in Peru was already secure so anything he talked about in reference to in-country work, I was all ears.  I know it was a Friday as we always adjourned to a local watering hole on Friday after the 4 PM class for additional academic research and I got into a long discussion with him about statistical analysis and how it was going to be a fundamental part of the work in Colca that Fall.

In my opinion, there was always some friction between Shea and Morris.  A few years later, we ran into Morris and Murra at an Andeanist conference and Dan did not introduce me to them, something he always did.  Dan had a lot of respect for John Murra.  Dan had me buy Murra's Formaciones económicas from a vendor on the streets of Arequipa in September of 1984 and he used the chart on the qolqa contents to teach me the fundamentals of analysis of variance (ANOVA) when we were first in the Colca and before we had enough data sets of our own to do comparisons.  (We were using a solar-power TI 35 calculator with a pre-set statistical package for the number crunching; creating the data sets on paper and re-entering them every time we wanted to run an analysis.)  During these tutoring sessions, Dan would talk a lot about his work at Huanaco and I heard "his stories" a number of times.

I am not saying there was inappropriate use of intellectual property; I am saying that whatever happened in Huanaco Viejo in the mid-1960s between two grad students has had an effect on subsequent students decades later.  Again, my point of this blog and really the hypothesis of my argument is that the personal relationships between professional scholars has had a greater impact on the discipline than most people know or probably would like to admit.

Triangles and Circles

Now think of the context of Murra, Thompson, Morris and Shea as Triangles and Circles showing intellectual kinship and professional affiliation.  Donald Enrique Thompson, son of Sir J. Eric S. Thompson (1898 - 1975) of Meso-American archaeology fame, was a 1962 PhD graduate of Harvard University.  The younger Thompson had his own affiliations with the Carnegie Institute (separate from his famous father) and their on-going research projects in Central America during the 1950s.  E Craig Morris (1939 - 2006), a 1967 PhD graduate of the University of Chicago who became affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in 1975 until his too early passing in 2006.  And Murra, a 1956 PhD graduate of University of Chicago (U-C) under the guidance of Donald Collier (1911 - 1995) and who benefited from an earlier friendship with Faye-Cooper Cole (1881 - 1961) during the 1930s.

Collier was student of A L Kroeber (himself a student of Franz Boas and the first PhD awarded from Columbia University in 1901) at Berkeley for his undergraduate degree (1933) and worked with the native Peruvian archaeologist Julio C Tello (1880 - 1947; the first indigenous archaeologist in the Western Hemisphere) in 1937 as a result of his relationship with Kroeber before completing a PhD at University of Chicago in 1954.  In the early 1940s he worked with John Murra in Ecuador and then completed survey work with Gordon R Willey (1913 - 2002) as part of the Viru Valley Project (1946).

Willey worked with James Ford in Georgia during the 1930s and again in the Viru Valley. Ford was a master of Seriation and, who after teaching his seriation technique to a young Clifford E Evans (1920 - 1981) became life-long friends with Evans and his wife, Betty Jane Meggers (1921 - 2012).  Meggars and Evans, of course, would go on to publish a controversial study in 1962 that followed up on the 1961 publication by Ecuadorian "archaeologist" Victor Emilio Estrada (? - 1961) claiming trans-Pacific migration from the Japanese island of Honshu to the Valdivia complex in Ecuador.  Emilio Estrada, as he was commonly known, was a wealthy playboy of Ecuador hired by Thor Hyerdal (1914 - 2002) to assist in the construction of the reed raft Kon-Tiki which sailed from Ecuador to Polynesian Islands in 1947.  Ford, Evans and Meggers would also be remembered for their diffusion-ist theories.  There is, of course, that 1957 photo of Clifford Evans with Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff (1912 - 1994) and his wife Alicia.  Reichel-Dolmatoff, an Austrian, emigrated to Colombia in 1939 and eventually founded the anthropology department at the University of Bogota.  Recently his ties to Nazi German and role in the SS during the mid-1930s were revealed.

Faye-Cooper Cole was the founder of the anthropology department at U of C and also a student of Franz Boas.  Known for his early work in the Philippines, he later became known for his study and writings on the archaeology of Illinois, in particular the Kincaid Mound Group in southern Illinois.  Although not directly connected to Andean archaeology, Cole and his students had great influence on archaeology and in particular anthropology as whole during the 1930s, 40s and 50s.  Leslie Alvin White (1900 - 1975), his student at U-C, went on to do great things at Ann Arbor as well as leave a lasting imprint on the discipline that broke from Boas-ian traditions.

Again, plot out all of the names mentioned here using a flow chart or Triangles and Circles schematic to show relationships and the story of archaeology in Peru takes on a very different appearance.           

Remembering Dan: Daniel Edward Shea, 1941 - 2012

Abstract:  Dan joined the faculty of Beloit College in 1968 and taught for 44 years until his passing on June 19, 2012.  Originally from Oshkosh, WI, he attended UW-Madison School of Liberal Arts for his BA and then earned his Masters and Ph.D. from the same university.  I was an undergraduate student of his from 1982 to 1985 and then worked with him in 1986 and again in the early 1990s on a variety of projects.






Achoma Staff (were we lived) in the lower left corner.  Built for Canadian Engineers working on the Majes Project.
Colca Valley, Peru SA        Fall, 1984  -  photo by author

   First Contact:  My Fall, sophomore year (1982), class schedule at Beloit College, included Anthropology 105 - Introduction to Archaeology.  I was a declared triple major of History, Education and Government Studies (Political Science).  I had declared my majors the semester before as I was getting little cooperation from my assigned freshman advisor in designing a TRAC II major at Beloit, the reason I had selected the school.  At least, I thought, archaeology had something to do with my desire to major in Shipwrecks and perhaps I could find a sponsor in that weird, imposing, aloof building at the end of campus.

The challenge I had was articulating what I wanted my major course of study to be and how it was going to relate to a life and career after college.  In retrospect what I was really doing was casting a big net to see Who, in What department would be willing to move forward with my interests, allowing me to focus on a combination of self-imposed study as well as structured classes that would facilitate a career investigating contemporary maritime disasters for large, multi-national insurance companies to assess Risk and Fraud.  I was aware of F.E.R.I.T - Far East Research Investigation Team affiliated with Lloyd's and based in Singapore - and somehow had envisioned a life that was part Banacek (George Peppard) from NBC's Mystery Movie anthology and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.

I sat in the back (top) of the auditorium classroom in the William Simpson Godfrey Anthropology Building, commonly called the pit, and was captivated by this 40 something year old Irishman with salt-and-pepper hair and beard lecturing in a voice that filled the entire room not from his volume but his tonality and knowledge.  After the second class I asked to meet with him to discuss my major and we had an agreed upon a time later that day in the lounge of Godfrey.



Dan showed up late, had totally forgotten that he had agreed to a meeting with me, was very dismissive of any TRAC II major I may have in mind and assured me that no one in the department, let alone him, would be interested in acting as an faculty advisor.  I remember him saying something about his interests in South America,  archaeological field work, and maybe something about quantitative analysis and mathematical modeling.  Oh well, maybe that guy in the Education department would be more receptive.

Within a few weeks I had replaced Banacek and Cousteau with a strong interest in archaeology.  I assured my parents my new interest had nothing to do with the red-headed freshman girl from Ohio who I had also taken a strong interest in and who was attending Beloit specifically for the anthropology program.  And by the end of the semester I had figured out a few things.  First, I actually had definitions for what archaeology and anthropology where and was confident I could explain them in at least broad terms.  Second, I spent more than three minutes walking through that entire anthropology museum (Logan Museum) attached to the Godfrey building and actually enjoyed reading the labels and looking at the stuff (artifacts) behind the glass.  The fact that the cute red-head was doing work/study at the museum was not a bad bonus either.  And, third, I was beginning to understand that my interest in history had some common ground with what I was seeing and hearing at this other end of campus.



So after a class around Thanksgiving I asked to speak with Dan again.  This time he knew me by name - I had gotten A's on his tests and had no challenges asking questions or otherwise verbally engaging him during his lectures.  The first thing he asked me was how a major in archaeology was going to help me in my pursuit of shipwrecks unless I was going to pursue graduate school at Texas A & M and George Bass' program.  I remember saying that there was a lot for me to learn right there, I was ready to replace education and Government with Anthropology and I asked him to be my advisor.    



Achoma, Peru in the Colca Valley
Fall, 1984  -  photo by author


Class Room Study:  Over the next three semesters I had a number of classes from Dan as well as in the Anthropology Department.  Post-Classic Mexican Archaeology was a favorite class as we worked in the "dirt lab" sorting, sifting and analyzing crates of artifacts shipped back from the northern rim of the Valley of Mexico in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Under the direction of Dr William S Godfrey, students had excavated a number of sites with exotic names like La Magdelina (Q-25), Q-36, etc.  This had been an "expedition" from Logan Museum complete with a 1-ton pick up truck and camper shell called the "Turtle".  Dan was making noise that this material needed to documented and analyzed before being returned to Mexico in order for him to be able to get a "dig" permit for Peru.

To me, it just sounded like adventure and interesting academic work.  I worked on the student notebooks, re-creating what they had done, found and experienced.  More importantly, it solidified my now triple interests in history, archival research and archaeology into an all encompassing discipline I thought of as archaeology.  (I was making the undergraduate mistake of confusing the project with the discipline and while Dan became aware of this, he allowed it to continue as part of the development and learning process, that, or he was just amused by it.)

The greatest thing about Dan was also probably the one thing that held him back from having a more prestigious career in South American archaeology.  Dan could be easily distracted and he enjoyed few things more than going to a bar and drinking beer with students.  I had five or six classes from Dan and never received a grade less than an A.  I had countless more pitchers of beer with Dan and it was in the bars of Beloit that a student of Dan's learned about culture, people and anthropology.  The discussions were voluminous, the conversations diverse and the gatherings all inclusive.  Dan was awesome at making people feel at easy and welcome, whether students from other departments or "townies" who were unemployed or just finishing a shift at the local factory.

With Dan, it was the classroom where you learned the theories & protocols, the field where you learned the techniques & application and over beer where you learned anthropology.  He had a tendency to sit back, talk quietly to one or students near him and allow the large group of anthro majors, full of piss & vinegar and fueled by alcohol, to go off on weird tangents of the day or more likely whatever the lecture topics where in the various classes that week.  Eventually, someone would say something total obtuse or unfair about the lecture content and Dan would stir, lean forward and launch into seemingly the most well-rehearsed, cross-disciplinary lecture of his career.  His logic was flawless, his depth of knowledge vast and his delivery deliberate. 

If you stuck around long enough, approaching bar time when the masses had departed for dorm-land, Dan would get very personal with the few remaining as to their interests and futures.  Blurry-eyed, but with tone and diction, he held court; he did most of the talking and it was our task to listen, absorb and begin the difficult task of applying what he said to our immediate lives and future careers.  This is the only time I ever found him to be intimidating.

After graduation and my subsequent careers started in  the suburbs of Chicago, I would pass through Beloit several times a year and detour to the Logan Museum and Godfrey Building I affectionately viewed as the Garden of Eden .  Usually these travels were during the week and I would poke my head into classrooms until I found Dan and would then slide into a chair in the back.  Within minutes I was 20 again, a sophomore or junior anthro major taking in all that Dan would have to say.  After class it was beer time and we would journey down the hill to one of three or four local establishments that were the current anthro department hangout.   The process was the same, but the conversations were different.

Town of Achoma in the foreground with our main
site, Achomany, by the tree on the ridge
Fall, 1984  -  photo by author

Latin America:  In the Spring of 1984, Dan announced during his 300-level course on South American Archaeology that he would be taking a sabbatical semester in the Fall and would be traveling to Peru to ...  I am not really sure I heard anything after this proclamation and as soon as class was over, Bill Gartner (now a Ph.D. in anthropology in the University of Wisconsin system) and I both approached him with one question, could we go with him?

By August, nine students had asked Dan the same question and in his all encompassing manner, we were probably the most motley, dysfunctional, rag-tag group of students assembled and not assembled to carry the perceived banner of a "Logan Expedition".  Dan being Dan provided us with just enough information for us to make our own arrangements with the College, airlines, etc.  With the exception of Bill, this is not the group I had envisioned going to Peru or the manner of completing a field school in archaeology.  Dan being Dan it was grow-up, buck-up, figure-it-out, make-it-happen although that was only spoken by his actions and in-actions.  It would have been a blessing if he would have articulated this to us.

Again, it was Dan's inability to ever (or gift to never) give a student a failing grade (F) and his welcoming nature that made this a true Coming-of-Age experience for me.  Five students met up with Dan in late August in Arequipa and four of us travelled to Peru and Arequipa a few weeks later.  Almost thirty years later I can honestly say the two groups were oil and water confined by the canyon walls of the Colca and stirred each day by Dan.

In-fighting, augments, mis-understandings, hurt feelings, unbelievable boredom and a few minutes of sheer terror are all accurate, descriptive words and phrases of this time in the Colca.  This was the era of the Sendaro Illuminoso (The Shining Path) terror as well as the narco-trafficing of cocaine and something needs to be understood - we all came back and we all moved forward with our lives in a variety of ways none of us could have imagined at that time.

At Dan's on-campus memorial in late August of 2012, four of the group of nine student attended, a fifth woke up ill that day otherwise would have been there, and two more had conflicting schedules they could not resolve.  I have lost touch with the other two but have a strong feeling they regretted not being able to attend. 

Leaving the Colca, the group split apart and people traveled and hung-out in southern Peru in a variety of changing combinations.  I did not have plans other than to travel and see some different things.  As a result, I spent almost four weeks with Dan finishing a very preliminary report for the Peruvian government (or who ever it is one writes a report for when excavating in their country) while traveling in Peru, northern Chile and Bolivia with Dan.  This included finishing field analysis of pot shards, mostly counting them, some photographic documentation and meeting with several Peruvian archaeologists and low- level bureaucrats.  We also visited a handful of museums, archives and two universities in order to gather comparative information.

The four weeks really was a Survival Guide According to Dan on how to live, survive and thrive in Latin America.  I am not sure the College would have allowed this course to be taught and I know most parents would never have approved of its syllabus let alone the curriculum, but remember my statement a few paragraphs ago, we all came back.  The importance of in-country friends, both new and seemingly ancient from Dan's past (to a 21-year-old), played an integral component to how we moved around three countries, the places that we stayed and the sights & sites we saw.  I took it all in and paid particular attention to when Dan told me I needed to start building my own contacts and in-country resources.  After all, it would only be a few short years before I would return to run my own projects or so I thought.

  

My 1984 field note book from the Colca Valley

Post Peru:  Returning to the States and undergraduate studies, the friendship with Dan and his mentoring continued.  Dan's love for math and data sets was as great as his love of beer.  Both Bill and I continued to work on the data gathered in the Colca and eventually this would become publications for both us as graduating undergrads.  He did the most important thing he could have; he let each of us have a lot of control over the information, the analysis and the publishing process.  Honestly, I was walking the edge of understanding / not understanding what the data was revealing and how it could be interpreted.  At times I thought I had a handle on it and at other times I knew I was completely lost in the process.  Dan would provide just enough direction and when I would ask one question too many, the information would stop; it was mine to figure out. 

At the same time, the next level of academia was opened up and revealed.  I attended a number of professional conferences, meetings and symposiums with Dan and I know Bill did as well.  Friends and colleagues were important to Dan and he expected us to be well-read and familiar with contemporary work and research projects.  He relationship with contemporaries was very unassuming and I remember having to ask him one time exactly who John and Craig were that we had spoken to that night at the conference in New Orleans.  I think he was disappointed that I had not realized we had been with John Murra and Craig Morris, who he had worked with at Huanaco Viejo while a grad student of Don Thompson.  

For reasons I can not explain, I did not pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology; instead built a career first in historical museums & historic preservation and then in financial services.  Five or six years ago during the all-important-post-visit beer at a some joint near the campus, I asked Dan if he was ever disappointed in how many of his students did not continue on to higher degrees and careers in archaeology / anthropology.  He was truly shocked that I would ask that question and his answer was a true shock to me.  He answered by saying that at the undergraduate level you could not expect many to follow that path and especially for a school such as Beloit it he was not his task (he said task), rather his task was to expose students to the discipline and let them sort it out for themselves.  And then, because we were friends, he asked what my regrets were and we spent two or three hours discussing those choices.

Dan passed away in the Atacama of northern Chile while working with five or six undergrads from Beloit, a grad student who had attended Beloit and his great friend Mario Rivera.  Bill told me at his memorial service that he had been diagnosed with diabetes a few years prior and with my own experience with that disease and understanding of Dan, I can not imagine Dan did much to manage his blood sugar.  From things that were said at the bar after his service about his behavior in the past year, I am sure diabetes was a significant factor in his passing.  

For Dan to die in those circumstances was Dan being true to himself to the end.  I had the opportunity to speak with two of the students who were with him in Chile as well as the grad student (I think he is now a Ph.D.), plus the parents of the two undergrads. The first thing that struck me was the timelessness of the conversations.  I could have been with them in Chile and they could have been with us in Peru.  The almost 30 year difference in time had no meaning and certainly part of that is Beloit students are Beloit student yesterday, today and tomorrow.  

The second thing was the perfection in his passing.  I do not know of anyone who was sadden by the circumstances, in fact, I would say we were grateful.  Yes, we miss Dan and we are sorry he died at a young age by today's standards, but come on, he died very suddenly in Latin America surrounded by students and colleagues while he was busy doing the work he loved.  No one needs to say much more than that.

And, finally, I was reminded by something a friend in the US Navy taught me about the 3 B's as he was wrapping up his 23-career: "Be Brief, Be Brilliant, Be Gone".  Our time with Dan was Brief, even if it was measured in decades, he was Brilliant both in his scholarship and in his mentor-ship and now he is Gone, but our lives continue to take different paths as opportunities arise and Dan's task was to prepare us for those journeys.          
            

        

Did Cristobal de Colon (Christopher Columbus) Carry a Passport: Legitimacies of the New World

Premise and Background:  Documents and credientials, we carry them everyday and for most of us, rarely think about the implication of having them or not having them.  Of course, during a traffic stop or if you are an unlucky New Yorker who encounters Stop-and-Frisk, documents and credientials become a significant factor in how that encounter will be resolved.  On a more fundamental level, the question of Christopher Columbus' first voyage and subsequent travels as legitimate or illegitimate is of extreme importance to archaeological recovery and possession.  So, we ask, did the future Almirante del Mar Oceano carry a passport? 

January 2, not October 12, is the important date of 1492.  It was the day the combined armies from Aragon and Castile defeated the last of the Muslim forces in Spain at Granada and for the first time, in seven centuries, freed Iberia from Muslim influence and presence.  It allowed the Spanish Crown to breathe and focus-in on other matters, including the money that had been borrowed for exploration, redirected to the Granada battlefield, and the investors who were seeking action, let alone return on their investment.

Enter Cristobal de Colon to the royal court with a new introduction and new proposal.  We hear so often how timing is everything and for Columbus his timing was finally, after numerous attempt at more than one court, on-point.  He was in an unique situation this time, Ferdinand and Isabella needed him.  The Crown had investors to satisfy and through the ages we have seen how unhappy shareholder and investors can change the corporate (in this case, political) landscape.  As a result, Christopher Columbus' Great Enterprise was sanctioned and funded. 

By now, Cristobal de Colon was a smart man; wise in the ways of Sovereign politics and his need to secure the appropriate paperwork.  During April of 1492, he secured 7 documents: the Capitulations or what is more commonly known today as Articles of Agreement dated April 17; and five documents dated April 30th, the Title (Titulo) also called the Commission, the Letter of Credence to be given to foreign rulers and three Orders of the Sovereigns which outlined the acquiring and provisioning of the fleet.  Columbus' Passport was also one of these seven documents, although it was undated.

The Capitulations is defined by five articles.  A surviving preamble from the 1495 copy describes the document as "the things supplicated and which your highnesses give and grant to Don Cristobal de Colon ..."  As you can imagine, this document became extremely important when riches beyond the dreams of Europe were found and "confiscated" in the following decades and centuries.  But, written prior to the first voyage departure, these articles and the seven documents as a whole formed the basis for a legal claim by Spain both for territory and the "unjustly oppressed people" under the domain of the Carib, Aztec, Inca and all other ethnic and political leaders/rulers found in the West Indies land.

Follow up documents secured by the Spanish Sovereigns were just as important to the legal possession of the Western Hemisphere territory and completed the premise that Spain's actions in the New World were legal, justified and ethical as understood by European law of the day (and days to come).  The first set of these, issued by the Holy See Alexander VI (the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia), as four edicts dated May 3 and 4, 1493, and referred to as the bull Inter Caetera 1493, confirmed that every island and country discovered and not previously in the possession of any Christian prince be of the Sovereigns of Castile and their successors.  This was further supplemented by a fifth papal proclamation, the Dudem Siquidem of September 26, 1493.  Although still debated by legal scholars today, the Treaty of Tordesillas, dated June 7, 1494, for the most part, settled the issue with Portugal eventually receiving due territory on the eastern "bump-out" of South America, known today as Brasil.

It would be easy to think that the Spanish Crown, that is the Sovereigns of Castile and Aragon, had great foresight in providing documents to Columbus in case he found something when in actuality they were laying the foundation for the biggest "cover your a**" in world history.  They were responding to papal bulls issued between 1452 (Dum Diversas) through 1484, especially the bull Aeterni Regis of 1481.

(I find great irony in the naming of His Holiness' edicts as papal bulls.)

Therefore as the Spanish Sovereigns acted according to known and recognized law both before the 1492-1493 voyage and immediately after, there is legal justification for their claim of territory and hence, riches, from the New World.  The domain of Espana in the Western Hemisphere would continue until July 3, 1898, when off the coast of Cuba, Admiral Cervera cruiser, Cristobal Colon (again the irony is rich), would surrender to the upstart United States of America

Slavery, as we in the United States know it, ended with the Emancipation Proclaimation of 1863 and the subsequent cease of hostilities in 1865 of the Great Rebellion, the War between the States or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on your family roots.  Yet, today, some 28 million people around the global are held in economic slavery.  I enter this into the topic only as an example of the US perspective - slavery ended 150 years ago when in reality, it is stronger and more encompassing than ever before.

My question, Did Cristobal de Colon carry a Passport, is intended to stir our understanding of anthropology and archaeology, especially as to how it relates to Peru and the heritage of those lands on the western coast of South America.  So the fundamental question here is:  Are the Old World claims on the New World legitimate?

The short, simple answer to this is, YES, in the Old World!  I am confident that most educated, informed individuals today would not bulk at the perspective of so many indigenous people who would out and out dismiss the legitimacy of the Espana claim.  Yet, many of these same people would question the reaction of Native People who wish to curtail the archaeological exploitation of their heritage.   Plunder is plunder, whether it is gold dust and nuggets OR gold masks and disks, natural resources OR cultural resources.  So as you read my subsequent blogs you will need to recognize this duality in my own writings.  I both admire the work that has been, is and will be done in the name of scientific research for the advancement of the understanding of human culture and human achievement as well as deplore the plunder completed in the name of archaeological exploration.  And plunder not just in the sense of bad archaeology as some of the most devasting excavations were and are those with tight, thorough vertical and horizontal control.  They got it all and that is the problem.

A few years ago I read an article discussing the Sun and how it is a dying star with a remaining life span of approximately 6 billion years.  The author pointed out that we are arrogant enough as a species to believe that we will be around in 6 billion years to suffer this event.  AND we are arrogant enough as a discipline to believe our excavations are better than they were in the past.  I have to wonder just how much we miss.

So, Christophorus Colonus, as Peter Martyr referred to this ethnic Genoese, I think you did one hell of a job!

A Question of Parenthood: Who is the real Father of Peruvian Archaeology?

Premise and background:  Lineage and Legitimacy; two questions we should always ask ourselves any time we dissect history and comment on the past activities of historians and archaeologists.  For without understanding the lineage and assessing the legitimacy, we flail about in the quagmire of alien technology, trans-oceanic voyages and other pop culture reporting.  Peru, one of the most diverse countries of the world, has attracted it all; from cracked pots and the mystical to genuine scholarship with the questionable agendas of "legitimate" funding sources.  Most of us have only a surface collection of this heritage.

Many scholars would argue for Frederich Max Uhle, a German national who worked in Peru in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Others would attest it is John Howland Rowe of the University of California, Berkeley.

Still others would suggest, in keeping within an anthropological framework of relativism is good, that it should be a Peruvian and Julio Cesar Tello is nominated for Father of the Five Centuries!  Tello, after all, studied under Franz Boas for a few years and it does not get much more Dawn of the Anthropological Age than Boas!  Arguments could also be forwarded for the nomination of Pedro E Villar Cordova, Luis E Valcarcel, Luis G Lumbraras,  and from more of a museum point of view Manuel Chavez Ballon or Rafael Larco Hoyle.

Julio C Tello

Nominees could also include Alfred Louis Kroeber and William Duncan Strong for their 1920s work on the Uhle collection; other legendary names like Junius Bird, Gordon R. Willey, James A. Ford, Julian H. Steward and John Murra; more contemporary names like Michael Moseley, Alan Kolata, Donald Lathrop, Thomas Patterson, William Denevan (a geographer - gasp!), and E. Craig Morris for a variety of prolific reasons.

From a strictly chronological point of view, Uhle was the first to employ some assemblance of modern archaeological methods.  While some of his excavations were more "pot-hunter" like than vertically- or stratigraphically-controlled test units, he brought a scientific awareness to field research in Peru and to the new discipline of archaeology as a whole that has left a legacy of legitimate, research-minded and research-focused excavations and expeditions in Peru.

Although "glory and fame" would still motive explorer-archaeologists of Peru into the 20th century, Uhle's work marked a significant change as to the methodology and long-term objectives.  There is, perhaps, no greater glory than Machu Picchu.  However, Hiram Bingham is not a nominee nor is the National Geographical Society that brought this wonder to the fore-front of our knowledge.  And I am not even going to mention Nasca.

John Rowe, however, must be considered for his both his progeny as well as his scholarship. Simply and directly put, Rowe "created" more researchers in the field of Peruvian history and archaeology than any other professor.  And his students have students who have inspired and mentored students who continue to work in Peru and contribute to the "known record" of that geographical unit's past.

Although Peruvian, German and Japanese nationals may differ, I would also argue that the University of California at Berkeley is the Center of Creation or Garden of Eden for Peruvian archaeological studies.  Uhle's initial collection resides here in the womb and tomb that now bears his benefactor's name - Pheobe A. Hearst.  Toss in a little Kroeber, some Strong, and the nurturing departments of Anthropology AND Geography (under Carl Sauer with his own lineage of prolific academic progeny), incubate for 90 plus years and this is indeed the cradle of civilized archaeology as we want to know it.

And that is the rub because it simply should not be.  It should be Peruvian in country and in origin.  The father should be Tello or even better, a person of either Quechua or Aymara descendent and with a Quechua or Aymara name.   A central coast valley would make a wonderful cradle, sort of a hilly flanks environment with fresh seviche served daily.  Imagine the colors, the textures and the tastes; instead we have centuries of sterile white.