Review Article

The good, the great and the ugly?
Identity, palaces and more in the Americas

Kevin Lane
School of Arts, Histories and Cultures
University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
(Email: kevin.lane@manchester.ac.uk)

Books Reviewed

RICHARD MARTIN REYCRAFT (ed.). Us and them: archaeology and ethnicity in the Andes (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph 33). vi+242 pages, numerous illustrations & tables. 2005. Los Angeles (CA): Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California; 1-931745-17-X paperback £24.

JESSICA JOYCE CHRISTIE & PATRICIA JOAN SARRO (ed). Palaces and power in the Americas: from Peru to the Northwest Coast. xiv+414 pages, 126 illustrations, 4 tables. 2006. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press; 978-0-292-70984-3 hardback £29.

WILLIAM H. ISBELL & HELAINE SILVERMAN. Andean archaeology III: North and South. xii+523 pages, 155 illustrations, 16 colour plates, 14 tables. 2006. New York (NY): Springer; 0-387-28939-9 hardback $159.

This review deals with three very different edited books: two of them stem from symposia whilst the third is a follow-on in Isbell and Silverman's Andean Archaeology series which began with volumes I and II back in 2002. They each have their strengths and weaknesses but, for various reasons discussed below, the symposia volumes work significantly better than Isbell and Silverman's collection.

Identity in the Andes

The book edited by Reycraft examines the perennially interesting subject of ethnicity and more specifically identity across the central Andes. Arising from a symposium held at the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) conference in Chicago in 1999, Us and them suffers, like many recent books as we shall see, from a definite south to north imbalance with only three out of eleven case-studies approaching the problem from a northern angle. Furthermore, the few articles on the north are coastal in nature, with almost the whole of the northern highlands left bereft of treatment. Granted, this is probably a consequence of the vast amount of work presently undertaken in the southern cone, such as the Contisuyu Programme in southern Peru led by Michael E. Moseley. This state of affairs does, however, mean that a vast amount of scholarship dedicated, for example, to the highland regions of Piura, Cajamarca and Ancash in the northern Andes is being neglected. Throughout recent Andean literature, excepting the coastal Moche, there appears to be a general dearth in treatment of material from the north.

This aside, the premise of the volume is a good one. Reycraft sets the tone in the introduction to what is a very data-heavy volume. The majority of the authors try to grapple with the thorny issue of identity and how to relate it to archaeological material correlates, be they artefacts or bioarchaeological evidence. Rather than steer the proceedings, Reycraft allows the different authors to forge their own interpretation of what identity is; this laudable approach is complemented by two concise and well argued concluding discussion pieces by Charles Stanish and Jane Buikstra.

The anthropologically grounded pieces, such as the articles by Bawden, Reycraft and Vaughn, adhere to definitions of ethnicity given by Barth and Cohen in the 1960s and 70s respectively. This in itself is fine, although there is too little consideration (a point made by Buikstra herself in the conclusion) of modern work on ethnicity and identity from scholars such as Siân Jones's 1997 Archaeology of ethnicity. The fact that these more recent texts are given such short shrift within the US, and especially in South American scholarship, speaks volumes about the state of archaeological theory on both sides of the Atlantic and the lack of effective discourse between our respective academic institutions.

In the meantime, the bioarchaeologists (Williams, Blom, Sutter, Lozada and Buikstra) flag up the limitations inherent in their discipline. This is a surprising, though timely, observation which deflates the flurry of optimism that accompanied the arrival of bioarchaeological, and especially genetic, studies in the early 1990s. Although able to add greatly to our understanding of the past, bioarchaeology constantly serves up as many problems as it is supposed to solve. In the end, as Jane Buikstra reminds us, 'No single attribute is necessarily an ethnic marker...' (p. 234).

Two articles by Heckman, Oakland Rodman and Fernandez Lopez on textiles as vehicles for conveying identity and belonging are a novel and welcome inclusion. Andeanists have long been aware of the importance of textiles in the Andean past as well as present. The juxtaposition of these two articles serves to bridge the conceptual gap between ethnography and archaeology, and demonstrates how weaving in pre-literate societies can be an important medium for the transmission of codes and meaning.

Although Janusek's article on the material correlates of identity in Tiwanaku is well structured, I have problems following his ethnohistorically observed existence of the ayllu in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries back to the Middle Horizon (AD 600-1100). I fear that the theoretical and archaeological underpinnings of such an assumption have not been convincingly elucidated either here or in his recent volume (Identity and power in the ancient Andes, 2004). I have similar misgivings about an article by Lozada and Buikstra, in which they take an ethnohistorically observed model of coastal exploitation between farmers and fishermen and transpose it to the other end of the central Andes to gain an understanding of the organisation of Late Intermediate Period Chiribaya society. Other than critiquing the possible limitations of Murra's vertical archipelago model (in favour of a more horizontal model), I do not see how the authors can substantiate the transferral of this model to the south coast on social or economic grounds as these two societies where so very different.

Following from this it is refreshing to read Stanish's brief criticism of the concept of 'lo Andino' and the uniqueness of Andean social development. Of importance too is his reiteration of three different cultural trajectories in the Andes, one in the north and central coast, another in the north and central highlands and one in the south. I believe that this is on the right track, although I am yet to be convinced that there is a major difference between the north and south central Andean highland cultural trajectories. Finally, Bourget's article ('Who were the priests, the warriors and the prisoners?') starts well but fails to deliver, repeating points made in earlier articles. Nevertheless, overall this volume is a great introduction into how to tease out ethnicity and identity from the archaeological record; it is well served by strong case-studies and an actual attempt to grapple with real archaeological material in many different forms.

American palaces

Christie and Sarro present a volume based on a SAA symposium convened in Philadelphia in 2000 concerning palaces across the Americas; it is a natural development of the more narrowly focused 2003 volume by Jessica Christie (one of the editors) entitled Maya palaces and elite residences. Given their scholarly preferences in Mesoamerican archaeology it is hardly surprising that the editors show a certain bias towards case-studies from this area. Indeed only five out of the twelve case-studies showcased here (without including the comparative piece by Christie on Inca and Maya palaces) are from outside this area. Of these five examples, three are from South America and two from the North.

Nevertheless, this is a well thought out and presented volume with three main sections. The first deals with the identification of palaces; palaces as theatres of political action follow; the third section asks how the material correlates of a building create the setting for either elite residences or palaces. A final part compares palaces across cultures, from a local comparison between Chimu and Inca along the North coast of Peru by Carol Mackey to an ambitious piece by Christie between Maya and Inca palaces. These two articles are comprehensive and elucidate the different strategies employed by the various cultures which on the one hand project their power and on the other - as is the case of the Chimu at the Farfán complex - integrate earlier palaces within the power structure of the new dominant entity, in this instance the Inca.

What is immediately apparent in Christie's article is that completely different strategies are employed by the Maya and the Inca in the construction of their palaces and the ideologies that they serve to show. As Christie aptly points out, the Inca were at the centre of a largely unified empire under a paramount ruler with a blanketing ideology while the character of the Maya evidence is much more segmentary in accordance with the scattered nature of their conquests and imperial holdings. However, it is not the studies of cultures with a well-known predilection for constructing palaces that set the volume apart (although Chapdelaine's measured consideration of the Moche Huaca de la Luna as the palace of a paramount ruler is wonderfully executed), but rather the manner in which the editors expand the definition of palaces to encompass elite residences and the social practises therein. This is most welcome, as it brings into contention architectures of power that have been relatively ignored until now.

Whether considering trans-egalitarian dwellings on the Pacific Chiapas coast (Blake et al.), elite residences in Oaxaca (Barber & Joyce), North coast Peru (Chapdelaine) and Northwestern coastal North America (Grier) or the possibility that palaces existed amongst the Great House structures of the Puebloans (Lekson), the articles both confound and stretch our interpretative powers. They lead to an increased appreciation of elite structures and help to take the 'palace' out of the cultural evolutionary box where it has been intimately associated with state structures. Indeed, this interesting theoretical transgression alone could form the basis of another conference and volume.

Other articles range from Isbell's important treatise on the possibility of Huari palaces to the inherent variability in expressions of power, and hence in palace construction, amongst the Mayan polities of the Pasión Valley (Demarest). Sarro deals with the site of Tajín and stresses the necessity to understand local expressions of power and authority rooted in both secular and cosmological control through a complex palace-temple structure set above the city. Finally Sanders and Evans (chapters 9 and 10) sketch out the development of society, elite dwellings and palaces from Classic-period Teotihuacan through to late-Aztec Tenochtitlán, providing an important overview of developments within the central Mesoamerican culture area.

All in all, this solid volume will act as an important point of reference for future studies into palace or palace-like structures in the New World. It would be interesting to see further research into cultures located in geographic areas touched only tangentially in this book, such as the mound-builders of the Mississippi culture and perhaps other South American cultures, including the Nasca, or even the Chavin and the Norte Chico area.

North and South in the Andes

Our third book is Isbell and Silverman's third volume in their Andean archaeology series and it is not unjust to view it with a fair degree of opprobrium. It ostensibly undertakes a revision of the Peruvian Co-tradition as first elaborated in the 1940's by Wendell C. Bennett and others. As the premise for a volume it is definitely important and also timely, especially in the light of new models for cultural trajectories in the Andes, such as the article here by Plourde and Stanish (chapter 9). Nevertheless, the volume fails to achieve its stated aim. Indeed, consideration of the Peruvian Co-tradition seems almost an afterthought flagged up in the final chapter by Isbell and Silverman. Given the exposure that these three volumes have been given amongst Andean scholars, this is a last remarkably mismatched and ill-conceived volume in a series which I feel has ultimately not lived up to its expectations.

It is not that the articles themselves are poor (although one is incredibly so, more on this later), it is that the thread tying them together is weak or even absent. For instance, it is hard to reconcile an article on Inca suspension bridges by Brian Bauer (no matter how good; and this one is a particularly well argued and presented piece) with arguments for and against the Co-tradition model. This is implicitly acknowledged by the authors' reflection on only four articles in their conclusion. Rather, the volume comes across merely as a haphazard compendium of articles which could just as easily have appeared across various issues of Latin American Antiquity.

The problems start early with a, by now familiar, variance in the number of articles across the north-south divide: only six in the former and ten in the latter. Of these last ten articles, four deal with the circum-Tiwanaku area which introduces yet another substantial bias. Then within the volume there are good articles on a variety of topics and issues such as religious warfare (Ghezzi), plant use (Whitehead), iconography (Doyon; Isbell & Knoblauch), and other more generalised socio-political topics including feasting, burial, craft specialisation, warfare and early village formation (Swenson, Tschauner; Bandy; Leoni; Johny Isla & Reindel; Tung & Owen). Unfortunately, this does mean that only a few authors remain on topic; of these the ever redoubtable George Lau examining Recuay-Cajamarca relations is a particularly good example, as are Kaulicke's article on Vicús and Mochica interactions and Haeberli's piece on the origins of the Nasca proliferous style.

My reservations so far have been that the volume appears 'off-message'. But I would reserve the greatest criticism for the first article, by Ruth Shady on Caral. I whole-heartedly agree with Isbell and Silverman (chapter 18) that this is probably one of the most important sites to emerge in recent Andean scholarship. In combination with other work being undertaken in the area of the Norte Chico, Ruth Shady and her group are pushing the boundaries of complex social formations within Andean archaeology back into the Preceramic.

Yet, this article does not do justice to Caral: ethnohistorical comparisons substantiating the pachaca across millennia (from the sixteenth and seventeenth century AD back to the Preceramic) fail to convince, as do the pseudo-phenomenological musings to which we are subjected in the first few pages. It is a pity that such an important site is not better served by this, the first substantial article in English on the topic. Compared to her pioneering articles arguing against Huari hegemony back in the 1980s, this offering is unconvincing. I find her arguments here, which develop themes from her 2003 volume La ciudad sagrada de Caral-Supe edited by her and her colleague Carlos Leyva, often without substance or justification. To wit, I have serious problems with claims for an early state or city at Caral whose only justification is Andean exceptionality. Such assertions have to be argued and validated. Caral is an exceptional site and it may yet prove to be the earliest Andean city or state. But saying so does not make it so: it deserves greater rigour in argument.