CHALLENGING THE DICHOTOMY EDIT ED BY LES FIELD CRISTÓBAL GNeccO JOE WATKINS CHALLENGING THE DICHOTOMY • The Licit and the Illicit in Archaeological and Heritage Discourses TUCSON The University of Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu © 2016 by The Arizona Board of Regents Open-access edition published 2020 ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-3130-1 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-4169-0 (open-access e-book) The text of this book is licensed under the Creative Commons Atrribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivsatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Cover designed by Leigh McDonald Publication of this book is made possible in part by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Field, Les W., editor. | Gnecco, Cristóbal, editor. | Watkins, Joe, 1951– editor. Title: Challenging the dichotomy : the licit and the illicit in archaeological and heritage discourses / edited by Les Field, Cristóbal Gnecco, and Joe Watkins. Description: Tucson : The University of Arizona Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016007488 | ISBN 9780816531301 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Archaeology. | Archaeology and state. | Cultural property—Protection. Classification: LCC CC65 .C47 2016 | DDC 930.1—dc23 LC record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/2016007488 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-0-8165-4169-0. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction. Entrance: The Museo Nacional, Bogotá 3 Les Field, Cristóbal Gnecco, and Joe Watkins PART I. NATION-STATES, TRUTH, LEGITIMACY The Law, the Market, and the Discipline of Archaeology: An Undisciplined Reading 23 Nick Shepherd Fact and Law: Guaquería and Archaeology in Colombia 41 Wilhelm Londoño Artifacts and Others in Honduras 56 Lena Mortensen Looting the Oklahoma Past: Relationships and “Relation Shifting” 75 Joe Watkins Archaeology, Nationalism, and “Looting”: Lessons from Greece 91 Ioanna Antoniadou The Structures and Fractures of Heritage Protection in Palestine 106 Khaldun Bshara VI • CONTENTS PART II. ETHNOGRAPHIES OF DUALITIES Digging for Ivory on Bering Strait: A Long History of Licit Excavation 129 Julie Hollowell The (Il)Licit, the Archaeological: An Ethnographic Story of Profanation 154 Cristóbal Gnecco and Juan Carlos Piñacué Excavation, Wa k a s , and Illicitness: Changing Frames 166 Alejandro F. Haber Dynamism Not Dualism: Money and Commodity, Archaeology and Guaquería, Gold and Wampum 180 Les Field Museums as Cemeteries: Do the Living Really Matter? 197 Paul Tapsell Contributors 219 Index 223 AcKNOWLEDGMENTS HE EDITORS WOULD LIKE to effusively thank the Wenner-Gren Founda- Ttion for their support for the 2011 workshop held in Bogotá and Villa de Leiva, Colombia, entitled “Illicit Excavation, Archaeology, Communities and Museums: An International Workshop on Complex Relationships and Future Perspectives.” We specifically thank Leslie Aiello and Laurie Obbink for their encouragement and hope they will be pleased with the outcome of their efforts on our behalf: this volume. In Colombia we want to thank the Universidad de los Andes, where our workshop took place, particularly the participation, financial support, and intellectual inspira- tion of the dean of social science, Professor Carl Langebaek. Professor Langebaek and the university also helped to fund our workshop. Carlo Emilio Piazzini, then sub- director of the Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia e Historia (ICAHN), also was a strong supporter of our workshop, presented a paper, and provided funding. Clara Botero, then director of the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum), very early on took an interest in the ideas that led to this workshop, helped to arrange a visit to the museum by the workshop’s participants, and also provided funding. Special thanks to the museum staff for accommodating us and for patiently tolerating and responding to our diverse questions and comments. We want to thank and recognize the participation of Yannis Hamilakis (University of Southampton, U.K.) and of Fernando López Aguilar (Escuela Nacional de Antro- pología e Historia, Mexico), whose contributions to our workshop were important. Without the consistent and skillful efforts of Katie Hoeppner, an ethnology grad- uate student at the University of New Mexico and Les Field’s research assistant, this volume would never have been finished. At the University of Arizona Press, we also VIII • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FIGURE I.1. The Wenner-Gren Workshop, January 2011, at La Guaca in Villa de Leiva, Colombia; (from left to right): Juan Carlos Piñacue, Alejandro Haber, Lena Mortensen, Julie Hollowell, Les Field, Cristobal Gnecco, Joe Watkins, Yannis Hamilakis, Wilhelm Londoño, Fernando López, Nick Shepherd, Paul Tapsell. want to thank Allyson Carter, Scott De Herrera, Amanda Krause, Mary M. Hill, and Abby Mogollon. Each of the co-editors would like to thank his indulgent, supportive, inspiring families and friends, to whom we dedicate this book. Les Field: Above all, love and thanks to my wife, Gia Scarpetta; our children, Lukas, Simon, and Maia; my deceased mother-in-law and dear friend, Vee Dysart, who first talked to me about (and showed me)guaquería ; the support of my father- in-law, Reinaldo Scarpetta, and my stepfather-in-law, Sam Dysart; my gentle and loving brother Adam Stern, whom we lost during the making of this volume; and of course my brilliant co-editors and dear friends, Cristóbal and Joe. Cristóbal Gnecco: Thanks to the loving tribe, Cristina, Emilio, and Isabel, now extended with Kaala and Baltazar. I acknowledge the support of the Department of Anthropology of the Universidad del Cauca, where I have the honor to teach and where the blessings of friendship and comradery have incarnated in Herinaldy ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • IX Gómez and Tulio Rojas. Editing this book with Les and Joe has been inspiring and rewarding. I will never forget a visit we made together to Acoma while this book was slowly taking place. There I learned how much I owe to the craft I chose: places, friends, moments, unending conversations. Joe Watkins: Thanks as always to my wife, Carol Ellick, who makes projects such as this ever possible, and to Ethan, Sydney, and Emily, whose energy and curiosity are always invigorating. This book has been a wonderful collaboration across continents and communities, and everyone involved has contributed greatly to my professional and personal growth. More so, however, the camaraderie between Les, Cristóbal, and me has strengthened the idea that we are, indeed, triplet brothers of different mothers. And to all those with whom we work all over the world, for whom it is life itself for which they struggle: “Hay hombres que luchan un día y son buenos. Hay otros que luchan un año y son mejores. Hay quienes luchan muchos años y son muy buenos. Pero hay los que luchan toda la vida: esos son los imprescindibles” (Bertolt Brecht as quoted by Silvio Rodríguez). CHALLENGING THE DICHOTOMY Introduction ENTRANCE • The Museo Nacional, Bogotá Les Field, Cristóbal Gnecco, and Joe Watkins N 2010, IN THE LEAD-UP to the workshop upon which this volume is based, Les I Field (one of the three editors) once again visited the Museo Nacional (National Museum) in Bogotá, Colombia. The first floor of the museum is focused upon prehis- panic Colombia and features an extensive set of exhibits about the San Agustín site, indisputably Colombia’s most renowned archaeological treasure and a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well. The exhibit features both artifacts and historic photo- graphs of Colombian and foreign archaeologists and anthropologists who partici- pated in the early excavation of the area in the 1940s. As Field inspected the photographs, one of the museum guards initiated a con- versation with him about San Agustín. The guard told Field that he came from San Agustín and pointed out that in several photos his own grandfather and stepfather were standing next to the famous scholars Paul Rivet and Luis Duque Gómez. The guard laughed. “They didn’t do any of the digging!” he said, referring to the scholars. “It was all my abuelito—a guaquero!” A guaquero in Colombia and Ecuador is someone who engages in nonarchaeo- logical, nonscientific excavation, orguaquería , an activity that at various points in Colombia’s history has been considered a legitimate occupation but has also been, now and in the past as well, considered illicit and criminal. The watchman contin- ued. The scholars had relied on his grandfather and stepfather to determine if and where there were tombs at a part of the San Agustín complex, already internationally famous and treasured, where the Colombian state was building the first tourist hotel in the area. His family members had used a media-caña, a sort of digging rod that guaqueros have traditionally used: hardly a scientific tool. They had indeed found 4 L • ES FIELD, CRISTÓBAL GNECCO, JOE WATKINS tombs at the spot where the hotel was to be constructed. What had happened to the objects that were found, fabulous gold objects, including a gold crown, according to the watchman? Some ended up in the collection that became part of the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum); but many of them, said the watchman, again with a laugh, were sold by the very same scholars, who came back to San Agustín the next year with much fancier cars and clothing. This striking and disjunctured conversation about archaeology, guaquería, legiti- macy, illegality, museums, private collections, commodification, tourism, state inter- vention, national heritage, and international status embodies and is a fitting starting point for an elaboration of the themes of this volume, which explore similar, resonant relationships among what appear to be diametrically polar opposites.