Prospects: archaeological research and practice in Peru

Kevin Lane
The following comments reect on the present state of Peruvian-led research archaeology and its prospects for the future, from the viewpoint of a friend, colleague but notably as an outsider. As such this piece is informed by both personal experience and the informed opinions of local Peruvian investigators who, for reasons that will become apparent, have opted for anonymity. The essential premise here is that the intellectual and nancial basis of archaeology in Peru is at a critical stage, and a major part of this article is to see how the next generation can negotiate this quagmire; and believe me for all the myriad problems there are important rays of light that could signicantly and positively alter the state of Peruvian archaeology. With this in mind, in this brief essay I consider the research environment, the theoretical basis, and the means by which research projects and resource mitigation are carried out, and summarise some of the challenges that archaeologists living and working in Peru now face. A recent, thorough treatise of the history and state of Peruvian archaeology can be found in Shimada and Vega-Centeno (2011).

Research environment
Institutionally, there are four state-funded universities that provide a grounding in archaeology, these being the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo (UNT), the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco (UNSAAC), the Universidad Nacional Federico Villareal (UNFV) and the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM); these last two are based in Lima. Other public universities exist that purport to teach archaeology but really these programmes are geared towards incentivising tourism and the touristdriven heritage sector. State universities are very poorly funded adding signicantly to their inability to compete at an international research level. The other principal player is the private university, Ponticia Universidad Cat olica del Per u (PUCP) which is funded more generously than its state counterparts, has the resources to compete in some way at an international level, and has assumed the mantle of elite university, long-since discarded by the UNMSM (Burga 2003). The parlous state of publically-funded universities has already been commented upon in an earlier article (Matos Mendieta & Bonavia 1992) and matters do not seem to have advanced much since then. An existential problem for Peruvian scholars at state universities seems to be their inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to emerge from under the shadow of the great post-1950s generation of archaeologists. These stalwarts came archaeologically of age in the 1960s and 1970s bringing New Archaeology, Marxist perspectives and a more

Institut f ur Pr ahistorische Arch aologie, Freie Universit at Berlin, Altensteinstrasse 15, Berlin 14195, Germany (Email: kevin.lane@cantab.net) Antiquity Publications Ltd. 86 (2012): 221227 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/086/ant0860221.htm

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rigorous eld methodology to bear. Although entirely commendable, during the subsequent political, economic and cultural crisis of the 1980s and 1990s Peru stied much discourse at state universities. These institutions became the targets for a repressive governmental apparatus and were themselves riven by internal strife (Sandoval L opez 2002), the social sciences and humanities suffered particularly. In this climate of fear it is not surprising that a whole generation of archaeologists was quite patently lost; army-occupied universities with cowered academics discouraged intellectual foment, whilst the wholesale abandonment of foreign-led and nanced archaeological excavations shut an important avenue for aspiring new researchers to grind their intellectual nous. Whilst state universities experienced state repression, the PUCP carried on regardless. The PUCP naturally attracts a different prole of student to that of the state universities, these being middle- to upper-class students, privately funded and generally more socially and politically conservative. Therefore, although the cost of an education at the PUCP can be prohibitive for many of Perus poorer social strata, it does provide a much more thorough grounding in archaeology. A more open selection system for lecturers and professors provides for a more vibrant and informed approach to archaeology that is aided by a wider network of links with international bodies and universities. As a negative corollary, it does mean that money rather than intellect (the UNMSM still maintains a strict exam driven entry requirement) is a primary admittance factor in most cases, although subsidised students do exist. It is also a harrowing premonition of the inequalities that a pay-as-you-go education can create within a society and serves as a timely caveat to what is happening in the UK with the move towards creeping privatisation of the education sector. However, it is mainly, though not exclusively, from the ranks of the PUCP that Perus research archaeologists are emerging to challenge the status quo.

Theoretical background
Beholden, in the past, to the United States for its theoretical and methodological compass, Peruvian archaeology has continued as an adjunct, mostly replicating a barely concealed colonial submissiveness within its research agenda. There was a brief urry of post-colonial activity and theoretical posturing in the form of Latin American Social Archaeology in the 1960s and 1970s, aimed largely at engendering social betterment through an application of Marxist teachings; but this has generally lapsed back to a client relationship in which to get ahead one has to ape the intellectual diktats of export-brand United States archaeology (Patterson 1994; Benavides 2001; Politis 2003). Attempts at reviving social archaeology are lacklustre and derivative, yet some Peruvians are still waiting, most probably in vain, for a consolidation and re-engagement with this wholly Latin American theoretical trend (Tantale an 2006). Others meanwhile just lament the general lack of dened theoretical perspectives in Peruvian archaeological research articles (Monteverde Sotil 20082009). Perus intellectual introversion therefore has two singular aspects to it: on the one hand an isolationist approach to its own archaeology centred around the simple fact of its rich heritage; and on the other a reluctance to advance beyond the academic achievements of the post-1950s generation of Peruvian archaeologists specically and the US inspired theoretical paradigms of the 1960s and 1970s generally. Although previously the studied cultures were
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those that could be felt to properly reect an assumed national ethos or ethnogenesis of being quintessentially Peruvian (Tantale an 2008), nowadays these blinkers inhibit the study of cultures that in the past transcended the present-day national borders.

Research projects
Given this, it is not surprising that Peruvians concentrate their archaeological efforts on the Inka, increasingly the Moche, and to a much lesser extent Chav n, Nasca, Wari, Ichma and Chimu. The prevalence of these cultures in the extant Peruvian written literature can be gauged by a quick perusal of journals such as Arqueolog a y Sociedad, Arqueol ogicas and the French-backed Bolet n del Instituto Franc es de Estudios Andinos. Also, interestingly, the majority of these cultures existed or occupied areas along, or near, the coast, which has led some to bemoan the prevalence of so-called Panamericana Highway archaeology (the Panamericana is the major coastal motorway along the western edge of Peru from the Chilean to the Ecuadorian frontier). Work along the Panamericana and other easily accessible areas such as the circum-Titicaca basin betrays a certain reluctance to engage in research in logistically difcult areas such as the jungle and more remote areas of the highlands. The situation has thus matured into a state in which we know a considerable amount about a small number of places and cultures in Peru. Money, or lack of it, is the single issue inhibiting the development of home-grown research projects. Unlike in Mexico or Argentina, state-backed research is very limited in Peru, and when available it is restricted to a few high value projects. In Argentina, for instance, the CONICET is a state administered body that allocates research funding, making for a thriving scientic environment. There is nothing comparable in Peru. Although Perus Third World status would seem to preclude state funding, it is important to note that the country is fth within South American GDP scales and ftieth overall in the world (CIA World Factbook 2011). Taking into consideration the immensity and value of Perus cultural heritage, it seems a serious lapse. Most major research projects are funded by overseas organisations, either through eld schools or foreign bodies such as the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Ford Foundation or the National Geographic Conservation Trust. The Institute of National Culture (INC) stipulates that all foreign archaeological missions have an INC approved Peruvian co-director (INC 2000: Article 30). Although laudable, this can have the effect of reducing Peruvians to a subservient technical role. These projects though have the advantage of scientic nancial backing. For instance, absolute dating is still prohibitively expensive to the majority of Peruvian and South American scholars, which has a schismatic effect on interpretation. Academic discourse undertaken on the basis of solely radiometric data runs the real risk of even more effectively marginalising local academic discourse (contra Silverman 2004). At the same time, in our wish to see absolute dating as a Holy Grail, we should be wary of the inherent problems of an over-reliance on absolute dating without consideration of archaeological context (Bayliss 2009: 129; see also Figini 2007). For students and young researchers, other than those able to secure a postgraduate place in the United States or elsewhere (and with it access to external funding opportunities), backing for autochthonous research in Peru is severely restricted. Some research, mostly non-intrusive
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survey, is undertaken by students for their nal graduation thesis but this is of a limited nature. Otherwise the most that young researchers can aspire to is to work as freelancers in, usually foreign-led, archaeological missions to Peru, or as employees in professional rescue archaeology or culture resource management (CRM), a eld traditionally low on published research potential (see below).

Cultural resource management

The dominance of CRM archaeological work is one of the determinant factors in the state of Peruvian archaeology as a whole, and of research in particular. Mitigation eld projects provide employment for an ever-increasing number of qualied Peruvian archaeologists. The INC, although backed by admirable and wide-ranging legislation, is patently too underresourced, both regionally and nationally, to oversee and direct the huge swathe of CRM work currently underway in Peru. Unchecked competition for the lowest archaeological eldwork bid, inexperienced archaeologists given free-reign over huge projects coupled to the unending pressure towards faster work and archaeological cleansing of a given region by unscrupulous building and mining companies (the main sectors requiring archaeological assessment work) contrive to produce a eld archaeology and concomitant report production racing towards the lowest common denominator, featuring substandard eldwork, inadequate recording and the patent destruction of the national heritage. Although CRM work can contribute to research, and has sometimes done so in Peru (e.g. Ponte 2000, 2006), this is rarely the case. More often than not, this grey literature lies unconsulted by other archaeologists or quite simply disappears into the bureaucratic machinery that is the INC. The negative effects of inadequately supervised CRM work (at all levels from government management to eld directorship) are an increasing problem throughout not only Peru, but also South America. Indeed CRM work is also seen as a seriously limiting research factor in the developed world (Biddle 1994). But in a world of evermore archaeologists, CRM work seems to be the only means of securing employment in a profession increasingly known for job instability, low pay and a depressing lack of research opportunities. In Peru, CRM increasingly constitutes the only viable employment alternative for the erstwhile archaeologist. The price of CRM work, which has risen steadily for the last 20 years (Higueras 2008: 1082), has also impacted on academics. Periodic work on large-scale CRM projects such as the CAMISEA (2002) gas pipeline have naturally raised monetary expectations amongst Peruvian archaeologists, especially those from state universities, who are unwilling to work in remote areas without adequate provisioning or recompense, a problem for many grantfunded research-led excavations. In some cases, the situation has descended into the semiopen sale of signatures by Peruvian INC archaeologists to foreign projects. With the signature comes the blanket of legal compliance, minimal intrusion for the foreign archaeologists and the promise of an equitable compensation for the absent Peruvian co-director.

Prospects
The current ills aficting Peruvian archaeology range from an underfunded, centralised regional INC service, byzantine heritage legislation under threat of ever higher levels of
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Figure 1. The aftermath of grave looting in the Ullujaya Basin, lower Ica Valley, Peru (photograph courtesy of Claudia L uthi).

political interference (Ministerio de Cultura 2010), the suspension of a college of professional archaeologists (COARPE) under accusations of graft, nepotism and fraud (COARPE 2009), the collusion between business concerns such as mines, breweries, tourist agencies and local heritage institutions and sites to the detrimental conservation of these (e.g. Dangereld 2007), the burgeoning rise of new/rediscovered indigenous identity and its implications for archaeological research, as well as the ever endemic looting of the countrys cultural treasures (Carroll & Barker 2011; Figure 1). The problems of the discipline in most contexts can be summed up as intellectual introversion, a general deciency in the scholarly research culture augmented by a chronically underfunded and research-poor academic environment, as well as a systemic dysfunction within the profession compounded by an ever increasing dependence on unchecked cultural resource management (CRM) work. These problems are not of course conned to Peru but are perhaps particularly poignant given the wealth of central Andean archaeology and its pivotal role in human development as one of only six hearths (cradles) of world civilization (Harlan 1971). Yet to paraphrase George Orwell, If there is hope . . . it lies in the awqa camayoc (young braves from Guaman Poma de Ayala 1993 [1615]: ch. 10). Indeed alongside failed epistemologies, a widening educational breach, and amidst all the inequalities inherent in archaeological work in Peru, a brave new world is straining at the seams. If the 1990s represented the bitter harvest of all that was bad in the 1970s through to the 1980s it is also
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true that a new generation was being formed at that time, a generation that has started to bear fruit in the last ten years. Small groups and individuals have been willing, with gathering conviction, to challenge the existing status quo. In this sense the internet and archaeological information globalisation have been instrumental in enabling a new generation of Peruvian archaeologists to engage with a wider audience, whilst allowing for reective introspection and critical awareness. As the deied scholars of the past nally retire and their obsequious cohorts fail to inspire the new generation, it is indeed amongst this younger group that the greatest change is being felt. This generation also needs to come to grips with the inequities of CRM work, a huge and ever increasing challenge. The money principle that CRM encapsulates in a working wage for the average archaeologist is obviously something that cannot be gainsaid, yet CRM and the companies engaged in it have to be made to conform more strictly to existing INC rules. CRM has to be brought in line with best-practice principles as in other countries. This requires not only more, and better, supervision by the INC but also root and branch reform of its structure, more professionalism and indeed more ambition by those within it. This requires the whole body of Peruvian archaeologists to engage more fully with the moral and ethical aspects of their work, it requires a fully functioning and competent COARPE to regulate archaeological work and research alongside government and private institutions. It requires Peruvian archaeology to come of age. If the new generation are the ones facing these great challenges, they are also seen to be most willing to move with the times. There are new publishing companies such as Auqi Ediciones, supported by new journals, for instance Inka Llaqta and Unay Runa. Most of these are lead by young critical thinkers. So if the future does not appear exactly bright, there is a mood of change, there is much foment. The way ahead may not be clear, but at least there is a greater awareness of the problems. Change, if and when it comes will be slow. When it does come, let us hope it will not just ape what has been before, but rather set out to create and support a new archaeological environment. Peru needs it, and it would make the whole archaeological world that much richer. References
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CARROLL, R. & M. BARKER. 2011. Looters strip Latin America of archaeological heritage. The Guardian 21 March 2011. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/ looters-latin-america-archaeological-heritage (accessed 26 July 2011). CIA. 2011. The world factbook. Washington (DC): CIA. Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/pe.html (accessed 14 June 2011). COARPE. 2009. Colegio Professional de Arque ologos del Per u. Lima: COARPE. Available at: http://www.coarpe.org/index.php (accessed 14 June 2011). DANGERFIELD, W. 2007. Saving Machu Picchu. Smithsonian 1 May 2007. Available at: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/peopleplaces/10024436.html (accessed 26 July 2011).

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