At the 2016 Society for American Archaeology Meeting, in Orlando, Tantaleán and Lozada coordinated a multidisciplinary symposium on new trends in ontological approaches to Andean archaeology. The end result was this well-appointed volume of 11 chapters—excluding Allen's final comments—that invites us to travel back in time across a vast region, stretching from the Ecuadorian coast to the valleys and Yungas (tropical cloud-forest) of the Argentine Northwest. The book focuses on different ways to interpret, if not imagine, how people from the past understood the world that they inhabited. This is a journey as exciting as it is challenging, which requires us to choose which theoretical tools to take in our luggage. And if there is something that the ontological turn has taught us, it is that Western models are not always the best to take with us.
The title, Andean ontologies, already anticipates the position of the editors. Or at least that of Tantaleán, who, while avoiding the essentialist discourse of ‘Lo Andino’, maintains that no single Andean ontology exists or existed, rather that many did. This is an eminently sensible statement given that we are not only talking about a very extensive region populated by quite different societies, but also disparate chronologies that go all the way back, in this volume at least, to Chavín (1200–200 BC). Focusing on this, Allen suggests that we think in terms of “ontological orientations” (p. 334), especially when dealing with principles and practices that, like ancestor worship, can be shared regionally.
Ancestral worship is dealt with at the multicomponent site of Salango (central coast of Ecuador). This is interpreted by Lunnis as a true Andean huaca, a sacred and ancestral place—a bold but well-argued interpretation. Similarly, Muro, Castillo and Tomasto-Cagigao offer a fascinating interpretation of the San José de Moro site (north coast of Peru) during the Late Moche Period (AD 650–850). Taking a perspectivist and fractal viewpoint (sensu Fowler Reference Fowler, Hamilakis, Pluciennik and Tarlow2002) of the Moche body, they describe the very real process of the transformation of a human body into an ancestor. The process of “making the ancestors” (p. 122) envisages a series of practices such as partitioning, rearrangement and stabilisation of the bodies, including the transition to other materialities. And this is but one of the myriad ways of interpreting the Andean body—or rather, bodies—in this volume. Interpreting the body is a central theme in the book.
Likewise, La Mattina and Sayre present an original interpretation of the hybrid bodies in Chavín iconography, applying analogism (sensu Descola Reference Descola2005) using the chimera figure. On the other hand, Lozada uses archaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistorical sources to undertake an actual “ontological dissection” (p. 99) of what she understands, in a heuristic way, as an Andean body. Here, she addresses issues relating to the body's anatomy, life-cycle (stages), and notions of disease and disability. Another author who bases her interpretation on these types of sources, including iconographic interpretation, is Glowacki. She studies the ontological links between Sami (life-force) and the head and, by extension, human hair. Her search begins—unnecessarily, I feel—with the biblical Samson, before ending up focusing rather more on the head than the hair. This is a pity, given the potential for ontological interpretation that human hair holds for the region.
Andean bodies are also explored from the perspective of their relationship with the landscape. The first chapter to do so is that of Spence-Morrow and Swenson, who investigate, from a mereological perspective, Moche corporality at a Late Moche site (Huaca Colorada) in Peru. This proves to be an excellent tool to analyse the relationship between the local body and architecture, which the authors recognise as being constituent parts of an integrated whole. The second is the chapter by Alberti and Laguens, who review a classic north-western Argentine archaeological case study: the La Candelaria Culture (First Millennium AD). Defying traditional narratives with their environmental and economic emphasis, they apply an Amazonian perspectivist approach to the body and landscape. In so doing, they provide an interpretative alternative to the distributional pattern of La Candelaria material culture.
Troncoso also deals with landscape, although he bases himself strictly on the material record to interpret the 3500-year-long rock art tradition found at the Valle el Encanto site (Chile). Successfully applying Robb and Pauketat's (Reference Robb, Pauketat, Robb and Pauketat2013) historical landscapes model, he interprets two ontologies: one associated with early hunter-gatherers and the other with the Diaguita. The Diaguita display common Andean themes such as bi-, tri- and four-part patterns or heads as significant elements within their rock art.
Finally, both Villanueva Criales and Mannheim provide wonderful compilations of local concepts that can be used for archaeological interpretation. Villanueva Criales breaks down several of the meanings that emerge from the Aymara Pacha concept—a word that, among other things, synthesises the notions of space and time—and applies these principles to the interpretation of ceramics from three Bolivian Altiplano archaeological case studies. Mannheim uses ethnohistorical and ethnographic records to trace ontological principles within the Quechua language before applying them to Inca research. Thus, Mannheim arrives at one of the most valuable reflections offered by the volume: “this is no matter of symbolic richness or of figurative language—this is truly the world” (p. 249). In agreement with Allen, I consider this to be key to understanding what ontological studies are about: it is about travelling through worlds that are not only thought of, and inhabited, but also constituted in a very different way. To get to know them, as the anthropologist suggests, “we should scrap the words metaphor and model” (p. 338) from our ‘travel backpack’. As far as theories are concerned, their choice is personal. In fact, this book shows us that there is no one Andean ontology, just as there is no one Andean archaeology of ontology. What remains is a great diversity of perspectives, represented here within the same volume.
Undoubtedly, Andean ontologies is a must for anyone interested in the ontological turn and new approaches to the material record of the Andes.
