Session: #516

Discussion session (with formal abstracts)

From the earliest contacts of Europeans with native American cultures during conquests and colonization, artefacts, especially crafts and art produced by the latter, have constituted objects of interest, description and, in some cases, were taken to Europe to supply antiquity collections. In later times, and in particular from the second half of the 18th century onwards, pre-Columbian monuments and objects became the subject of more scientifically oriented research, accounts of which often accompanied the shipment of archaeological objects to European collections. The famous Trujillo del Perú codex, published by Baltasar Martínez Compañón in 1782-1785, may be viewed as an example of such an early scientific archive. As this process continued and grew during the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries, the production of “scientific” narratives (chronicles, measurements, graphic documentation, cartography, photography, etc.) also developed on a great scale. Most of this data has generally been accumulated in private and institutional collections throughout Europe. Today, these archives constitute a great resource, in order to research the American past as well as to better understand the history of European research approaches and practices in the Americas.
During these last decades, the archaeological collections of artefacts produced by European scientific practices throughout the Americas have often been the subject of reflections and debates, in relation to their analysis, curation, exhibition, and in specific contexts to their repatriation to their place of origin. In comparison, few have been done about the non-artefactual data (mainly texts and images).
In this session, we would like to approach the question of the scientific documentation archives of European investigations in the Americas. How well-known and easy to access are they? What is their potential for research? What is their meaning and utility for indigenous communities and American (and European) states? We would welcome both presentations on specific archives (related or not to artefact collections), as well as more global/critical reflections about the historical contexts of their production, and about the issue of archives management for their common access and use.
Organising team also contains Carolina Orsini (Museo delle Culture de Milano) and Alexander Geurds (University of Oxford).

Archaeological collections and archives, Archaeology of the New World, History of the European researches

no

no

no

no

no

EAA4Am

Mariusz Ziólkowski (Poland) ¹

Thibault Saintenoy (Spain) ²
Marcia Hattori (Spain) ³