Lukurmata: Household Archaeology in Prehispanic Bolivia.

Lukurmata: Household Archaeology in Prehispanic Bolivia. The Fourth World follows a different time-scale to the First World,as anyone who has conducted research in the remoter areas of the Andesknows. Not only does the capital (both national and provincial) seem along way off geographically, the smaller communities seem to exist in atime that is not truly of the modern world nor truly of the ancientprehistoric world. Rather they exist in an amalgam of the two of theirown (local) making. In earlier times this must have been true as well,with local communities interpreting the wider structure of the politicalorganization to which they were clients within their own cognatereference frame. Despite this, much of the archaeology of the Andeanarea has taken a statedown view, as Bermann points out.Having tried (it is hoped successfully) to apply a localized-upapproach himself, the reviewer approached this volume in expectation ofa different focus on Andean archaeology from the usual. Sadly, thoughBermann makes a number of valid points, the reviewer was left with afeeling that this book fell somewhat short of the goal Bermann sethimself.The site, Lukurmata, is interesting. Bermann demonstrates that thesite pre-dates the flowering of Tiwanaku III, and continues past thedecline of Tiwanaku. Since Lukurmata is located in what would have beenthe Tiwanaku core area during the height of the Confederacy Confederacy,name commonly given to the Confederate States of America(1861–65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union. (roughlyhalf-way between Tiwanaku and Lake Titicaca Lake Titicaca sits 3,812 m (12,507 feet) above sea level making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world [1]. By volume of water it is also the largest lake in South America. , across the Taraco Hills andon the southwest edge of the Pampa Pampa(păm`pə), city (1990 pop. 19,959), seat of Gray co., extreme N Tex. This cow town on the Panhandle plains still ships cattle and wheat and packs meat, but the discovery of oil and gas has made it an industrial center with refineries and Koani), the site is ideally placed toaddress the questions Bermann posed concerning how alocalized/house-hold-level focus can provide data about the developmentof social systems with regional and supra-regional extents. Bermann seesfour areas of potential in the study of household archaeology,'...a "household view" of regional processes... [the]evolutionary processes grounded in the household sphere... [a means to]monitor social change and societal evolution... [and a means to]identify new dimensions of variability in complex societies' (p.6). These four areas are expanded upon in the first chapter.Chapter 2 (Household archaeology) reviews a number of differentapproaches which have been taken and sets out the theoretical stance ofthis volume. This reviewer felt somewhat uncomfortable with the tone ofthis chapter - in as much as the underlying theme seemed neo-Darwinistin approach - while not disagreeing substantially with the conceptspresented. Perhaps the concentration on modern ethnography fromMelanesia and the First World rather than including some of theexcellent ethnohistories compiled for the New World (for example, byBoas Bo��as? , Franz 1858-1942.German-born American anthropologist who emphasized the systematic analysis of culture and language structures. and the Jessup Northwest Coast Expedition to name some of the earlywork) heightened the unease, since some of the constructs Bermanntouched upon seem at odds with this reviewer's observations in theAndes. Implicit in Bermann's argument in this chapter, andsomething this reviewer takes exception to, is the assumption thatchange is a 'good thing' in and of itself, and that allsocieties change to progress. Surely one of the cogent arguments whicharises from the Americanist material is whether traditional societiesbehave in that manner, or whether change (except when imposed) is a slowprocess which occurs within the cognitive map of the members of asociety as that map develops over time to maintain the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. andidentity of a social group.Chapters 4 through 14 present the archaeology of the site. It wasparticularly enlightening to see the diachronic di��a��chron��icadj.Of or concerned with phenomena as they change through time. development of the sitethrough the elucidation of dwellings from different phases. Such atechnique is not new, but remains one of the best ways of addressingwhat happened in a society over time. In this case, it also went someway towards meeting the goals Bermann set himself, though it might havebeen closer to his goals if Bermann had felt able to use the data todetermine what domestic changes reflected adoption of specificTiwanakoid processes/social structures, and what reflected indigenouslyderived adoptions of other Tiwanakoid features. Elite architecturederived from Tiwanakoid examples (such as the Tiwanaku-style sunkentemple discussed in chapter 11) covered only part of this goal. Greaterdiscussion of what could have kept expected changes from appearing inthe domestic setting would also have been enlightening (thoughexceedingly difficult).As the tone of this review suggests, the reviewer was uneasy withsome sements of the theoretical stance taken by Bermann. While the datapresentation and interpretation were useful, the implicit neo-Darwinismof the arguments, coupled with a failure really use to the domesticarchaeology to address how changes do occur in a local setting, and whatthose changes imply in the question of how supra-local societies changeand influence local lives, were disappointing. At the risk of laying thereviewer open to the charge of having an axe to grind Axe to grindUsed in context of general equities. Involvement in a security, whether through a position, order, or inquiry. , it was alsodisappointing to see Bermann use the Wari Empire model in what seemed tobe an uncritical manner, since much of this reviewer's own work inthe Peruvian Middle Horizon suggests the model Bermann followed isflawed.R.M. CZWARNO Institute of Archaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. , University College London “UCL” redirects here. For other uses, see UCL (disambiguation).University College London, commonly known as UCL, is the oldest multi-faculty constituent college of the University of London, one of the two original founding colleges, and the first British