The role of early archaeological collections (1870-1930) in the knowledge of metallurgy in the Argentine Northwest

Abstract

We analyze the role of early collections in the current knowledge of metallurgy of northwestern Argentina, tracing the history of formation of some of these collections and focusing on those that had greater importance for the study of pre-Hispanic metals. The reported period ranges from 1870 until the beginning of the 1930s, that is, starting with the growing scientific interest regarding the peoples that inhabited the region in the past until the last expedition financed by Benjamín Muniz Barreto, a time span that includes the implementation of the archaeological heritage protection law (1921). This period was also marked by purchases of artifacts destined to be the foundation of national museums, generating collections very heterogeneous regarding how they recorded their findings and hence the research possibilities.Throughout the development of archaeology to the present day, these first collections were differentially employed to achieve knowledge in the field of metallurgy, with predominance, early on, of typological studies on entire objects. One of the approaches that provided major contributions to this knowledge were the specialized laboratory analyses, performed on metal objects as early as the late nineteenth century; a review of this activity allows understanding theoretical-methodological trends that changed in terms of the integration of various lines of evidence. The result is a consolidation of museums as spaces for research planned and coordinated among several actors, such as curators and a multiplicity of researchers, within a preference that is nowadays conceived as interdisciplinary. This work demonstrates that acareful reading of the conditions of formation of each collection and the use of appropriate non-destructive analytical instruments allow for maximization of the information obtained from each one in archaeometallurgical terms.