University of Toronto - Colloquium - Dr. Andy Roddick - January 18

University of Toronto

Department of Anthropology
19 Russell Street
Toronto, ON
M5S 2S2

Friday, January 18 from 2:00-4:00 pm
Anthropology Boardroom AP 246


Communities on the Horizon: Reconsidering Style and Social Boundaries
Before Tiwanaku
Dr. Andy Roddick (McMaster University)

Like many other parts of the world, Andean archaeologists deploy
potsherds to construct regional chronologies and to define the social
boundaries of prehistoric communities. A recent critical review by
Bill Isbell and Helaine Silverman (2006) considers the methodological
and theoretical tools Andeanists are employing to define both social
boundaries and chronological periods, exploring the connection between
local and regional studies to larger areal understanding. Implicit in
their paper is a tension between multi-scalar analysis and
applications of more nuanced and relational social theory. More
explicit, however, is their call for transparency in the conceptual
tools Andean archaeologists deploy in defining both culture areas and
temporal periods. In this presentation I engage with some of Isbell
and Silverman's comments through a case study in the Southern Lake
Titicaca Basin. I begin with a brief discussion of current practices
of temporal and spatial boundary-making in this region, before
suggesting some productive alternatives within the wider
interdisciplinary scholarship on learning and material culture. I
then present my case study of Late Formative (200 BC-AD 450)
communities on the Taraco Peninsula using conceptual tools that are in
line with a more socially relational view of temporal and spatial
process.

Isbell, William H. and Helaine Silverman
2006 Rethinking the Central Andean Co-Tradition, Andean Archaeology
III: North and South, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine
Silverman, pp. 497-518. Springer New York.


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