Archaeologists, Bananas, and Spies: the Development of Archaeology in Northern Colombia
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© ARQUEOLOGÍA IBEROAMERICANA 45 (2020): 11-21. ISSN 1989-4104. https://laiesken.net/arqueologia/. REVIEW ARTICLE ARCHAEOLOGISTS, BANANAS, AND SPIES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN NORTHERN COLOMBIA Wilhelm Londoño Díaz Universidad del Magdalena, Colombia ([email protected]) «Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the centre of the town, the banana company arrived, pursued by the leaf storm» (Gabriel García Márquez, Leaf Storm, 1955). ABSTRACT. Archaeology in northern Colombia, from the perspective of social history, was developed by American archaeologists after the First World War, when the United States began an expansion in Central America and the Caribbean through banana plantation operations. The United Fruit Company (UFC), a Boston-based company, owned large tracts of land in Central America and some areas of South America, including the Magdalena region in Colombia. Many archaeologists, associated with various museum institutions, used the banana company’s networks to conduct archaeological expeditions alongside their espionage efforts attempting to stop what was considered German and Bolshevik expansion. This paper explores the emergence of archaeology in northern Colombia within this political framework. KEYWORDS. Colonialism; archaeology; Caribbean; United States; politics; history. ANALYSIS TOOLS twentieth century, did not necessarily represent homo- geneous positions. The logic and scope of archaeology In the mid-1980s, Patterson published a troubling ar- could be interpreted as an ideological project trying to ticle questioning the social and political conditions set trends in the ways of doing and thinking; such an determining the development of archaeology in the ideology was conceived by the critical social sciences United States in the twentieth century; he called this emerging after the epistemic and political revolution approach Americanist Archaeology (1986). Patterson of May 1968 (Susen, 2014). remarked that his social and political history of archae- Patterson was one of the first to call attention to the ology was alternative and even critical and revisionist, fact that archaeology created historical narratives con- compared with most disciplinary and self-congratula- cerning the civilising projects of the United States; this tory readings, which showed the development of ar- was done, not from the crude vision of an ideological chaeology in the United States as a consequence of imposition hiding reality as, for example, the Nazis trajectories of progressive success, ignoring the social intended (Arnold, 1990), but from a cultural produc- contexts that imposed disciplinary issues or trends tion that creates in the public an experience designed (Patterson, 1986: 7). Patterson, taking a critical per- by the narrative. Undoubtedly, Patterson shares with spective that evoked the reflections of the social sciences Augé (1995) the idea that the cultural experience in late in the previous decade (Clements, 1972), pointed out modernity is designed, which does not mean it is false. that it was possible to understand archaeology as an Unlike the traditional place of anthropology, a locality expression of the imposition of a dominant narrative now lost to the interconnectivity of globalisation, the by groups that, in the capitalism of the last third of the non-place as a new anthropological place is expressed Received: 8-2-2020. Accepted: 4-3-2020. Published: 18-3-2020. Edited & Published by Pascual Izquierdo-Egea. English editing by Emily Lena Jones. Arqueol. Iberoam. Open Access Journal. License CC BY 3.0 ES. https://purl.org/aia/4502. ARQUEOL. IBEROAM. 45 (2020) • ISSN 1989-4104 as the space of intentionality. As Augé points out, a non- stitution of Washington (Patterson, 1986: 12). The first place promotes a consumable view of history, functional part of the project, lasting a decade, focused on Guate- to the commodification of culture. mala and was supported by the United Fruit Company In this way, Patterson, familiar with the post-struc- (UFC). The tense relationship with Mexico meant turalist analyses of the 1970s, found in the social his- Morley would not arrive at Chichen Itza until 1924 tory of archaeology in the United States, two tendencies (Patterson, 1986: 12). Regarding the Carnegie archaeo- of dominant groups trying to impose their narratives: logical programme, Patterson says: on the one hand, a trend based on the international monopoly and financial capitalism that he called East- “The Carnegie archaeological program was not value free ern Establishment and, on the other hand, a trend based and neutral, for it carried a subtle political message to the on national capitalism that he called Core Culture revolutionary government of Mexico and to the peoples (Patterson, 1986: 8). For Patterson, Eastern Establish- of Central America. By focusing on the Maya, the most ment is related to a foreign policy approach seeking to brilliant culture of the pre-Columbian world, the archae- influence the design of the societies in which the United ologists were implicitly questioning the unity of the Mex- States intervened through the installation of military ican state and the cultural attainments of the ancient so- industries and occupations, especially in Latin America cieties of central and northern Mexico – the regions that and the Caribbean. Core Culture reflects a more nation- controlled the modern state” (Patterson, 1986: 12). alist tendency, that of the cultural centre including in- ternal politics as a priority. For Patterson, Henry Ford This situation was not exclusive to this period, nor expressed a version of Core Culture in the restoration was it limited to works focused on the Mayan culture. of the Greenfield Villa and the construction of the The delegitimisation of local cultures through archae- Henry Ford Museum, evoking the old days of a rural ology has been a constant in Latin American countries. republic characterized by harmonious relations, with- In the case of Colombia, the establishment of the ar- out signs of the participation of the elite in crafting these chaeological research agenda of the north of the coun- stories. In contrast, John D. Rockefeller Jr. represented try replicated this approach because the first archaeolo- the internationalist vision, one example of which can gists arriving in Colombia, from institutions in the be seen in the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, United States, indicated the local tribes were pale and which evoked the plantation elite as a mobiliser of true blurred reflections of what once were great centres of American values (Patterson, 1986: 11–12). civilisation. There is even more. These first archaeolo- These capitalist formulations, one based on promot- gists belonged to the traditions founded by the expan- ing local culture and the other on expansionist projects, sionist capitalism of the United States; therefore, it is involved an agenda extending beyond the borders of possible to trace in these researchers their ascription to the United States. Consolidated in the last decade of the colonialist companies of the United States and their the nineteenth century, these involved, whether for roles as spies in the service of the US Navy. These con- internal or external politics, the creation of specialists tours of the history of archaeology in northern Colom- and funding agencies to achieve their objectives bia are very interesting because the historical develop- (Patterson, 1986: 8). After 1918, at the end of the First ment of this discipline has been presented, most of the World War, the expansionists began to finance archaeo- time, as a progressive triumph through the accumula- logical research by individuals and museums, consoli- tion of data, with little reflection on the means of col- dating the research agenda of the Carnegie Institution lection and use of the same data to feed dominant nar- of Washington and creating the International School ratives. of American Archaeology and Ethnology in the Na- As this article shows, when looking at the social con- tional Research Council (Patterson, 1986: 10–11). text of the beginnings of archaeology in northern Co- With the Mexican revolution of 1911 and the growing lombia, we find its development was not due to men fear by US investors of losing their possessions in north- of science disconnected from interests; on the contrary, ern Panama, military interventions in Veracruz (1914) it was driven by individuals with specific missions as- and northern Mexico (1916) soon followed. This con- signed by intelligence agencies and transnational com- text surrounded the research projects on Mayan cul- panies attached to the wing of expansionist capitalism tures directed and planned by Sylvanus Morley in 1915 of the United States. To understand the development and conducted under the auspices of the Carnegie In- of pre-Hispanic dominant narratives, the trajectories – 12 – ARQUEOL. IBEROAM. 45 (2020) • ISSN 1989-4104 of two academics, John Alden Mason and Gregory tion of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chi- Mason, who came to Santa Marta to conduct archaeo- cago (Harris & Sadler, 2003: 50). Mason’s role was not logical research at the beginning of the 20th century insignificant; he received direct orders from Josephus will be used. In their narratives, we find clues to the Daniels, secretary of the United States Navy. The as- prevailing historical narrative. signment involved using his role as an archaeologist to report movements of potential enemies in Mexican ter- ritories.