The study of Archaeology in Latin America has been strongly affected by the socio-political setting of the region. The history of state repression in the 1960s-1980s is particularly challenging to study, with many holes in the traditional accounts of events. Several dictatorships (especially military governments) emerged during this period dominated by the development of the Cold War and the consequences of the Cuban Revolution. Repressive regimes remained in power for decades, until internal and international changes allowed democracy to take over a firm hold.

State terrorism included censorship, exile, detention, torture, murder, and forced disappearance. Written documents on political violence are scarce and fragmentary, with many of these sources deliberately destroyed by government authorities. New archaeological methods must be employed to reconstruct the history of the period, helping to disclose the silenced voice of victims, relatives and society as a whole.

The contributions in this important volume show the socio-political commitment of Archaeology in Latin American to shed light on the specific case of dictatorship and repression in the region. The techniques described will also provide a valuable resource for archaeologists working to understand the nature of political violence worldwide and reconstruct other historical periods without reliable written sources.

Zusammenfassung
To Write What one Could Not Tell Anyone You who live in all tranquility So warm and comfortable in your houses, You who come home at night to find The table laid and friendly faces around you, Consider if this is a man, He who toils in the mud, Who knows no rest, Who fights for a crust of bread, Who dies for the slightest reason. Consider if this is a woman, She who has lost her name and her hair, And even the strength to remember, Her gaze blank and her bosom chilled, Like a frog in winter. Do not forget that this happened, No, do not forget it: Engrave these words in your heart. Think of them in your home, in the street, When you sleep, when you rise; Repeat them to your children. Or else your house will crumble, You will be overcome by illness, And your children will turn away from you (Levi 1987:9, the translations is mine). At Auschwitz, Filip Muller was assigned to the Sonderkommando. Every day, with his fellow prisoners, he emptied the gas chambers of their piles of defiled corpses and loaded them into the crematorium furnaces of the extermination camp.

Inhalt

Theoretical Discussions.- Torture, Truth, Repression and Archaeology.- Archaeology and Left in Colombia.- The Archaeology of Conflict in Brazil.- An Archaeological View of Political Repression in Uruguay (1971-1985).- Search for and Identification of Desaparecidos.- Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology: A Balance Sheet.- Clandestine detention centers.- The Materialization of Sadism; Archaeology of Architecture in Clandestine Detention Centers (Argentinean Military Dictatorship, 1976-1983).- Objects and Representations.- "They Must Have Done Something Wrong...": The Construction of "Subversion" as a Social Category and the Reshaping of Identities Through Body and Dress (Argentina, 1976-1983).- Scratching Behind the Walls; Graffiti and Symbolic Political Imagination at Cuartel San Carlos (Caracas, Venezuela).- Emblematic Case Studies.- The Archaeology of a Search: An Archaeological Search; The History of the Finding of "Che" Guevara's Remains.- "Mexico, 1968": Among Olympic Fanfares, Government Repression and Genocide.