The Curatorial Voice: U.S. Institutions Exhibit the Ancient Andes

Two new exhibits on ancient Andean civilizations are open in the United States. Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas is a large traveling exhibition and Tiwanaku: Ancestors of the Inca is a smaller temporary exhibition that is not traveling. Both introduce North American audiences to objects and information that have never been exhibited in the United States and each includes some extraordinary artifacts. The two exhibits differ in many ways: Machu Picchu emphasizes information, archaeological science, and cultural history, whereas Tiwanaku focuses on art style and objects. The curatorial voice and point of view are strong in each exhibit, as is the institutional perspective of its originiating museum. In this respect these exhibits differ significantly from contemporary ones on ancient North America, which generally include the voices and points of view of descendant communities and others.     

The introduction of Old World crops (wheat, barley and peach) in Andean Argentina during the 16th century a.d.: archaeobotanical and ethnohistorical evidence

It was believed for a long time that the first Old World crops were introduced to the northwest of Argentina in a.d. 1550 during the foundation of Barco, and that the indigenous people incorporated them into their subsistence almost passively. However, since wheat, barley, and peach have been recovered from El Shincal, an Inka (Inca) administrative centre, new questions have arisen about who first brought these crops to the study region, as well as about where they were grown for the first time and which routes they followed after that. This paper will try to solve these questions during a period ranging from the 16th to the 18th century. This time span, although arbitrary, is consistent with the major damage to the original social structure caused by the Spaniards to the local indigenous populations. Our approach includes the comparison of ethnohistorical with archaeobotanical evidence. It is concluded that the first Old World crops were brought from Chile to Santiago del Estero by Spanish soldiers in a.d. 1556, and to Londres in a.d. 1558. These crops were taken up by local indigenous people during the period of the encomenderos and used to carry out a pachamanca ceremony at El Shincal during a Diaguita rebellion. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at