Flora Vilches

University of Chile · Departamento de Antropología

La arqueología del salitre desarrollada en los últimos 15 años ha contribuido a “hacer visibles” una serie de materialidades, agentes, prácticas y/o procesos sociales difíciles de identificar o poco investigados desde la documentación escrita, contribuyendo a la investigación histórica en búsqueda de una comprensión integral del ciclo salitrero en...

Historical archaeology of Chile

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, indigenous Atacameño society transited from an agro-pastoralist to a more diversified capitalist-based economy due to a growing mining industry in northern Chile. The puna herders engaged in the new capitalist order as wage laborers in sulfur mines and llareta (Azorella compacta) exploitation companies. In...

Nineteenth-century fascination for the exhibition of mummies from around the world promoted the traf cking of cultural objects from remote places including, as reviewed here, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. While well-funded and organized expeditions travelled the world seeking this material, independent sailors and traders also returned to E...

Historically, the relationships between archaeologist and the indigenous communities in San Pedro Atacama (northern Chile) have been complex and conflicting. The study of the contemporary past in this oasis situates us fully in the present, in a horizontal timeframe that gives us the chance to try a new approach to archaeology, letting our practice...

El cuerpo de material arquitectónico asociado al tiempo de las remesas de ganado en San Pedro de Atacama no parece formar parte del discurso patrimonial local. Sin embargo, su propia invisibilidad y memoria demostrarían que forma parte importante de la identidad atacameña.

During the 20th century, rock salt exploitation in the oases of San Pedro de Atacama was part of the capitalist expansion mainly associated with the great copper mining industry and to other minor uses. Historical documentation of these practices is scarce, although material remains and former actors in the mining process still survive. In this art...

Chacabuco is one of the many abandoned nitrate or 'saltpeter' towns in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The nitrate industry flourished from about 1880 to 1930, introducing a new system of production and social relations in the country. Founded in 1924, Chacabuco was active only until 1938, when synthetic nitrate developed by German chemists i...

Se presenta una síntesis de los resultados relativos al arte rupestre asociado a sitios habitacionales obtenidos durante cuatro años de investigación en la porción septentrional de la región de Tarapacá. Específicamente, se discute la variabilidad iconográfica tanto intra como intersitio, pudiendo establecer un repertorio común de imágenes que actú...

Incubo Atacama Lab began when the curatorial exchange organization Incubo invited Chris Taylor to bring the working methods of Land Arts of the American West to Chile. Land Arts is a field program that investigates the intersection of geomorphology and human construction beginning with the land and extending through the complex social and ecologica...

The development of the nitrate industry made a great impact not only worldwide but locally in the desertic pampa, between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Along with introducing a new system of production, it created a new system of social relations which produced a specific kind of cultural materiality. Systematic archa...

The development of the nitrate industry made a great impact not only worldwide but locally in the desertic pampa, between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Along with introducing a new system of production, it created a new system of social relations which produced a specific kind of cultural materiality. Systematic archa...

This article discusses two `dig projects' of American artist Mark Dion, Tate Thames Dig (1999) and New England Digs (2001), in which he advances a critique of classificatory systems by borrowing the methodology of archaeology. While the artist explicitly displays the process of laboratory analysis as an `object' itself, his critique is not directed...

INTRODUCCION Damos a conocer las evidencias más tempranas recuperadas acerca de la presencia del hombre en la precordillera de Chile central, las cuales abarcan fechas tan tempranas como los 9.870 años a.p., y que se insertan dentro de lo que se ha dado en llamar Período Arcaico. Son tres los sitios que damos a conocer aquí: Casa de Piedra El Manza...

Thesis research directed by: Art History and Archaeology. Title from t.p. of PDF. Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005. Includes bibliographical references. Text.

Thesis research directed by Dept. of Art History and Archaeology. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-90).