As insignia of power and prestige, Inka unku (tapestry tunics) communicated the strength and extent of Inka sociopolitical hegemony in the Andes. Of the 36 known full-size examples in museum collections, only one, found in Argentina, comes from outside Peru. This article investigates another recently excavated unku found out of context on Chile's northernmost coast. To confirm its authenticity, we compiled a database showing the technical and stylistic attributes of previous finds for comparison. We conclude that this artifact is indeed a new type of unku and that the discovery affects our understanding of the complex relationship between the people of this province and the Inka state.
Se examina los usos y modos de representación de las culturas precolombinas y de los pueblos indígenas en un grupo de museos arqueológicos de Chile a partir de una lectura crítica que abarca desde el siglo XIX hasta el siglo XXI. El presente de los museos arqueológicos se observa desde la complejidad de las relaciones entre los objetos culturales precolombinos que exhiben y las sociedades indígenas pasadas y presentes, sobre las cuales se elaboró una clasificación expresada en las dos posiciones que se derivan de sus discursos y prácticas museológicas. En la primera, los criterios científicos predominan en la concepción museológica y evoca una frase del verso del poeta chileno Pablo Neruda en Alturas de Machu Picchu: "Vengo a hablar por vuestra boca muerta". La segunda se caracteriza por un enfoque inclusivo que reconoce la necesidad de desarrollar propuestas museísticas con y para las comunidades indígenas y no indígenas, y se refiere a la afirmación autobiográfica de Rigoberta Menchú de dar su propia visión de la historia de su pueblo: "mi situación personal abarca toda la realidad de un pueblo". También se compara la experiencia chilena y el fenómeno museológico de los museos comunitarios de México (i.e. Oaxaca) entendidos como una alternativa válida de nuevas pautas en los discursos curatoriales, sobre las representaciones de los pueblos indígenas prehispánicos y actuales, a ser adoptadas por los museos chilenos. En suma, como parte de la tendencia generalizada a incorporar los pensamientos y enfoques de las comunidades indígenas en el trabajo museológico, el objetivo del artículo es problematizar el sistema de museos arqueológicos chilenos y analizar la relación dinámica entre la agencia del museo, sus actores sociales y las condiciones contextuales que particularizan su experiencia, cuya comprensión es significativa en la proyección de eventuales transformaciones, lo que si bien se reconoce como asunto urgente, son pocos los ejemplos que se han mantenido a lo largo del tiempo en Chile. Palabras claves: museología, museos arqueológicos chilenos, comunidades indígenas, museos comunitarios de México. It examines the uses and modes of representation of pre-Columbian cultures and indigenous peoples in a group of archaeological museums in Chile from a critical reading covering from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. The present of the archaeological museums is observed from the complexity of the relations between the pre-Columbian cultural objects they exhibit and past and present indigenous societies, on which a classification was elaborated expressed in the two positions that are derived from their discourses and museological practices. In the first, scientific criteria predominate in the museological conception and evokes a phrase from the verse of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in Alturas de Machu Picchu: "I come to speak for your dead mouth". The second is characterized by an inclusive approach that recognizes the need to develop museum proposals with and for indigenous and non-indigenous communities...
Standardized Inka tunics, or unku, were created under the auspices of the state as symbolic expressions of its expansionist power. To ensure these textiles acquired the status of effective insignias of power and territorial control, the Inka established and imposed technical and stylistic canons for their production (techne) by means of highly-skilled state weavers. In the provinces, social groups that came under imperial rule, local expert weaving agents adopted the conventions of the state and included meaningful symbolic elements of the idiosyncrasies, traditions, and experiential knowledge of the local community (metis). We therefore propose that this was not a unidirectional process and that the Caleta Vitor Inka unku (hereon referred to as the CV unku), presented here, reflects a syncretism promoted by local weavers. In terms of methods, we have developed a decoding tool for the unku, with the aim of distinguishing state from local hallmarks, thereby revealing the syncretic complexity of these iconic tunics. This methodological tool is based on a series of standard analytical parameters and attributes linked to morphological, technological, and stylistic features, which we applied to the CV unku. Unlike others, this unku does come from a looted tomb but was scientifically excavated in a cemetery located in the Caleta Vitor Bay in northern Chile. By deconstructing the CV unku we determined the steps in the chaîne opératoire at which local technical and stylistic elements were incorporated, thus affecting or transforming, in part, its emblematic imperial imagery. This study also marks a step forward in our understanding of a syncretic landscape that combines the state worldview and organized production system (imperial Inka) with craft-production practices that were rooted in provincial and local communities (provincial Inka).
Fossil records of canids are rare and incomplete in South America. In Chile, all well-identified taxa are part of the "South American Canid Clade" and come from sites located in southern Patagonia. Here, we report the first record for Chile of a taxon of the "Canis clade," assigned to cf. Aenocyon dirus. The fossil remains consist of a partially complete left hind limb, exposed by aeolian deflation, which facilitated its discovery at an isolated setting in Quebrada Maní, named QM38 site, in the southern sector of the Pampa del Tamarugal basin, part of the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. Measurements of the fossil are larger than the Protocyon troglodytes, falling in the smaller size range of A. dirus and within the larger range of Theriodictis platensis. Its morphological features compared with bone references of large extinct canids show that the fossil belongs to a small-sized Aenocyon. The remains occur in surface silty clays deposited by an alluvial fan that was active in the Pampa del Tamarugal basin in the Late Pleistocene. A radiocarbon date from bone apatite yielded an age of 14,660 cal years BP, placing it within the first half of the Central Andean Pluvial Event when this basin was wetter, well vegetated, and inhabited by large, medium, and small herbivores. No other large predator records are known from this basin, and our find affords a more complete view of this ecosystem which thrived in the hyperarid core of the Atacama during the Late Pleistocene.
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