At the Intersections of History: Collaborative Archaeology across the Americas

This talk presents two collaborative and multidisciplinary research projects, one set in the Southern Peruvian Andes and the other in Northern Texas, each informed by Black feminist and decolonizing practice. Both projects attend to marginalized histories through colonial and postcolonial contexts, incorporating descendant communities and local stakeholders into the fabric of the research design. In the Andes, the Proyecto Arqueológico del Valle de Andagua studies social life in the Valley of Volcanoes, a place known for one of the latest cases of mummy worshipping in the Andes with ancestor veneration as a locus of resistance to the Spanish colonial state in the mid-eighteenth century. Today, residents identify the contemporary Peruvian State as the sharpest era of subjugation, noting the contradictions of the postcolonial state. In Denton County, Texas, as part of a road improvement project, the Texas Department of Transportation is supporting the Bolivar Archaeological Project in its investigation of a nineteenth-century blacksmith shop and neighboring hotel. The blacksmith shop belonged to Tom Cook, an African American Freedman, whose descendants became active participants in the project. These projects recognize history is an active process, demonstrating how collaborative projects and the process of co-laboring can co-produce knowledge and realize inclusive histories.