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Accepted Paper:

Photographs as artefacts: a visual archaeology of three indigenous societies of Tierra del Fuego (southern South America)  
Danae Fiore (CONICET) María Lydia Varela (Universidad de Buenos Aires )

Paper short abstract:

This presentation proposes a "visual archaeology" of ethnographic photographs as artefacts which contain information about indigenous socioeconomic practices and material culture trends. This approach is applied to 1130 photographs of 4000 individuals from 3 indigenous societies of Tierra del Fuego.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation summarizes some of the results of systematic investigations carried out on a corpus of 1130 photographs taken of people from three native societies of Tierra del Fuego (Shel'knam, Yámana and Alakaluf) between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century, by 44 photographers. The theoretical and methodological framework used in this paper proposes a "visual archeology" of the photographs conceived as artefacts which condense the traces of two agents: photographers and photographed subjects. Thus, these visual records shed light on the biases generated by the different photographers who took them, and on the different material culture patterns produced by each indigenous society. This framework has helped identify data of high and low visibility in the traditional archaeological record, including the use of structures (huts, windshelters, cabins, etc.) and the manipulation of artifacts (tools, clothes, ornaments, etc.) handled by more than 4000 photographed individuals. The information recorded includes demographic data (estimated age and gender) of the native individuals, and has allowed the identification of intra-society differences in the use of material culture items according to the age and gender of the individuals involved. At an inter-society level, differential patterns of material culture manipulation have been identified. All these data are relevant to distinguish specific socio-cultural patterns that characterize each Fueguian society.

Panel P30
Archaeology and Photography
  Session 1