Henrik B. Lindskoug

MYSTERIES FROM THE INSIDE OF THE EARTH, HERITAGE HIDDEN AWAY IN THE DEPTHS OF A DEPOSIT.

-A STUDY IN COLLECTION MANAGEMENT OF THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION AT MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA, UNC, ARGENTINA

Henrik B. Lindskoug

MASTER THESIS INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM STUDIES IMS-PROGRAMME MUSEION GÖTEBORG UNIVERSITY 2008 SUPERVISOR: ADRIANA MUÑOZ

In the memory of Alberto Díaz A close friend and brother in arms in our common battles For our internal battles against ourselves and society For what we accomplished and for what we never had time to

En memoria a Alberto Díaz Un amigo cercano y hermano en nuestras batallas Por las batallas internas contra nosotros y la sociedad Por lo que logramos y por lo que no tuvimos tiempo de lograr


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Abstract This thesis deals with the von Hauenschild collection at the Museo de Antropología, UNC in Córdoba, Argentina. It is an exploration of the history of the collection through time and space how it was formed and collected in the province of Santiago del Estero by, the German born engineer, Jorge von Hauenschild between sometime in 1928 until 1951. The collection consists of over 4000 objects, the largest amount of elements in the collection is ceramics, but it also includes various lithic tools and human remains. The study is interdisciplinary and based in material culture theory. The section of human remains has been repacked in new packing material apt to preserve it to the future. With the use of collection management to study the objects in the collection and document studies of correspondences between von Hauenschild and his large academic network both in Argentina and his international contacts an image steps out of the dark, von Hauenschild transforms from a grave robber to an academic self-thought archaeologist using modern methods for that time to investigate and reveal the native heritage of the province where he lived for over 30 years.

Resumen Esta tesis es un estudio de la colección von Hauenschild que se haya actualmente en el Museo de Antropología, UNC en Córdoba, Argentina. El trabajo explora la historia del desarrollo de la colección en el tiempo y en el espacio y cómo la colección se formó gracias al ingeniero alemán Jorge von Hauenschild en la provincia de Santiago del Estero entre 1928 y 1951. La colección contiene más de 4.000 objetos, entre los cuales cabe destacar las piezas de cerámica, así como varios herramientas líticas y restos humanos. El trabajo es multidisiplinario y adopta teorías en el campo de la cultura material. A partir del entendimiento de teorías sobre el manejo de colecciones en museos y el estudio de la correspondencia entre von Hauenschild y sus contactos académicos tanto en Argentina como en el extranjero se descubre a un hombre que pasa de ser un huaquero a un arqueólogo autodidacta. El trabajo también explora el uso que el académico hace de métodos muy modernos para su tiempo para investigar y descubrir el patrimonio nativo de la provincia en la cual residió más de 30 años.

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Keywords: Collection management, museum studies, Jorge von Hauenschild, Santiago del Estero, Museo de Antroplogía, collections, Argentina, archaeology, anthropology, conservation, museology. Contact: Henrik B. Lindskoug Museo de Antropología, FFyH, UNC Hipolito Yirigoyen 174 Barrio Nueva Córdoba CP 5000 Córdoba Capital Provincia de Córdoba Argentina E-Mail: [email protected] Acknowledgments: Many people have helped in various ways during my research for this thesis. First of all I would like to thank “El Jefe” Darío Quiroga responsible for the Laboratory of Preventive Conservation at the Museo de Antropología, UNC who I have worked with daily during my internship at the museum and during my archival research for this thesis. Without the help of him I could never have found my ways (or artefacts) in the deposit and I am also grateful for our creative moment in finding out a title for thesis. Then I want to thank Mirta Bonnin director of the Museo de Antropología for opening the door into the museum and comment on various parts in the thesis mostly concerning the history of the museum. In the archive of the Museo de Antropología my thanks go to Natalia Zabala and Amadeo Laguens for helping me with finding documents concerning von Hauenschild. Adriana Muñoz at the Museum of World Culture and lecture at the IMS-programme, my supervisor of my master’s thesis, I thank for giving me insightful comments on my progressing work. I thank Clara González for helping me with translations and tricky conservation issues in the deposit, Eduardo Ribotta (IAM, UNT) and Monica Gustafsson (IMS-progrmme, GU) for awakening my interest in conservation science and collection management. The staff and investigators at the Museo de Antropología, UNC deserve heartily thanks for helping me out during my stay at the museum. Germán G. Figueroa and Mariana Dantas at the Museo de Antropología I wish to thank for showing me their yet unpublished synthesis of the prehistory of Santiago del Estero. I also thank Noelia García and Laura Argento Nasser for the digitalization of some of the photos belonging to the von Hauenschild collection.

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Natalia Fasth for sending her thesis all around the globe so we can enjoy it here in the museum. Per Stenborg for introducing me to the archaeology of NW Argentina and for letting me participate in the Pichao project during various years in Argentina. And I want to thank Andrés Laguens for giving me the opportunity to stay at the museum with a FONCyT scholarship giving me the opportunity to stay and continue to work as a PhD student in the Museo de Antropología, also the founding agencies SCyT, UNC and Agencia for my scholarship. Special thanks to Anne Gustavsson for helping me out asking about the von Hauenschild collection in Museo de La Plata and Bettina Kirchhoff for asking about objects from von Hauenschild in the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg and for doing the opposition of my thesis during the seminars in May 2008 giving me various good suggestion for improvement of the thesis. I would also like to thank María Choya for translating the Spanish abstract. I also thank friends and family for the support during my work with this thesis. Agneta Lindskoug revised part of the English text. I’m also mostly grateful to the Adelbertska foundation at the Göteborg University, which gave me a scholarship for the academic year 2007/2008 giving me the opportunity to finish my master programme in International museum studies. Without this scholarship I would never have had the opportunity to finish my thesis since I for some time now have been without economic support from CSN.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations used in this text AMA Archivo del Museo de Antropología. The archive of Museo de Antropología. APH Archivo personal de von Hauenschild. The personal archive of von Hauenschild. CIFFyH Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades CONICET Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. National Council for Research and Technology CSN Centrala studiestödsnämnden

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EAAF Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team FFyH Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades FONCyT Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica. GU Göteborg University IAM Instituto de Arqueología y Museo IMS International Museum studies MAAM Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña. The Museum of High Altitude Archaeology RAÄ Riksantikvarieämbetet. National Heritage Board SCyT: Secretaria de Cienica y Tecnica UBA Universidad de Buenos Aires UNC Universidad Nacional de Córdoba UNT Universidad Nacional de Tucumán VKM Världskulturmuseet. Museum of World Culture

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Contents: Abstract .......................................................................................................................... i Resumen ......................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgments: ......................................................................................................... ii Abbreviations................................................................................................................ iii PART I INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 Preface ...........................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................1 AIM/OBJECTIVE/PURPOSE ....................................................................................................2 METHOD /METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................2 PART II THEORETICAL FOCUS -FRAMEWORK........................................................4 COLLECTION MANAGEMENT AS A TOOL TO WORK WITH MUSEUM COLLECTIONS..................4 MATERIAL CULTURE THEORY..............................................................................................5 THE SURVIVAL OF OBJECTS .................................................................................................7 OBJECTS AS COMMUNICATORS ............................................................................................7 Some Definitions.............................................................................................................8 COLLECTIONS......................................................................................................................8 WHY COLLECT? ..................................................................................................................9 COLLECTORS .....................................................................................................................10 PART III CONSERVATION AND COLLECTION MANAGEMENT ..........................11 CONSERVATION OF MUSEUM COLLECTIONS .......................................................................11 CONSERVATION SCIENCE DEFINITIONS...............................................................................12 WHY CONSERVATION AND COLLECTION MANAGEMENT? ...................................................13 THE MOVEMENT OF COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTION MANAGEMENT THEORY ....................13 PART IV THE MUSEUM CONTEXT- THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT ...............15 THE HISTORY OF THE MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA...............................................................15 COLLECTIONS AT THE HERITAGE RESERVE .........................................................................17 THE HERITAGE RESERVES OF THE MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA, UNC ..................................18 PART V BACKGROUND AND HISTORICAL SETTING.............................................19 THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE OF SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO ............................................19 OTHER COLLECTORS IN SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO .................................................................21 NEGATION OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE IN SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO .......................22 INTELLECTUAL ELITE IN SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO ................................................................22 PART VI BIOGRAPHY OF JORGE VON HAUENSCHILD (1877-1951). -THE SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT...................................................................................25 THE START OF A SEARCH FOR THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE OF SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO .........................................................................................................................................27 VON HAUENSCHILD’S PRIVATE MUSEUM ...........................................................................28 PRO EUROPEAN CONTACTS – ANTI INDIAN ATTITUDES ......................................................28 THE COLLECTION VON HAUENSCHILD “ON TOUR” .............................................................29 THE START OF A SEARCH FOR A NEW HOME FOR THE COLLECTION .....................................29 VON HAUENSCHILD AND THE INSTITUTO DE ARQUEOLOGÍA, LINGÜISTICA Y FOLKLORE “DR PABLO CABRERA”, UNC ...................................................................................................31 v


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INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS...............................................................................................32 CONTACT WITH THE ETHNOGRAPHICAL MUSEUMS IN SWEDEN ...........................................34 DONATIONS TO OTHER MUSEUMS ......................................................................................35 MEMBERSHIP IN ASSOCIATIONS .........................................................................................35 VON HAUENSCHILD IN THE FIELD .......................................................................................36 PART VII THE COLLECTION OF INGENIERO JORGE VON HAUENSCHILD LOCATED AT THE MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA, UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CÓRDOBA...................................................................................................................38 THE ARRIVAL OF THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION......................................................38 ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECTS IN THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION ..................................39 THE PART DONATED IN 1976 .............................................................................................39 OBJECTS IN EXHIBITION IN THE MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA, UNC ......................................40 PART VIII CONSERVATION AND REGISTRATION OF THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION .....................................................................................41 THE ARTEFACTS OR COLLECTION IN THE DEPOSIT ..............................................................41 INVENTORIES WITH INFORMATION ABOUT THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION .................43 OBJECTS REGISTERED IN THE DATABASE IN THE HERITAGE RESERVE .................................43 MATERIAL IN THE ARCHIVE AT THE MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA, UNC ...............................43 PHOTOS OF THE OBJECTS IN THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION ......................................44 CONSERVATION OF THE ARCHIVE OF PHOTOS FROM THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION ..45 CONSERVATION – RESTORATION OF OBJECTS IN THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION .......45 REPACKING OF HUMAN REMAINS .......................................................................................46 LITERATURE: ARTICLES, BOOKS, CONFERENCES PUBLISHED BY VON HAUENSCHILD ...........47 OTHER MATERIAL RELATED TO VON HAUENSCHILD IN OTHER MUSEUMS ...........................48 THE APPLICATION OF COLLECTION MANAGEMENT ON THE VON HAUENSCHILD COLLECTION .........................................................................................................................................49 PART IX DISCUSSION.....................................................................................................50 MUSEUMS IN SWEDEN VERSUS MUSEUMS IN ARGENTINA WITH SIMILAR TYPES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS .......................................................................................50 MOVEMENT OF THE OBJECTS .............................................................................................51 HAUENSCHILD’S REASONS TO COLLECT ..............................................................................52 THE INSTITUTION, THE COLLECTION AND THE COLLECTOR -THE CONTEXT OF HOW THE COLLECTION WAS COLLECTED. .........................................................................................52 PART X CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................55 SUMMARY .........................................................................................................................55 LITERATURE:.....................................................................................................................57 INTERNET SOURCES: ..........................................................................................................59 PERSONAL COMMUNICATION: ............................................................................................60 VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS: .....................................................................................................60 ARCHIVES SOURCES:..........................................................................................................60 LIST OF FIGURES:...............................................................................................................61 APPENDIX........................................................................................................................... I

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Part I Introduction The massed weight of archaeological storage boxes demonstrate daily the success of archaeological investigations in convincing museum staff of their claims for institutional immortality. (Susan M. Pearce 1997:48).

Preface Introduction During my internship at the Museo de Antropología I was assigned the task to work with the von Hauenschild collection. My interest during my internship was collection management and I spent almost all of my time in the Heritage Reserve at the Museo de Antropología where both the Laboratory of Preventive Conservation and the museum archive are located. In these two facilities I collected and searched for information about this large collection, which until now was practical untouched and undocumented. The aim was to develop a museological guide, a kind of outcast for an upcoming exhibition. I soon realised that I could use all the information collected during the internship and transform it into a master thesis in International Museum studies at Museion, Göteborg University where I was enrolled. Large part of the information gathered about the life of von Hauenschild comes from his personal archive, which is to be found in the archive of the Museo de Antropología, UNC in Córdoba. I have used this material and other material found in the museum archive to reconstruct his life and the history of his collection in the museum. I have also interviewed some of the staff of the museum to find out more about the collection and especially who has done what with the objects in the collection since there are no records of all the interventions done during the 60 years the collection has been in the possession of the Museo de Antropología. The collection consists of over 4000 objects, most of them come from archaeological investigation made by von Hauenschild over a time period of almost 20 years in Santiago del Estero, but some are also ethnographical objects collected by him. His collection became one of the founding collections of the museum and after his death it was practically left untouched for 50 years until 2000, when staff at the museum started to interest themselves for it. I started to work with the collection with the help of the staff in the laboratory of preventive conservation in the museum reserve in 2007.

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Aim/Objective/Purpose This paper is an investigation of the von Hauenschild collection located at the Museo de Antropología, which is a university museum at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, located in Córdoba Capital in central Argentina. The study is an interdisciplinary study based upon museology and uses a wide spectrum of disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, conservation and history. The aim is to investigate an almost untouched collection with the help of collection management to gain insight about what has happened to the collection and how it was formed and collected. The main objective is to study the formation and history of the von Hauenschild collection at the Museo de Antropología, UNC and to understand the context of why and how it was collected. Following this objective the collection must be put in better light/context and not only the collection, where it was collected but also the life and doing of its collector Jorge von Hauenschild must be analysed to understand why the collection was gathered and why it arrived to the Museo de Antropología. The (secondary) objective is to understand an important part of museum history of the Museo de Antropología and the von Hauenschild collection, which became one of the founding collections at the museum and one of the largest collections with over 4000 objects. In focus will be the different problems for example with human remains and ceramics in the collection. I will also try to focus on the international relations that von Hauenschild had with scholars around the world and especially with scholars in Sweden. I consider it important to put von Hauenschild’s life in a social-historical context, which I intend to do. Another objective is to try to compare similar museum contexts (i.e. museums with similar kind of collections) in Argentina with that of Sweden; university museums in Argentina aimed mainly at investigation contra Swedish museums (for example VKM, Etnografiska) hardly not investigating at all. The overall objective is to recreate the historical context for the collection basing the investigation in collection management and conservation science to describe and understand how the collection was registered and conserved. Method /Methodology Since the collection has been practically untouched since its collector died in 1951 a lot of information about the collection has been lost. Investigating the collection some of this information can be gained and one of the biggest sources of information of the history and

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formation of the von Hauenschild collection can be found in the archive of the Museo de Antropología. The study will be based on a great deal of information found in von Hauenschild’s personal archive where both personal correspondences and official letters can be found alongside with several unfinished documents designated for publication, but also various newspaper-clips from the time/epoch. Since the museum archive is still under organization a great effort has been put into finding documents concerning von Hauenschild and his correspondence with the institution. The study will be based on archive studies in the museum archive and literature studies concerning collection management and literature written by von Hauenschild, since not much can be found that is written about him or his life. The museum archive is still under classification and organization, but some parts have been classified. When I refer to the museum archive the abbreviation used is AMA1. Referring to von Hauenschild’s archive the abbreviation is APH2 and the corresponding number to the document in the archive, it might be letter, postcard or recite of some other documents. Some of the documents have no number so there is only referred to the archive in general. The actual collection will also be identified, studied and registered since most of the collections at the museum are still not registered. The museum counts with over 60.000 objects in its collections and about 20.000 are registered in different inventories3 and of these are 3000 registered in a database with barcodes4. Using collection management as a tool will help to recover information about the collection leading to a greater understanding of how and why it was collected and it is hoped that this can help in answering questions about the collection and its collector Jorge von Hauenschild.

1

Archivo del Museo de Antropología. In English: The archive of the Museo de Antropología. Archivo personal de von Hauenschild. In English: The personal archive of von Hauenschild. 3 There exists several different inventory systems in the museum heritage reserve, both inventory sheets and “libros de censos”. 4 The museum uses the programs Stockbase POS 2008 and Barcode maker for the registration of the objects. 2

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Part II Theoretical Focus -Framework The first role of the object was to symbolize the people who created it. For travelers, explorers, and missionaries, before the emergence of mass photography, the object provided the major means of representing the exotic places and people visited. The oriental anthropology was largely practiced in the drawing-room, where objects were a convenient symbol for actual people whose presence was neither required nor desired. (Daniel Miller 1994:13)

Collection Management as a Tool to Work with Museum Collections Working with the von Hauenschild collection has been a challenging task. The objective was to identify, document, register and organize the whole collection using the personal archive of von Hauenschild to create a museological guide. The aim working with collections in the Museo de Antropología is that the results obtained, during the research, is to reach the public in some kind of activity. The information will be transferred to the extension/diffusion area of the museum and with them a plan will be developed on how to reach out to the public through exhibition or some of the outreach programs in the museum or some activities related to the theme. The staff at the Laboratory of Preventive Conservation uses collection management as a tool to work with the collections under their care. The objectives are: •

Identification

•

Documentation

•

Registration

•

Organization

This will be reached with help of archive studies and investigating the collections with the help of the documentation that belongs to every collection. To understand the objects and artefacts found in the collections one has to understand the context and how to interpret the objects/artefacts and in this case material culture theory is used to bring us this theoretical frame of the study. To study all the objects in the collection in this way is not the aim of this thesis but to understand the history of objects, context and other factors concerning the artefacts/objects and the life of the collector of this collection.

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Material Culture Theory

”Material culture is that segment of man’s physical environment which is purposely shaped by him according to a culturally dictated plan” (James Deetz 1977:2). One of the main concerns of material culture studies is to move beyond the description of an object towards the explanation and social significance in different contexts through space and time. Not only to describe the object, but also to interpret and analyse all the meanings given to the object. One has to be aware of that the interpretation of an object is always related to the values of the interpreter and to/in the context that an object is interpreted in. Many different models have been developed during the years to study material culture, presenting all of them is not the aim here. Pearce (1994d) argues for that artefact studies can be divided into four main areas or categories of how the artefacts can be studied and analysed. The first is Material, which basically is the study of raw material, design, construction and technology. The second is the history, which is directed to make a descriptive account of its function and use. The third is the environment, which include all its spatial relationships. Ultimately is the significance, involving its emotional or psychological messages. These four properties may be seen as the interpretation of the object (Pearce 1994d:126) (see figure )

Figure 1: A model for artefact studies. This model comes from E. McClung Fleming (1974) adopted from figure 18.1 from Pearce (1994).

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The selection of objects is of crucial importance in the process of discussion in material culture studies. What separates an object from another object is how we select that object from a number of other objects and the meaning we thereby give it. A piece of a wall might by many be considered scrap, but if that piece of wall came from the Berlin wall this gives it another significance. According to Hodder (1994:12) all objects can be given meaning and of varied type. Hodder argues that objects have three broad types of meanings. The first has to do with how the object is used and how it conveys information about social characteristics, personal feelings and religious beliefs. This is to discuss the technomic, sociotechnic and ideotechnic functions of the object. Secondly the object has meaning because it is part of a code, set or structure. Hodder means that its particular meaning depends on its place within the code. The third is the content of the meaning, which means the historical content of the changing ideas and associations of the object itself (Hodder 1994:12).

Figure 2: Past perspectives of habit of collection. Adapted from Pearce (1995 model 1.1).

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The Survival of Objects Many of the objects kept and collected for collection are selected because of special qualities. According to Pearce (1994d:131) objects are important because they demonstrate prestige and social position. Further Pearce continues that these objects survive because of these qualities in our collections and especially objects related to religious and ceremonial spheres. These objects are usually made of highly valued material with a strong symbolic and religious significance. This can be true in some cases but it is also these kinds of objects that are most likely to be stolen. For example many of all the gold objects from the New World was smelted to produce new objects when they arrived in the Old World. The chemical structure and how it is kept and safeguarded also influence if the object will survive. Depending of the conservation of the object and its structure, if it breaks down easily and of course the surrounding environment is important to take into consideration. Objects as Communicators An object makes us feel different feelings. This depends on the object but mostly on the context of the object and of the meaning that each society creates for the object. These meanings are not fixed but vary from society to society or from different social groups in the given society or from different time periods. The meaning changes when circumstances alter (Pearce 1994b:21). One example of this is the changing meanings in space and time of the prehistoric site of Tiawanaku in Bolivia as a national symbol, which have been used by several social groups and societies from prehistoric times to modern day politics for example in case of the Bolivian president Evo Morales who held his presidential ceremony at the site (Kojan and Angelo 2005; Muñoz MS). One of the first groups to use Tiawanaku to legitimize their power was the Inkas. Later the Europeans used Tiawanaku as a symbol to strengthen their colonial power. They used Tiawanaku as evidence of the progress of history the demonstrated that the advanced and sophisticated European society had the right to dominate the primitive Indians and that they were the right inheritors of power as a natural flow of history (Kojan and Angelo 2005:386). This can also be reflected in the archaeological investigations in the region, almost all of the research projects are in some kind related to Tiawanaku and its influence on other societies and sites in the region.

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Some Definitions

Collections There are many different definitions of collections but Susan M. Pearce who has worked extensively with this thematic gives us some good insight into the problematic task of how to define a collection. Pearce (1994c:158) argues that “A collection is not a collection until someone thinks of it in those terms” and following Pearce (1995:3) once again “collecting can be described as the gathering together and setting aside of selected objects”. Durost (1932:10) argues that “A collection is basically determined by the nature of the value assigned to the objects, or ideas possessed”. Almost all museums have some sort of collections, might it be natural history specimens, art objects, archaeological, ethnographical, historical objects or as in some cases stories are collected. One has to understand the context of the museum and that it is a creation of the western world and dates back to around the 16th century when the first curiosity collection where created or curiosity cabinets. (Pearce 1995:4). Many of the modern museums are still collecting object for their collections and as Pearce (1994a:1) has described it “material arrives in museum as a result of practice (or practices) which can be described as collecting”. It is possible to tell an object’s life story or biography, how the object circulates through its “life”. The life story of objects can differ from object to object, but all objects begin their life outside collections. The circulation or life cycle of an object normally starts with production, then it can differ from object to object but normally the object circulates both in time and space from person to person before it ends up in a collection. Sometimes it enters a private collection and sometimes an established museum collection. If it enters a museum collection it normally goes through several steps, first documentation/registration then follows display, photography and publication. It must however be stressed that most objects do not go through this smooth process. The life stories of many archaeological objects for example are quite different, here many of the objects have gone through a discard phase which follows on various depositional and post depositional processes and then the objects surface again by excavation and sometimes have to go through process of cleaning and conservation before they can be studied and later stored or put on display. Objects can in these some cases be lost for a while and then surface in other places. It is important to remember that during the life cycle of an object the value and meaning of the object changes all the time as the object moves from context to context through time and space (Pearce 1994a:2). 8


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The circulation of these objects is the focus for material culture studies. The aim is to understand and analyse the different contexts and social meanings, which an object passes through. This makes material culture studies a powerful tool when working with collections and to understand the social significance of the objects in these collections.

Figure 3: Semiotic analysis of objects and collections. Model adapted from Pearce (1994a figure 01).

Why Collect? Why do people start to collect objects? There aren’t any simple answers to this question. Caple (2000:15pp) argues for eight different motives of why people collect and preserve objects from the past. The first one is curiosity, which implies that the collector seeks to obtain unusual and interesting objects. The second one is understanding/scholarship, which means that the collector collects to understand a specific question and is characterized of a wish to understand the world around us. The third reason is control, Caple means that once the past is collected and understood it can be used to provide explanations, not just about the

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past but also about the present since interpreting the past is always based in the present. The fourth motive is belief; this signifies that some people believe that it is vital to demonstrate that certain objects from the past were of great importance. The fifth motive is aesthetic, the collector collects what he believes is beautiful and aesthetic. The sixth motive concerns value, which implies that the object is collected because of age, rarity, beauty, cost and association to famous people and places, which makes the object valuable. The seventh motive is memories; this is more a personal level, where an object reminds us of people, places or actions of the past or present. The eight and last motive is veneration of age, these objects are collected because of accorded aspects of their age. Caple (2000:17) argues further that it can be a mixture of several of the motives mentioned above which makes a collector collect and preserve a certain object. Collectors The reason for why someone starts to collect and becomes a collector can be many but the recognition of the collection by “others” will legitimize what might be seen as an abnormal way of collecting a certain kind of objects. A collection turned into a museum or acquired by a museum will give the collector a social status (culture capital sensus Bourdieu). Inside the museum or institution a new social status is constructed with the new “habitus” strengthen the social position of the objects, collection and the collector, which of course is of utter most important for the collector. The collector feels a noble emotion to preserve and collect gathering objects into a meaningful collection (Belk 1994:321). One has to separate of diverse ways of collecting elements; distinctions are made between terms as acquiring, possessing, collecting, hoarding and accumulation. Following Belk 1994:317) there are both collectors and non-collectors. Distinction can be made between the non-collectors, a person that accumulates is acquisitive but lacks selectivity, the hoarder is possessive, but views the items possessed primary as utilitarian items. Collectors are more selective than indiscriminate accumulators. Both the acquisitive activities of collectors and hoarders can become obsessive and compulsive (Belk 1994:317pp).

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Part III Conservation and Collection Management “Museum and collection pieces may be neither useful not decorative, yet enormous care is nonetheless lavished on them. The risk of corrosion caused by physical and chemical factors is reduced to a minimum by careful monitoring of variables such as light, humidity, temperature and levels of atmospheric pollution. Damaged objects are always restored to their former glory whenever possible, and every effort is made to ensure that the public’s only contact with them is visual.” (Krzysztof Pomian 1994:161) Conservation of Museum Collections The conservation of objects in museum collections is necessary to preserve the cultural or natural heritage that is stored in the museum deposits. If not conservation is preformed alongside with collection management the destruction and disintegration of the objects will occur. All collections need a proper documentation and record not only to find what is hidden in the deposits but also to be able to retrieve information of the objects collected. With this information it is possible to write the history of an object through time and- what can be more important- find information, which can be used in museum exhibitions for example. This is usually referred to as collection management. All objects suffer from deterioration processes; in this case of archaeological findings there are two different kinds of damage they can be exposed by: mechanical and chemical. The first one refers to excavation, transportation, storage and research; the second occurs because of the environment and research (Santos 2002:77). The definitions used here are from Technical Update no. 1 of the Standards and Guidelines for Archeological Investigations in Maryland (2005:3): Curation means managing and preserving a collection according to professional museum and archival practices. Curators manage the protection and preservation of collections through the services of professionals in the fields of conservation and collection management. Conservation means the preservation of cultural property for the future. Conservation activities include examination, documentation, treatment, and preventive care, supported by research and education. (American Institute for Conservation Directory, 1998, “AIC Definitions of Conservation Terminology”)5.

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www.aic.stanford.edu/about/coredocs/defin.html entered May 2008.

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Archival practices are those which promote the preservation of objects through the use of acid-free housing materials and labels and/or controlled environments. Housing materials may include acid-free boxes, papers, folders, and bags made from non-off-gassing products. Storing of objects belonging to museum collections is intimately related with the three terms described above. Cassman and Odegaard (2007:108) argue that ‘containers are the curator’s most common line of defense in care and preservation. Good preservation-quality materials are needed since the containers are the most intimate contact with the individuals of concern’. Conservation Science Definitions In conservation science there is several terms one will encounter and they can sometimes be confusing so one has to separate the following and understand their different meanings. These definitions come from the AIC (see above).

•

Conservation is to act to prevent decay, injury, or loss of an object. It can also be a blanket term used to cover “the processes of cleaning, stabilization, repair, and restoration”. (see above)

•

Restoration: Treatment procedures intended to return cultural property to a known or assumed state, often through the addition of nonoriginal material. Restoration is to bring back to a more desired former condition.

•

Renovation is to put an object in “good” condition, regardless of similarity to a former condition.

•

Preservation: The protection of cultural property through activities that minimize chemical and physical deterioration and damage and that prevent loss of informational content. The primary goal of preservation is to prolong the existence of cultural property. Preservation, like conservation, is to act to prevent decay, injury, or loss of an object.

There are several factors that effect the objects, among these are climatic-environmental. Factors of deterioration that demand intervention following the Canadian Conservation Institute: • • • • • • • •

Light Accidental damage Rapid changes in relative humidity and temperature Pests and insects Poor handling Incorrect earlier repair Inadequate storage facilities Environmental pollutants 12


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Why Conservation and Collection Management? According to Miles (1988) it is of great importance for conservators to build up a record of the treatment of any given object treated by conservation. This is done to build up the history of any given object. This is done to know how objects have been treated. This is done in our case at the laboratory of preventive conservation at the Museo de Antropología, where we use conservation sheets to document all the interventions made on a given object. This is done to facilitate access both for the museum staff and outside researchers and any interested public for what has been done to the objects in the care of the museum. Miles (1988) means that it is mainly three steps and a forth complimentary. Administrable, practical and ethical and the fourth step is the construction of a database for the management of a collection. In the laboratory we work with a system of conservation sheets to register all interventions on the objects. This is done to create a complete record of interventions done and is specially made in such a way that when people in the future will work on the objects they will know how and with what we have treated them. Especially since some of the methods used now can be proven damaging in the long run. It is of the greatest importance that all interventions should be reversible without any damage to the object itself. The conservation sheets have been developed by Darío Quiroga responsible for the conservation area of the museum (see Appendix 8 & 9). The Movement of Collections and Collection Management Theory It is important that someone is working with a collection so that the information concerning the collection is always advancing. Simmons and Muñoz-Saba (2003) means that collection management can be studied following three axis x, y and z, the objects in a collection can be seen as separate elements or as a set. Here we will see the collection as a set of objects moved through time and space together. To present this graphically the x-axis represents the order of the collection. The bottom is a state of chaos, where the collection can be divided up in different spaces and with wrong labels etc. The highest level represents a collection in perfect order and a systematized collection. The steps are divided into cells, in the bottom several cells might share that same storage space, the middle is when order in the collection starts, the higher up from there the better order it is between the cells as one climbs higher up on the axis. The axis extends in both ways to an infinite (Simmons and Muñoz-Saba 2003:39). The y-axis represents growth of the collection. The collection can grow when elements are added or diminish when elements are lost, broken or deteriorated. The mid point

13


Henrik B. Lindskoug

on the axis represents when a collection is neither growing nor diminishing (Simmons and Muñoz-Saba 2003:41). The z-axis represents conservation of the elements in the collection. Positive conservation measurements on elements in the collection rise on the z-axis and negative procedures make it fall down on the axis (Simmons and Muñoz-Saba 2003:41-42). The x- and y-axis combined present a more complete representation of collection management. The location of an element or collection can be determined according to the two axes (Simmons and Muñoz-Saba 2003:41). However the best graphical representation is done when the three axes are combined, demonstrating order, growth and preservation. All of the elements in a collection are always distributed uneven on the axes. Elements in the collection or the collection as a whole are seen as clusters in a three dimensional space, following the positions on the xyz axes (Simmons and Muñoz-Saba 2003:42). According to Simmons and Muñoz-Saba (2003:44) “To evaluate the status of a collection, it is necessary to consider the degree of disorder of all of the elements of the set6. This can be done by determining the placement of the individual elements of a collection in xyz-space. Evaluation of the location and shape of the cluster of collection elements allows predictive statements to be derived about the status and the future of the collection, serves as a guide in setting collection care goals, and helps determine the costs of collection management.“ The goal of collection management is to make sure that the collection doesn’t reach negative values in the xyz space and it is a useful tool in determining future goals for a specific collection and performs calculation of budgets. If a collection is untouched it moves down in the xyz space, this is a process that is important to slow down. We can think of it as a ladder where the more information we gather and more we advance working with the collection the more it advances and climbs up a step on the axes. If no one is working with the collection it falls down a step on the corresponding axis. The ladder has infinite steps, but reaching as high as possible on the x- and z-axes is preferable. It is of importance that the collection always is on the move up on the x- and/or z-axes to improve the conditions and information concerning the collection. If no one works with the collection the information is lost and gradually we start to move down on the axes.

6

Set or collection my remark

14


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Part IV The Museum Context- the Institutional Context Unlike private collectors, museums do not seek to keep works out of circulation for a limited period of time, but for always (Krzysztof Pomian 1994:161) The History of the Museo de Antropología The Anthropological Museum or Museo de Antropología in Spanish has its roots in the founding of the Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüística y Folklore “Dr. Pablo Cabrera”7 the 10 of December 1941 in the ambit of the Rectorado8 at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC)9. The first director was Dr. Antonio Serrano. His first objective was to organize a specialized library, mount an archaeological and folklore museum and edit a publication from the same institution (Ferreyra 2006; Publicaciones 1982:8). Since then the museum has moved from different buildings a number of times during its whole existence, in total three moves. 10 In the first epoch of the Institute, between 1941 and 1955, it had a focus on archaeological investigation, studies of regional folklore, especially music, linguistic investigation and the recollection of anthrometrical dates. With the founding of the institute a small space of exhibition and collection was formed. This space was used as a complement to the investigation and there it was able to deposit and show the public the objects recovered during fieldwork. As a final destination the objects passed to enlarge the collection of the museum. Most objects were bought by or donated to the museum. During this first period in the history of the museum a very small interest was given the museum as such. The work carried out was almost pure scientific without any diffusion at all, not following the objectives of the museum, which included both education and diffusion (Bonnin 1999:81; Ferreyra 2006). The second part of the history of the museum starts in 1956 when the old Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüistica y Folklore Dr. Pablo Cabrera becomes part of the Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades (FFyH)11 as Instituto de Antroplogía12 and it maintains the museum as part of its organization. The collections have grown and now extensive archaeological, 7

Institute of Archaeology, Linguistics and Folklore “Dr. Pablo Cabrera” Headmastership, rectorate, principals office 9 National University of Córdoba 10 Obispo Tejo (1943-1963), Indepedencia (1963-1978[9]), University City (1979-1999), Hipolito Yirigoyen (1999- until present). The names represents street were the museum was located in Córdoba. 11 Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities 12 Institute of Anthropology 8

15


Henrik B. Lindskoug

ethnographical and bioanthropological objects form part of the growing collections at the museum. During this period a lot of archaeological objects entered the museum as a product of the many archaeological investigations done by the Institute. The Institute was a centre of development of archaeology as a discipline in Argentina and had a large influence on modern archaeology in Argentina (Bonnin 1999:81). During the 70’s the museum changes once again. New winds were blowing worldwide with the development of museology and the new role of museum as a non-lucrative social institution in the service of the public. These new ideas never reach the museum, because of the changing political climate in Argentina. The military regime in Argentina controls all scientific information and universities. Many investigators escape and become refugees outside of Argentina. The university museums, especially the anthropological museums, come to a standstill. It becomes a place where controlled scientific information is produced with almost no outreach to the public. The collections at the museum suffer a lot, both from deterioration, abandonment and displacement (Bonnin 1999:81). The first part of the eighties the anthropological institutes and museums at the universities are closed places where few people have access and even fewer know what they contain. The role of the investigators working at the museum was not clear, they didn’t understand that they could fill a social role to preserve and spread the cultural heritage, safe kept in the museum. In 1987 the Instituto de Antropología is dissolved and the museum becomes part of Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades (CIFFyH)13. During this time many people leave the museum and there is no clear organization or responsibility for the people working in the museum (Bonnin 1999:81-82). The museum formed part of CIFFyH until 2002 when the museum became separated and autonomous. This is how the museum functions today (Bonnin 2007:23) In the beginning of the 90’s the anthropological museums in Argentina are decontextualized and don’t form a part of the society at large. There is no connection between the social role of the museum and the investigations undertaken. The Museo de Antropología lacked qualified personal, conservation plans, diffusion policy, and a proper budget. In 1996 all this leads to the reorganization of the museum and its connection to CIFFyH. A search for new qualified personal starts and to find resources outside the university becomes an important goal. The personal starts to educate itself in museology and the new base is formed in interdisciplinary studies (Bonnin 1999:81-82). The whole structure is changed and the

13

Investigation Centre of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities

16


Henrik B. Lindskoug

museum becomes a multidisciplinary research centre, based in new ideas of museology with diffusion and outreach projects and where the safeguarding of the cultural heritage becomes important objective. This is where we find the Museo de Antropología today as part of the FFyH at the UNC and as a research centre associated with CONICET14, where several investigations take place. It is mainly archaeological investigations, but also in various different fields in anthropology and diverse fields as for example ethnobiology (Arqueología en Córdoba 1999). The EAAF15 has a headquarters in the museum. The museum is also responsible for Rescue archaeological excavations in the Córdoba province. Collections at the Heritage Reserve The collections at the museum consist mostly of archaeological material, ceramics, lithics etc, but also bioanthropological material i.e. human remains, fossils and ethnographical material. These collections have been built up both by purchase and by donations that the museum has received. The most recent objects that have entered come from archaeological investigations in Argentina and from the archaeological rescue team located in the museum and several donations have also been made lately. Most of the collections have been named after the donator or the collector who donated the collection to the museum and most collections consist of archaeological material and to some extent ethnographical objects. A collection can consist of all kinds of different material and are registered in the year in which they were donated. For example the von Hauenschild collection was donated and registered in 1948 as H48-1, H48-2 and so forth until the last number in the series. The largest or most famous collections are: • • • • • • • • • • • 14 15

Serrano collection von Hauenschild collection Rex González collection Montes collection Bormansini collection (not a registered collection, donated in 2007) Núñez Regueiro collection Romero collection Rescue archaeology collection Ambato project collection Alemandri collection Heredia collection

Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, a world recognized team with expert in forensic anthropology that is working worldwide. The other headquarters are located in New York and Buenos Aires.

17


•

Henrik B. Lindskoug

Schaffer collection

The Heritage Reserves of the Museo de Antropología, UNC The first project of management of the collections started in 1996 and since the museum works in successive three years projects, various

projects

have

been

developed. In 1997, 2000 and 2003

the

funding foundation

museum from for

obtained Antorchas working

especially with the collections. The

first

systematic

records of conservation done on objects in the collection in the Heritage Reserve are from 2004, before that there are hardly any records

Photo 1: The Laboratory of Preventive Conservation, Museo de Antropología, UNC.

at all. Most of the interventions done on the objects in the collection were reconstruction and this was almost always done only on the big funeral urns. The Reserve has also undergone two different relocations from the creation of the Institute in 1941 until it became situated in its current positions in 1978-79. This has of course complicated the situation of the objects and the documentation following the objects in the collections. Systematic surveys of the collections regarding temperature and relative humidity were initiated in 2004 at the same time as the conservation area went through a major reorganisation when Darío Quiroga was appointed responsible for the area. This was the creation of the Laboratory of Preventive Conservation16. At the same time the deposit changed named from “the Deposit” to the Heritage Reserve to demonstrate that the deposit was no longer a place to just store objects but a place of importance where actually steps concerning preservation, conservation and safeguarding of the collections and the archaeological heritage were made (Darío Quiroga personal communication April 2008).

16

Laboratorio de Conservación Preventiva.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Part V Background and Historical Setting Excavation without conservation is destruction (N.P. Stanley Price 1984) The Archaeological Heritage of Santiago del Estero Not much is written about the archaeological heritage in the Santiago del Estero province in Argentina if one compares with many other regions in Argentina. One of the reasons of this is difficult heritage laws and how they are applied in the province and at present not many

archaeological

investigations are done. Several of the first generation

of

archaeologists in Argentina, like Francisco P. Moreno, Samuel Lafone Quevedo, Adán Quiroga and Juan B. Ambrosetti were aware of the archaeological heritage in Santiago del Estero but never made any big notice of it. The first ones to actually show interest for the archaeological heritage in Santiago del Estero were Emilio Roger Wagner and Duncan Ladislao Wagner, more known as the Wagner brothers (Martínez et al 2003). They were the first to show and spread their discoveries to the world and

to

actually

try

to

Figure 4: Map of the province of Santiago del Estero.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

demonstrate the importance of the archaeology in Santiago del Estero, even if their ideas about the origin of the Chaco-Santiago civilization- they strongly believed that it originated in the old world- was not completely right17 (See Wagner 1934). They were the first who started to excavate the tombs in a more systematic way, although modern archaeologists would have seriously criticized the ways in which they worked today. The scientific information lost was enormous, they excavated several hundreds of tombs but there are no information and no records about the excavations done. Not even the museum has a complete catalogue of the objects. von Hauenschild criticized this openly already in 1941 (El Indio 15 of February 1941, APH document 118). The fashion in the last part of the 19th century and first part of the 20th century was to find beautiful objects, not the archaeological context, which is what archaeologist strives to understand and interpret today. The praxis was to acquiring objects for collections, which in many cases were related to the collectors who wanted to fill their personal curiosa cabinet, a place where strange objects and unordinary things were displayed to its public, this giving its collector a social status in the society (see discussion in part II). In these times stratigraphical excavations were seldom done, most excavations were simply done with a shovel, many objects not considered valuable were simply thrown away, for instance pottery shreds and both animal and human bones. If human remains were found, sometimes they were saved but most often thrown away and if some parts were saved it was normally only the cranium but in some few cases complete individuals were saved. This has completely changed today. 100 years ago archaeologists could excavate 200 tombs in a number of months. This is impossible with the methods used today, the work progress very slowly and a tomb can take up to a week to excavate or even longer time depending very much on the circumstances. After the Wagner brothers had opened the world’s eyes of the Chaco-Santiagueña civilization several scholars became interested in the archaeological heritage of Santiago del Estero. One of these was von Hauenschild who a couple of years later started his own explorations. Besides von Hauenschild Dr Henry Reichen from University of Fribourg in Switzerland came to Santiago del Estero in 1938 (APH document 107,108, 109, 111, 114) In 1931 the architect Héctor Greslebin18, professor of archaeology at the Instituto Nacional del Profesorado Secundario; went to Santiago del Estero to study its prehistory. Besides visiting the Wagner museum, he visited several private collection among them the 17

See further Ocampo 2005 and Martínez et al 2003. Part of his collections was donated to the Museo de Antropología, UNC however all the objects in the collection haven’t been identified yet.

18

20


Henrik B. Lindskoug

collection of von Hauenschild, Rafael Delgado and Dr Jorge Argañaraz (APH document 50). He also conducted some excavations in Beltrán (El Indio 15 of February 1941, APH document 118). It was not only the academic elite but also the public that was interested in the prehistory of Santiago del Estero. The public was interested in how the archaeological remains unearthed in Santiago del Estero were interpreted and followed the scholarly discussion in the 40’s (Ocampo 2005:115). Von Hauenschild argued in 1941 (El Indio 15 of February 1941, APH document 118) that, to perform excavations all modern scientific methods must be used, such as comparative archaeology, palaeontology, geology and ethnography. Investigations or expeditions, as it was usually called in this epoch, were made by Antonio Serrano during the 40’s. He was director of Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüistica y Folklore “Dr Pablo Cabrera”, UNC where von Hauenschild later got an employment as Ayudante Investigador. Later investigations in Santiago del Estero have been done by amongst other Victor Nuñez Reguiero19, Roque Manuel Gómez (1970) and José Togo. Other Collectors in Santiago del Estero Von Hauenschild was not the only one that did archaeological excavations and collected archaeological artefacts. As mentioned above the Wagner brothers did extensive work in Santiago del Estero, especially around Mistol Paso in the Department of Avellaneda where they lived. The Wagner brothers’ collection was later donated to the Museo Arcaico de Santiago del Estero where Emilio Wagner got a position as director and Duncan was vice director20. Other collectors worth mentioning during the same epoch, which owned large collections were Rafael Delgado and Dr Jorge Argañaraz (APH document 50). Today we can find at least part of Argañaraz collection at the Museo de Antropología, UNC in Córdoba where also the von Hauenschild collection is located.

19

He never publish any of the results but the Museo de Antropología where he worked when he excavated in Santiago del Estero in the 60’s has a collection with objects from his excavations. 20 The museum was created in 1917 as Museo Arcaico de Santiago del Estero and has changed name several times. In 1930 it changed named to Museo Arqueológico Provincial, in 1952 to Museo Arqueológico Emilio y Duncan Wagner. Since 1992 it is called Museo de Ciencias Antropológicas y Naturales “Emilio y Duncan. Wagner”.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Negation of the Archaeological Heritage in Santiago del Estero During the 30’s many of the intellectual elite in Argentina, that were working with Argentinean prehistory were located in Buenos Aires. The two main universities that are the two most prestigious universities in Argentina, the UBA and La Plata universities are located in the Buenos Aires province. To these universities are bound the most prestigious research institutes in this area, Museo Etnografico de Juan B. Ambrosetti21 and Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de La Plata. Here most of the scientific information in Argentina is produced and it is also here that most archaeological research projects are located although the investigations are done in other provinces. One has to bear in mind that Argentina is very centralized to Buenos Aires and it is here that the economic resources are located. In this environment the people involved who were working with prehistory in Argentina didn’t consider the archaeological heritage of Santiago del Estero important. The mounds, which are prehistorical burial tombs, were considered natural formations by some of the scholars. In an important conference22 in Buenos Aires when the prehistory of Santiago del Estero was discussed it was considered of minor importance. Von Hauenschild that did work in the area criticized this and was accompanied by a minority of people, the Wagners for example. He had understood the importance of the archaeological remains left by the people that once populated the area (See for example APH document 115 and Relaciones 1940). The conference in Buenos Aires was organized in contra the Wagners and their ideas about the civilization of Chaco-Santiago. The Wagners were criticized in various ways for their delirium of the civilization that they had discovered. Lack of photos, maps, plans, fielddiaries and scientific relevance of their field work were the main critique from the archaeologists in Buenos Aires. The list of people that presented papers at the conference gives an indication that a pre-selection was made so that all the speakers were to be in contra the Wagners (Martínez et al 2003:242pp). Intellectual Elite in Santiago del Estero The Wagner brothers did send collections to France from Santiago del Estero23, especially to the Trocadero museum, where in the 1920 Georges-Henri Rivière, with the help of Alfred Metraux, George Bataille and Paul Rivet, organized the first popular pre-Columbian exhibition in France. The Wagner sent mostly ceramics from the Chaco-Santiago civilization, 21

Depending of FFyL, UBA See Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, N°2, 1940, Buenos Aires, where many of the papers from the conference in 1939 were published. 23 The Wagner brothers were of French origin. 22

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

helping the Trocadero museum strengthening and constructing the European social image of the American “others”, displaying most of the objects as art objects not in its cultural context. The objects were displayed as exotic objects of art from the New World for their aesthetic values and not for the cultural “native” context (Ocampo 2005:104pp). In 1924 Émile started to work for the museum and was in 1927 appointed director with his brother Duncan as vice director. The Wagners collected a huge amount of objects to the museum. In 1934 the museum counted with 17.000 objects and some years later 65.000 objects were to be found in its deposits (Ocampo 2005:106). Today the fruit of this can be seen in the Wagner museum, innumerable objects decontextualized and exhibited like art objects. The deposits are in a state of complete neglect and disorder, where the heritage slowly is deteriorating24. In this environment and with the same enthusiasm von Hauenschild started to interest himself for the prehistoric inhabitants of the province of Santiago del Estero with the help and guidance of the Wagner brothers. Von Hauenschild developed a friendly relation to Duncan, but not so much to Émilie and after the death of Duncan in 1937 they did not even greet each other. This can be seen in the correspondence between the Wagners and von Hauenschild. In a letter from Duncan Wagner in 1934 (APH document 65) Wagner asks him if von Hauenschild can show him some tombs. This letter is written in a friendly tone and in another letter to the Museum of The American Indian in 1936 von Hauenschild still had intimate contact with the Wagners and asks the museum to contact the Wagners (APH document 92). That this relation did change is noted in a letter from von Hauenschild to Antonio Serrano, when Serrano wants to come and visit the museum in Santiago. Von Hauenschild writes that he had developed a friendship with the late Duncan Wagner but that with his brother Emilio Wagner he doesn’t have any relation at all (APH document 129).

24

Visit to the Museo de Ciencias Antropológicas y Naturales Emilio y Duncan Wagner, the 18 of April 2008.

23


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Image 1: Map of Santiago del Estero with important sites marked, from von Hauenschild (1949b:75). The grey zones on the map are areas explored by von Hauenschild. Not to scale.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Part VI Biography of Jorge von Hauenschild (1877-1951). -The SocioHistorical Context …writing always transforms. The process of writing the past is in the present needs to become part of that which is to be understood in archaeology. The ultimate aim of much contemporary archaeological discourse is to put an end to writing, to get the story right. Empiricism inexorably encourages such a futile goal. To the contrary, there will be no correct stories of the past that are not themselves a product of a politics of truth. There can only be better or worse re-presentations of history: his [sic] story. (Christopher Tilley 1994:73). Most of the documents that we find in von Hauenschild’s personal archive are letter that he received. The letter that he sent or copies of them is absent for almost his entire life. The information presented here is based mostly on the letters that von Hauenschild received. During the 1920-1921 a copier of note (letters)25 exists, but the copier is in bad shape and it’s very hard to read the hand written letters both because of the handwriting and the bad state of conservation of the pages. The correspondence is mostly in Spanish, but there are several letters in German and English and a few in French. The first document found in von Hauenschild’s personal archive is newspaper-clips from February 1913 from the newspaper La Prensa. This clip informs us that von Hauenschild together with two other engineers Echeverría and Rhodius have been selected to perform investigations about the bridges in the Corrientes province (APH document 1). During the 20’s von Hauenschild worked in the south of Argentina with several public works. During this time there are not many documents concerning his life and doings. First when von Hauenschild installs himself in Santiago del Estero we find more information about his life around 1920. The following text is based on various documents from his personal archive and also a biographical text found in his archive giving a good description of his life. This text (APH document 329, 330, 331, 332) written in both German and Spanish seems to be written after his death most probably by his wife. Jorge von Hauenschild, originally Georg was born in Tscheidt, Oberschlesien, in Germany the 20th of May 1877 son of Max von Hauenschild (Gutsbesitzer und Landrats im Kreise Cosel).

25

“copiador de notas”

25


Henrik B. Lindskoug

He was marked out to a military carrier and entered the cadet school, Walstatt and later Lichterfelde in Berlin at the age of 15. In 1895 he obtained the grade lieutenant. In 1903 he abandoned the carrier and started to study engineering in Dresden where he studied five years. In June 1908 he came to Argentina. His first employment was engineer at F.C. al Pacifico, a train company, in Buenos Aires. In May 1909 he married Paulina Runge26 in Mendoza, daughter of Don Alberto Runge. They never had any children and von Hauenschild didn’t have any family in Argentina, Paulina also had a sister Berta Regnat besides her father in Argentina (APH document 370). Von Hauenschild stayed in Mendoza until the end of 1910 when he went to Río Negro. There he had obtained “virgin land and inhospitable land” which had been turned into new dwellings

27

(APH document 330). In 1911 he obtained an Argentine citizenship.

During the years of the First World War von Hauenschild held various public positions in Río Negro and Neuquén. In 1920 he obtained an employment at Departamento Nacional de Higiene in a campaign against malaria in Santiago del Estero. He worked close to the city of Santiago del Estero with different works (obras de sanemiento). At this time he moved to La Banda in Santiago del Estero. In 1925 von Hauenschild gets a contract from the General Direction of Irrigation28 to perform catchment studies (aprovechavimiento) of the water of Río Dulce in Santiago del Estero. He worked until 1926 in various works (obras) of irrigation and defence of río Dulce. Most of the correspondence that exist in the 20’s and first part of the 30’s are letters, recites and medical diagnosis from different doctors concerning various medical examinations that von Hauenschild did. In 1926 he got a new employment at the Escuela Industrial de la Nación de Santiago del Estero29 as professor, a job which he had until 1948 when he went to Córdoba to work at the Institute. von Hauenschild died on 2 of November 1951 after a long struggle against a sickness and was buried Saturday 3 of November 1951 in the cemetery of Carlos Paz where he lived with Paulina (APH document 320).

26

After marriage Paulina Runge de von Hauenschild. viviendas 28 Dirección General de Irrigacion. 29 The Industrial school of Santiago del Estero sometimes called Escuela Industrial de la Nación in Santiago del Estero. 27

26


Henrik B. Lindskoug

The Start of a Search for the Archaeological Heritage of Santiago del Estero According to an interview done by the La Gaceta (27 of October 1934, APH document 78, 79), a newspaper from San Miguel de Tucumán, von Hauenschild got interested in 1925 of the prehistory of Santiago del Estero. This was after the Wagner brothers had demonstrated the ceramics found in Santiago del Estero was the documents after an ancient unknown civilization. After this von Hauenschild started to perform his own excavation along the left margin of the Río Dulce. According to another newspaper article (La Prensa 7 of April 1935, APH document 82, 83) written by von Hauenschild himself he started to realize independent investigations (from the Wagner brother) in 1928. His first explorations were done in a place30 called Quiroga about three “leguas”31 north of La Banda continuing north to Chaupi Pozo. South of Quiroga he found an extensive archaeological site extending close to the irrigation system La Cuarteada. In this mode he discovered traces of two important “pueblos”. The largest one was in Quiroga and the other in front of Chaupi Pozo and some smaller settlement in between these two sites (APH document 78, 79). (see appendix 10 and Image 1). The first surveys were done in a zone around 200 km from the settlements of Chaco alongside the left margin of the río Dulce. An area of around 50 km was explored from SE to NW. Here several indications were found of that the area had been occupied earlier, close to actual rivers a distance of around 15 km. Many of the settlements found were located close to where the topography reviled that rivers had once past. Indications were found that the very large settlement, up to 100 hectares, with perfect organization and well marked streets oriented according to the four cardinal points (APH document 82). After this von Hauenschild located several sites. He worked extensively at Acosta, Quiroga, Chaupi Pozo, Bocatoma, La Cuarteada, Vilmer, Soria, Bajadita (see appendix 10). This can be seen not at least in the extensive collection found in the Museo de Antropología, UNC. Most of the objects in his collection can be related to an archaeological site. Von Hauenschild was not only interested in archaeological finds. He also excavated several palaeontological specimens. In Quiroga he extracted two tusks of Mastodon

30 31

“paraje” Around 15 km.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Von Hauenschild’s Private Museum Von Hauenschild had his own private museum in his house in La Banda, called Museo Arqueológico y Paleontológico del Ing. Hauenschild32, located at Calle España, first block. The collection consisted in 1934 of more than 2000 objects mostly ceramics and lithics (La Gaceta 27 of October 1934, APH document 78, 79), of this around 100 lithics and palaeontological finds. In 1948 when the collection was moved to Córdoba it had grown to contain more than 4000 objects. According

to

another

newspaper article (Mundo Argentino 24

of

November

1937

APH

document 99) most of the visitors to the museum were from schools or were visiting tourists.

Photo 2: von Hauenschild smoking a pipe in his private museum in La Banda. A stereotypical image of an archaeologist.

Pro European Contacts – Anti Indian Attitudes In November 1937 Carlos Gregorio Romero from Salta writes to von Hauenschild that he wants to get to know von Hauenschild better and has the “greatest respect for the men from northern Europe”33 (APH document 98). The tone in the letter is very pro European and it has a disparaging tone of the Indigenous or Indians, which was quite common at the time. This was in complete opposition to von Hauenschild’s view of the aboriginal people of Santiago del Estero.

32 33

The Archaeological and Palaeontological museum of Engineer Hauenschild My translation

28


Henrik B. Lindskoug

The Collection von Hauenschild “On Tour” Von Hauenschild lent out on several

occasions

objects

from his collection to various museums and expositions. In 1934 various archaeological objects from his and the Wagners

collection

were

displayed in the Santiago del Estero

pavilion

Argentinean

at

the

industrial

exposition (fair) in Buenos Aires (APH document 64, 67). This event is recorded in several

newspapers

in

Argentina, among them La Nacion, Mundo, La Prensa (3

Photo 3: The showcase with objects from the von Hauenschild collection exhibited at the Industrial fair in Buenos Aires.

& 4 of February 1934). A photo of part of the von Hauenschild collection, mostly funeral urns, is found in La Prensa from the Industrial fair (12 of April 1934, APH document 67, see photo 3). Von Hauenschild sent altogether 272 artefacts to the fair in Buenos Aires (La Gaceta 27 of October 1934, APH document 79). When the new hall opened at the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes de la Provinica (Santiago del Estero) dedicated to archaeology and palaeontology in August 1939, almost all the objects on display came from von Hauenschild’s collection (La Prensa September 1939 and El Mundo 14 of August 1939, APH document 99) The Start of a Search for a New Home for the Collection In

1942

Hauenschild

starts

to

write

to

several

university

departments

of

anthropology/archaeology/ethnology to find a new home for his collection and also to find a new job for himself (APH document 123, 124, 125). He turns to Instituto Miguel Lillo at Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, the most prestigious university in NW Argentina. From

29


Henrik B. Lindskoug

there they direct him to the Instituto de Antropología34 at the same university. His reasons for actually selling the collection is not clear, maybe he had suffered some financial troubles but most probably he wanted the collection to end up at a university department and with that a new job at the same department for himself. In Tucumán a great interest for the collection is showed and the people in Tucumán started to act to actually buy the collection. However this is never done and in Tucumán a change of Rector and his administration at the university comes in between. For several years von Hauenschild tries to get an employment at UNT and finally in August 1946 he gets an employment as Organizador de la Sección Arqueología, Aux del Segundo grado at the Instituto de Antropología, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras35 with a salary of 300 pesos monthly (APH document 195, 196, 197, 198, 199). Here von Hauenschild works alongside with Serrano, which at this time has taken a leave from his position in Córdoba to work in Tucumán for a while helping out with the reorganization of the institute. In December the same year von Hauenschild quits his job at UNT (APH document 203, 204). According to a document found (APH document 271) without date von Hauenschild quits because of several reasons. He finished organizing a large part of the collections and much of what can be found without classification is only “small fragments” impossible to do something with36, lack of space in the deposit, lack of time and of his personal time. This is the reason in the official document but if there were any other reasons it can’t be found in the documents. The following year in 1947 von Hauenschild is in close contact with Serrano in Córdoba once again about an employment at the Institute. This time the resolution is approved but it can’t be resolved until sufficient money can be gathered. (see section Inst de Antropología Córdoba for continuation). When von Hauenschild gets the employment in Córdoba it takes several months until he actually moves to Córdoba. Serrano writes him several times and asks him to come to Córdoba and take charge of his post. During this time von Hauenschild still has contact with UNT about a position at that university. In December 1947 Osvaldo L. Paulotti, at the Instituto de Antropología, UNT, urges von Hauenschild to accept the position in Córdoba and when it will be possible in Tucumán to create a post he tells von Hauenschild to quit his job and go to Tucumán (APH document 234). Paulotti tells 34

Institute of Anthropology, this institute was founded by Alfred Meatrux as Instituto de Etnología in 1928 and was one of the most prestigious Anthropology departments in Argentina at the time, alongside with the departments at UBA and La Plata universities in the province of Buenos Aires. Alfred Meatrux was from Switzerland and had studied at Göteborgs högskola (later Göteborgs University) beneath Erland Nordenskiöld. The Importance of Meatrux for the development of Americanist studies was highly important (See Muñoz 2003). 35 Organizer of the archaeological section at the Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. 36 Very much the spirit of the time of the archaeologist that the small fragments were of no use. This is not the position of the modern day archaeologist who knows the importance of the small fragments found.

30


Henrik B. Lindskoug

von Hauenschild in the same letter that the budget hasn’t been approved yet but there are starting movements to hire in professors from abroad. This is in 1947 after the Second World War. In March 1948 Paulotti writes to von Hauenschild once again about a post as professor “adjunto” of Prehistory and Archaeology with a salary of 800 pesos per month (APH document 243). This never happens and von Hauenschild stays in Córdoba where he continued to work until his death in 1951. von Hauenschild and the Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüistica y Folklore “Dr Pablo Cabrera”, UNC The first contact with the Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüistica y Folklore “Dr Pablo Cabrera”, UNC seems to be a postcard sent in 1943 indicating that Antonio Serrano received two publications (von Hauenschild 1943a; 1943b) that von Hauenschild sent from his home in La Banda, Santiago del Estero (APH document 126). Soon after this, in 1943, Serrano writes to von Hauenschild again and offer him to publish an article, in the Institutes series “Publicaciones”, about the archaeological heritage in Santiago del Estero. Serrano gives him free hands with the extension of the article and also offers that the Instituto will pay for photos or drawing of the material (APH document 128). Serrano is also interested in obtaining some objects to the museum collection and von Hauenschild writes (APH document 129) that it can be arranged if Serrano undertakes a journey to Santiago del Estero, where he easily can obtain archaeological objects. This give us an indication about how the archaeological heritage in the 1940’s was treated, it was something that could be bought and sold easily, and also about the question of collecting. The goal of Serrano was to obtain collections from all over the country to his Institute, but especially from the centre of the country. His reason is to create the best research centre in central Argentina in Córdoba, which he tells von Hauenschild in a letter. In this year (1943) a regular contact is established by post in between von Hauenschild and Serrano that last until von Hauenschild finally moves to Córdoba in 1948. Serrano not only asks if he can obtain material for the Institute’s collection but also about possible field trips that he is planning to Santiago del Estero37. Serrano asks von Hauenschild to talk to Emilio Wagner director of the museum in Santiago so he can visit and examine the 37

During this time it was common to send samples or small reference collection to other museums around the world. Serrano sent 25 objects to the Ethnographic museum in Gothenburg in 1930 from Parana (Adriana Muñoz personal communication May 2008).

31


Henrik B. Lindskoug

collections when he comes to Santiago del Estero. The same year (1943) von Hauenschild writes in a letter to Serrano that he had developed a friendship with the late Duncan Wagner but that with his brother Emilio Wagner he doesn’t have any relation at all (APH document 129). In 1944 Serrano first contact the rector of the UNC to try to create a position for von Hauenschild and to buy his collection (APH document 143, 144, 145). Serrano fights until 1947 when he finally gets through his proposal and the university buys the collection and nominate von Hauenschild as Ayudante Investigador38 del Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüistica y Folklore (APH document 227; Ferreyra 2006:126). Von Hauenschild is paid a monthly salary of 350 pesos a month. Serrano asks the university for 10.000 pesos to buy the von Hauenschild collection and this money is more problematic to rise. The payment is finally done in 1948, after a long struggle with the university (system). One has to take in mind that the sum is very high considering that the monthly salary of von Hauenschild for example is 350 pesos. Serrano has to urge von Hauenschild to actually come to Córdoba and take in charge of his post and in January or February 1948 after several months von Hauenschild install himself in Córdoba. The troublesome issue is still the collection and the payment for the collection. Von Hauenschild doesn’t quit his job at the Escuela Industrial de la Nación, he only asks for a leave and in November 1948 they write to him that he has to come back to resume giving lectures, after almost a whole year in Córdoba. In 1949 when von Hauenschild works at the Institute he makes a field trip to Santiago del Estero, to the Sierras of Ojo de Agua and Sumampa (APH document 290, 291). From this field trip he writes a report with the information of the trip. Von Hauenschild works at the Institute until his death in 1951 and the last month several of the letters in his personal archive is indicating his instable health. International Contacts von Hauenschild developed during his life many contacts with anthropologists and archaeologists all over the world, as far away as Colombia, USA, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland. He has also had an extensive network of other investigators in the same field all over Argentina and in Chile. Among the most famous/prestigious can be mentioned Salvador Canals Frau, Antonio Serrano, José Imbelloni, Alberto Rex Gonzalez in Argentina, Grete

38

Assistant investigator

32


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Mostny in Chile, Gerhard Lindblom, Sigvald Linné, Stig Rydén, Magnus Mörner in Sweden, Karin Hissink, Hermann Trimborn in Germany. He was in contact with investigators working in Colombia and was very interested when an archaeological finding was found in the valley of the river Ranchería. The newspaper-clip about the finding is saved (La Prensa 1 of March 1941, APH document 119) along with the letter he wrote a couple of days later (APH document 120). Like many people working in this field during these years he was particularly interested in diffusion and migration of ideas and technologies, which was the most accepted idea of cultural inventions. Most anthropologists, archaeologists and ethnographers thought that cultures and cultural inventions were spread through migration and diffusion when different cultural groups met39. He wrote to Dr. Victor Oppenheim and asked about the objects unearthed during excavation in Colombia. von Hauenschild was also in contact with museums in the USA. The Museum of the American Indian, Heye foundation in New York wrote to von Hauenschild in 1936, after that they had seen his article in La Prensa (7 of April 1935). They were interested in knowing if von Hauenschild had published any more articles of the ceramics from Chaco-Santiago. They were also highly interested in acquiring ceramic objects for their museum. In the letter (APH document 91) they kindly ask if hi is interested in exchange of some of his duplicate pieces against material they can spare from their duplicate collections. Further they continue that if he is interested he would please inform them of what specimens and what areas he would like to acquire objects from40. This was something that was very common during almost the whole 20th century in many museums around the world and in fact it still takes place. Museum directors give away pieces when they go travelling to another museum far away. Luckily this is a costume that no longer is practiced by serious museums in the world. ICOM’s code of ethics (ICOM 2006) does not allow this for example. During the military regime in Argentina for instance military personal forced the museum personal to give away objects from their collections as gifts to family and friends. This was the case when a large part of the folklore collections, mostly musical instruments, disappeared that once had belonged to the institute (Quiroga personal communication March

39

Related to kulturkreiste. This is simplified and I won’t go further explore to the archaeological paradigms and theories in this time, since this is not the aim of this thesis. 40 If an exchange ever took place can’t be found anything about in von Hauenschild archive (see APH document 91,92,93). Maybe an exchange took place between the Wagner museum and the Museum of the American Indian, since most probably the museum in the USA contacted this museum, this is however my own speculation.

33


Henrik B. Lindskoug

2008). During this time, some of the objects from the von Hauenschild collection at the Museo de Antropología, UNC could have disappeared as well. Contact with the Ethnographical Museums in Sweden Swedish investigators had early established an interest for the South American continent. Erland Nordenskiöld, director of the ethnographic department of Göteborg Museum,41 did pioneer work in the NW Argentina, Chaco region and in Bolivia, which became very influential for later investigators in the field (Lindberg 1996). His disciples from Sweden and the Ethnographic museum continued to work in the area and build up extensive reference collections from all over the South American continent. Stig Rydén, who was disciple of Nordenskiöld became later curator in the museum, after Nordenskiöld’s death. Rydén worked extensively both in Candelaria42 and in Tiawanaku in Boliva. Rydén and von Hauenschild wrote to each other several times and von Hauenschild sent ceramic samples to the museum in 1947. The 22 of May 1947 W.A. Ruysch Van Gorkum writes von Hauenschild a letter (APH document 208) from his chair at ETHNOS- archivo de Etnologia, antropología y arqueología. Ruysch tells von Hauenschild that he will finally go to Santiago del Estero for a visit, in 8th or 9th of June, and with him will come a Swedish count Magnus Mörner43. According to the letter Ruysch also contacted Oreste di Lullo and asked that Mörner would hold a lecture about the relations about Sweden and the South American states during the 19th century. Further Ruysch also asks if von Hauenschild can send some ceramic samples to the Ethnographical museum in Göteborg. Stig Rydén, curator at the museum, asked for samples from ChacoSantiago and van Gorkum didn’t have any samples to send. This matter is later arranged and Mörner brings the samples to Sweden (APH document 218). Through the Swedish legation in Buenos Aires von Hauenschild later gets his publications (APH document 224). Ruysch later sent material to the Ethnographic museum in Gothenburg as Rydén had asked for. This collection arrived in 1948 and has the number 1948.144 and the collection consists of 42 archaeological objects from Argentina, only one number from Santiago del Estero and the other came from Catamarca, La Rioja, Tucumán and Salta. The object from 41

The Ethnographical department at the Göteborgs museum later became an independent museum in 1946 and called the Ethnographic museum. Today this museum has changed name once again and it is now called the Museum of World Culture since 1999 (but opened to the public in 2004). 42 Candelaria is situated in the Salta province NW Argentina. 43 Magnus Mörner was another Swedish scholar interested in Latin American historical development. He specialised early about Argentina and the Jesuit expulsion from the Missiones area and wrote his dissertation about this historical development (Mörner 1953). 44 Collection number at VKM

34


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Santiago del Estero came from Estacion Fernandez, a place where von Hauenschild had collected objects from before. It can’t be certain that the object really was collected by von Hauenschild, but the possibility exists. The collection was exchanged for a publication of Etnologiska Studier45 (Fasth 2003:35). If the collection contained the ceramic samples from von Hauenschild has not yet been determined46. Von Hauenschild had close contact with his Swedish colleagues until his death in 1951. They wrote to each other often and exchanged publications. von Hauenschild was also in contact with Sigvald Linné and Gerhard Lindblom at the Ethnographical museum in Stockholm. Donations to Other Museums In June 1937 the director of Museo de Historia Natural San Juan Cornelio Moyano, Carlos Rusconi, receives a donation of palaeontological remains from von Hauenschild, which he has excavated in Santiago del Estero. The collection consists of bones from Mastodons, Megatheriums47, Toxodons and some other specimens that weren’t at the time classified yet. Rusconi writes to von Hauenschild and thanks him and also asks if he can send or donate an urn with some “parvulo” infant that they can exhibit in the museum (APH document 95, 96). In these times it was very common to exhibit human remains and it is still in many South American countries, not like the situation in many museums in west European countries today. Today the situation has changed completely even in Argentina and many museums have now taken away human remains from their exhibitions, for example Museo de La Plata, Museo de Antropología, UNC, but there exist examples like the MAAM48, where human remains have been put on display recently in spite of the Indigenous communities resistance. Membership in Associations Von Hauenschild was part of many intellectual and scientific organizations (societies) in Argentina. In Santiago del Estero he was a member of Centro de Estudios Historicos49. Here we find many of the intellectuals of the time in Santiago del Estero, among them Dr. Canal Feijóo and dr. Orestes Di Lullo (APH document 73, El Liberal 1 of August 1934). In this 45

Etnologiska studier in English Ethnological studies is (was) a publication from the Ethnographical museum in Gothenburg. 46 According to Jan Amnehäll at VKM there cannot be found any Reference to Jorge von Hauenschild in the collection (April 2008). 47 Giant Ground Sloth. 48 Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña. The Museum of High Altitude Archaeology 49 Historic study center

35


Henrik B. Lindskoug

association he also gave a number of lectures often about the prehistory of Santiago del Estero and the ceramics from this period, which was his main interest. In December 1934 Hauenschild becomes member of Academia Americana de la Historia (APH document 81). In September 1936 von Hauenschild becomes miembro correspondiente of Circulo de Altos Estudios in Rosario (APH document 94). In november 1937 the Circulo de Representantes de la Prensa in La Banda was founded and it’s first president (chairman) was von Hauenschild (APH document 101, 103). In 1938 von Hauenschild gets elected to the Comisión Muncipal Honoraria de Cultura of La Banda (APH document 106, 113). Von Hauenschild was also a member of “comisión de vecinos” de La Banda (Critica 17 of July 1939, APH document 116) In May 1947 von Hauenschild becomes an active member50 in the Sociedad Argentina de Americanistas (APH document 210). Von Hauenschild also receives a letter from Juan Delale, president of the same society, inviting him to the first inaugural meeting for the society that took place on the 2 of June 1947 in Instituto de Arte Americano51 depending on the faculty of architecture in Buenos Aires (APH document 211). von Hauenschild in the Field von Hauenschild spent much time in the field since he was in charge for various canal projects as an engineer and he got to know the terrain of Santiago del Estero very well. When he did his filed-trips he took use of this knowledge. During the large irrigation projects that he was in charge of many archaeological objects was most probably encountered by the peons (workers). This must have attracted his attention to the rich archaeological heritage found in the area. Since many public works had been performed in Santigao by this time like the railway, these places were ideal to investigate for von Hauenschild. Many of the artefacts, that were found, have been encountered close to the stations of the railway. Some of the sites were also found when industrial exploitation of sand and gravel mines (APH document 122) was done. The descriptions of the sites (El Indio no 7 15 of April 1941, APH document 122) show that von Hauenschild in 1941 had obtained a great knowledge of geology and of the importance of the stratigraphic layers for the interpretation of the objects, which were found. A geological profile is also made in the proximity to the archaeological remains. Here von

50 51

socio activo American Art Institute

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Hauenschild describes the bad conservation of the human remains and that most often the only thing that remains is a greyish powder in most of the archaeological sites. This is an advance if one looks back to the letter by Alfredo Castellano (APH document 75). In the letter from Alfredo Castellano in 1934, he tells von Hauenschild that he needs to take photos of the finds, mapping the site and make a profile of the stratas and samples from every layer.

Photo 4: von Hauenschild (right) and unknown person at the río Dulce.

Photo 5: von Hauenschild (left) and unknown person in the field. Construction of the defence of río Dulce.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Part VII The Collection of Ingeniero Jorge von Hauenschild Located at the Museo de Antropología, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Collections management is the term used for the body of practices and procedures which control the regulated acquisition and disposal, preservation and care, security and accountability, movement and loan and, finally but most importantly, documentation of objects within an institution. It is a crucial area in the information structure of any museum. Collections management involves the administration of all the objects which make up a museum’s collections. Precise information is constantly needed about what an object is, where it is and where it has been (Gwyn Miles 1988:162-163). The von Hauenschild collection located in the Reserva Patrimonial del Museo de Antropología, UNC contains over 4000 objects. Several objects are also on exhibition in the museum. von Hauenschild sold the collection in 1948, after he finally was offered a job at the Institute. In 1976 his wife, Paulina Runge de von Hauenschild, donated another part to the museum, which became part of the von Hauenschild collection along with his large personal archive, which consists of correspondences, maps, photos and drawings. The Arrival of the von Hauenschild Collection It was a problematic task to transport the collection from von Hauenschild’s private museum in his home in La Banda, Santiago del Estero all the way to Córdoba. To minimise the cost of transportation Serrano writes to von Hauenschild (APH document 237) before the collection has been transported to Córdoba saying that to avoid packing material he thinks that the collection should be transported in trucks with a lot of straw. It is a long distance over 500 km and today the journey takes about 6½ hours. Since the collection had over 4000 objects in total the transportation was divided in four separate occasions, according to documents found in the archive52. The transportation was made by Andres Carlos Seeven. The cost of each single transportation was 500 pesos, altogether the transportation-cost was 2000 pesos. It was an enormous cost if one calculates that the monthly salary of von Hauenschild was 300 pesos per month. The transportation was done on the following dates: 28 of May, 4 of June, 25 of June and 2 of July. During the same time as the collection was transported to Córdoba von

52

Found in Plan de gastos 1948. (Budget 1948). AMA, UNC. See appendix 1 & 2.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Hauenschild went out on a survey. He left on 10 of May from Córdoba. The cost of this survey was 300 pesos53. According to the found documents the trucks were filled up with straw to protect the objects. There are no photos or documents concerning if all the objects arrived in one piece or if some were broken during the transport. But one can easily imagine that some objects were at least damaged during the long transport. This information show us that it must have been quite problematic to transport the whole collection from von Hauenschild’s house/museum in La Banda Santiago del Estero to the Institute in Córdoba, there von Hauenschild started to document and research the collection more closely. Analysis of the Objects in the von Hauenschild Collection Von Hauenschild used stratigraphic methods to excavate. Von Hauenschild sent several objects for analysis to different specialists all over Argentina and for the epoch that he was in, he used the latest archaeological methods to extract information out of the objects found in the excavations. He let José Imbelloni analyse the collection of craniums (Hauenschild 1949b:49). He sent human remains to be analysed by Carlos Rusconi in Buenos Aires around 1933 or 1934 (APH document 68) and also a bone-flute made of animal bones which was classified as gunaco (Hauenschild 1943b:132). In 1946 von Hauenschild contacts Amparo Tartaglia in Córdoba to perform analyses of ceramic material to determine the provenance of the clay source (APH document 181,182, 185, 186, 187). He also sent material to Direccion de Minas Geologia y sus Industrias, Córdoba, Labaratorio Quimico to receive information about the chemical composition of the ceramics in the collection (APH document 294). Von Hauenschild sent beads or part of a necklace54 to Martín Doello Jurado to determine its provenance (von Hauenschild 1943b:132). The Part Donated in 1976 A part of the von Hauenschild collection that was donated the 23 of May in 1976 was received by Carlos Alfredo Romero through Emma Weigelt who represented Paula de von Hauenschild (APH document 381). The donation consisted mostly of books, archaeological, ethnological material. Three lists are found with documents of all the registered material, one with the archaeological/ethnological material which consists of 69 numbers but in total many 53 54

Plan de gastos 1948. Vale n°5. The Archive of Museo de Antropología, UNC. “cuentas de collar”

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

more objects since some objects have the same inventory numbers and in total the objects are around 200. The second list concerns the books donated in total 23 pages and 351 books. The third list is the various list and here we find 41 numbers, most of them are folders that contain various articles, manuscripts and translated works both from Hauenschild himself and other persons, maps, newspaper clips and photos. Among the documents donated was all the correspondence that later was classified and organized and turned into what today is referred to as von Hauenschild’s personal archive. The official documents are signed by Lic. Carlos Alfredo Romero who received the collection, at the time he served as director at the museum55. In May the same year Romero eliminates all Marxist material from the library following the directives of the new direction that the universities take after the military regime (Ferreyra 2006:169). Some of the books donated might have disappeared due to this elimination. Objects in Exhibition in the Museo de Antropología, UNC At present56 there are 27 objects from the von Hauenschild collection in exhibition, most of the objects are funeral urns on display in the NW Argentina Hall57. There are some lithics and some bone tools in the same hall and one “punzon” in the Ancestor hall.

Photo 6: The Santiago del Estero showcase, Museo de Antropología, UNC.

55

This was during the military regime in Argentina, not long after the military coup the 24 March 1976. See appendix 3,4 & 5. 56 15 of April 2008. 57 Sala NOA.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Part VIII Conservation and Registration of the von Hauenschild Collection …scientists do not have the time or the specialized technical knowledge to care for collections. The body of knowledge necessary to care for a collection— preventive conservation, materials science, storage environment, integrated pest management, collection management policies—is outside of the training and knowledge base of traditional curators. It is not reasonable to expect researchers to manage and care for collections. If collections are to be preserved for future use, the care and management of the collections has to be carried out at a professional level by persons trained in the theory and techniques of collection management to maintain an equilibrium between current use and preservation for future use. (John E. Simmons and Yaneth Muñoz-Saba 2003:48) The Artefacts or Collection in the Deposit The von Hauenschild collection has suffered a lot during the years being almost forgotten and untouched in the deposit of the Museo de Antropología,

since

the

death

of

von

Hauenschild in 1951. In 1976 the 23 of May the other part of the collection was donated by Paulina Runge de von Hauenschild, his wife, and here we find information about the receiving and registration of the collection by the museum (APH document: 381). (see above) One of the factors that have affected negatively the collection during its time at the museum is the several moves that the museum has made. Since the collection was acquired it has moved twice, first from Obispo Trejo to Independencia and then to the University City where it is located today. 58

58

Photo 7: View of Reserva B with funeral urns from the von Hauenschild collection.

See Part IV for explication.

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

The biggest part of the collection consists of ceramic material. Around 3250 numbers in the inventories from 1948 are ceramic material, among these 250 complete and restored urns, plates and jugs, many of the urns are funeral urns. Other ceramic material consists of various fragments like ornaments with both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic motives. Most of this material needs further classification and registration. Some of the numbers are batches59 and consist of several hundreds ceramic fragments. In total there can be as much as around 5000 ceramic fragments in total in the collection. Some lithic material can also be found, around 315 numbers in the first made inventory cards. Among these there are arrowheads and flakes, scrapes, axes and mortar pestles. There are also some artefacts in metal, which however not have been identified yet and some ethnographical material. In total there are around 45 bone artefacts including tools as: scrapers, spatulas, awls, arrowheads, spinning tools and bone flute. There are only two inventory sheets that mention human remains in the collection although we find more objects in the deposit and also there are several other indications in Hauenschild’s writings that indicate that a lot more should form part of the collection. The collection donated in 1976 by von Hauenschild’s wife contained 198 objects. All of the objects donated were objects that had been in von Hauenschild’s own home. The selection of the objects was done by beauty and rarity and of course von Hauenschild kept the best artefacts himself. This also indicates several documents found in the archive, that many of the objects donated in 1976 have been in display in the museum, which indicate that the objects were selected by certain criteria. Among the objects we find funeral urns, jugs, plates, necklaces, earrings, figurines, small statues, various musical instruments in bone, several lithic tools, marine shells and a human tooth. (see appendix 4 & 5). Most of this material can be found in the Reserva B in the Reserva Patrinomial del Museo de Antropología, UNC. The large funeral urns are located in Reserva A and B. All the human remains are located in Reserva D, which is where all human remains that the museum have in its possession are stored. The future plan for the collection is to identify and relocate all the objects and give the collection a separate space in the Reserve. The collection will be divided up in sections, according to material and provenance. The human remains are separated from the rest of the material because of different preservation conditions.

59

Lotes

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Inventories with Information about the von Hauenschild Collection Since the start of the museum several different systems for the registration and inventories of the collections have been used. This can be noticed in the documentation of the collection. The first inventory cards that can be found originate most probably from the 50’s (Darío Quiroga Personal communication March 2008). The entire collection is registered on these inventory cards. These are all written by typewriter and have the same format. The other inventory cards, where the collection have been registered, are pink cards written by hand, this was done in probably in the 1980’s or later. Information can also be found in the “libros de census”.

Photo 8: The first inventory card.

Objects Registered in the Database in the Heritage Reserve In total there are only 133 objects from the von Hauenschild collection registered in the database60. These are objects registered because they have been photographed or they have been monitored because of special conservation issues and a conservation sheet has been made. Some of the objects are registered because of both reasons, although many of the photos taken has still not been digitalized and inserted in the database61. Material in the Archive at the Museo de Antropología, UNC In the archive of the Museo de Antropología, which still is under organization and cleaning, we find the personal archive of von Hauenschild. Most of this archive has been cleaned, registered and conserved62, but there are still documents waiting to be found and classified. In the von Hauenschild’s personal archive we find a lot of correspondences from all over the world both of the more private character and about things related to archaeology and work60

The database consulted 15 of April 2008. The photos were taken in 2003 and 2004 but after this it was not considered a priority and lack of funds made it impossible to continue the task. 62 The conservation and cleaning of the documents was done by Carlos Ferreyra in 1999-2000. Mariela Eleonora Zabala and Susana Assandri worked to organize the archive according to the date of the documents in 2002. They also checked an old inventory list with the inventory sheets and with what the deposit has in stock. This work was however never finished. (See Assandri and Zabala. 2002). The classification of the archive was done in a database however this information cannot be found today. They stamped the documents with the museum sigil and numbered them and put them in plastic folders. 61

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related things. Part of the archive of the Museo de Antropología has been organized and registered by students from Escuela de Archivología63, FFyH, UNC doing an internship at the museum. These students also organized some documents related to von Hauenschild. During October and November 2004 Natalia Eugenia Roda and Enrique Fernando Zanoni (2004), another two students from the same institution realized an internship and registered a large part of the museum archive in a Microsoft Access database. Roda and Zanoni worked mainly with the museum archive64. The collection of documents forming part of von Hauenschild personal archive contains 381 numbers. Here can also be found some receipts, photos and postcards and various newspaper-clips and some other documents, like scientific analysis, drawings. After the organization of the von Hauenschild’s archive some more documents have surfaced during the reorganization of the archive, which still takes place and most probably more documents will surface, which can give us valuable information about von Hauenschild’s life and doings. Beside the organized correspondences a large collection of photos can be found which are still to be organised and classified65. A collection of maps and drawings belonging to the collection is also located in the archive, along with several unpublished articles (works more like books) and some papers, which von Hauenschild presented during different conferences in Argentina. von Hauenschild was at the time of his death working on a mayor work/book of the prehistory of Santiago del Estero. This was never ended, because of his death and large part of this typewritten manuscript (several versions are found in the archive) is found in the archive with a lot of his own comments written in the marginal. Photos of the Objects in the von Hauenschild Collection Photos of several of the objects in the collection, mostly the large funeral vessels, were taken in 2003 and 2004 by Pablo Becerra who worked in the Reserve taking photos of objects from all the collections. He also worked sporadically with conservation of the photos from the von Hauenschild collection. Registration and description of the photos according to size and type of paper was made. However this information can’t be found today in the Reserve66.

63

School of Archiveology The conservation and organization of the archive is still under process under the direction of Natalia Zabala. 65 A preliminary inventory was made by the author during 2007. See Lindskoug 2007 ms. 66 According to Pablo Becerra all notation was made in a notebook of the mark Gloria and there is also an inventory list with all the information (Pablo Becerra personal communication 25 of April 2008). 64

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Conservation of the Archive of Photos from the von Hauenschild Collection In 1999 and 2000 Julia Moyano worked with the photos belonging to the collection. All the photos have been cleaned and put in “folio” marked with numbers. It is however unclear how this was done and no reference can be found to any list and what the numbers correspond to. In April 2008 Noelia García and Laura Argento Nasser started to work with building up a digital archive of the photos belonging to the von Hauenschild collection, before this a preliminary inventory was made (Lindskoug 2007 ms). This new project is supposed to finish in July 2008 and presented in the seminar “Documentos para Medios de Comunicación” dictated at the Escuela de Archivología de la FFyH de la UNC. Conservation – Restoration of Objects in the von Hauenschild Collection Since there is hardly any records of conservation done on the objects in the museum collections from the first part of the history of the museum it is hard to tell when the interventions on the objects were made. Regarding the objects belonging to the von Hauenschild’s collection this was most probably done by von Hauenschild himself and it mostly concerned reconstruction and not really conservation. Several of the large funeral urns show sign of reconstruction, this was often done with plaster of Paris and it is not a method used to day. This restoration was proven to be problematic since the quality of the plaster of Paris has different material composition and because of this it moves in different ways depending on fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity. The plaster of Paris absorbs more humidity than the ceramic making it expand more than the ceramic creating and new

Photo 9: Funeral urn H48-39 reconstructed with Plaster of Paris.

cracks and fissures. Mechanical ware also makes small pieces of ceramic material come off from the urns. This process of deterioration has slowly damaged the funeral urns over the years. From an esthetical point of view of today it does not look very nice with a red ceramic coloured urn with large parches of white plaster of Paris in the cracks, but when von Hauenschild once restored the urns he made drawings and calculations before he started any reconstruction, which was not at all the costume of that time.

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Repacking of Human remains The collection consists of human remains, most notably the collection of 36 human skulls in the original collection that was moved from La Banda and few other individuals. During the time when von Hauenschild realized his campaigns/ excavations it was not that common to save the human remains found during excavation. Often the only part that was saved was the craniums. The state of conservation of the remains was also important, according to von Hauenschild (1943b:132 and 1949b:49) many of the human remains that were found during the excavation were in that bad condition that they couldn’t be saved. At the time of writing the whole collection of human remains of the von Hauenschild collection has been reconditioned and put into new storage boxes made of acid-free cardboard to protect the remains from various pollutions like air, pollution, dust and other micro organisms that can attack the remains. The boxes were stuffed with tvyeck and foaming material free of acid to avoid friction and mechanical damage of the remains. The plastic bags, which were used, are also bags apt for conservation and preservation and free of acid (Lindskoug 2007 ms, see appendix 6 and photos in appendix section). The collection of human skulls is however not found. It may have been separated through the years and according to Hauenschild (1949b:49) Imbelloni studied the cranium some time in the 1940’s. So far the whole collection of human remains is not yet registered and gone through and it might still be possible to locate the missing craniums. Some craniums might also have been totally displaced during the 70’s when some, what we today would consider totally unethical, investigations were performed on the skull-collection (Bonnin and Quiroga 2007:234).

Photo 10: A cranium (D102L1) from the von Hauenschild collection cut into two parts during the 70’s.

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Photo 11: Lote D86L1 before intervention and changing of packing material

Photo 12: Lote D86L1 after intervention with new packing material.

Literature: Articles, Books, Conferences Published by von Hauenschild von Hauenschild held various speeches in conferences both in Santiago del Estero, Córdoba and Buenos Aires. An example was the conference held in December 1944 when von Hauenschild gave a lecture where he explained about the antiquity of the flora and fauna of Santiago del Estero. During his many jobs/works with irrigation he often examined the composition of the soil and his observation had lead him to that Santiago del Estero used to be a marine basin for around 9000 years ago. According to these studies he calculated that the man in Santiago del Estero cannot be older than around 2000 years and that the immigration

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came from N and NW Argentina and not from S and SE. On this account the ceramics can’t be older than 2000 years (El Liberal 16 of December 1944, APH document 73). He also made several translations of articles and books to Spanish from different languages mostly from German and English. One of the most important works that he translated was “Las Tribus Indígenas del Gran Chaco Hasta Fines del Siglo XVIII” by Ludwig Kersten (1968), it was published several years after von Hauenschild had died. Beside some articles that von Hauenschild wrote in newspapers he did never publish to any great extent. His mayor works include the following:

•

Two articles in: Revista de la Junta de Estudios Historicos de Santiago del Estero, Año I, N°1, 1943 and Año I, N°2 1943.

•

La técnica de la alfarería arqueologica de Santiago del Estero. Publicación de la Sociedad Argentina de Americanistas, Tomo I, Buenos Aires 1949.

•

Ensayo de clasificación de la documentation arqueológica de Santiago del Estero. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 1949. Córdoba.

•

Influencias Paranaenses y Pampeanas. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. 1951, Córdoba

Other Material Related to von Hauenschild in Other Museums Material/objects/artefact collected by von Hauenschild are not only found in the Museo de Antropología, UNC, but in several other museums over the world. At the Museo de La Plata some musical instruments made of bone can be found67. von Hauenschild sent ceramic samples to Stig Rydén at the Etnografiska museet68 in Gothenburg in 1940’s (se other part of thesis for more info about this event) which he had requested for study. Sigvald Linné at the Ethnographic museum in Stockholm received ceramic samples that von Hauenschild sent through the Swedish Legislation with maps and explanations of strata in 1949 (APH document 264). This was made as an interchange between scholars; the legislation in Argentina had changed which made it more difficult for foreigner to export cultural objects abroad to museum all over the world. This also made it problematic for foreign archaeologist working in Argentina, but there could almost always be found a way out of this to get around the legislation if not the object was simply exported illegally from Argentina. 67

According to webpage http://www.partesdelacultura.com.ar/archivohistoriamusica.htm viewed 2008-04-14. When Anne Gustavsson (IMS-programme) visited the museum in March 2008 she asked to get a confirmation about the objects from the von Hauenschild collection, but there has been no response yet from the museum. 68 Today Museum of World Culture (VKM)

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To the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales69 von Hauenschild donated 25 pieces of fossilized wood (petrified) from the left margin on río Dulce in 1950 (APH document 312 and 313). In the auction of objects from Marcelo T. De Alvear, governor of Santiago del Estero and later president of Argentina, the Museo Etnográfico de la Facultad de Filosofia y Letras (UBA) buys a funeral urn that once belonged to von Hauenschild’s collection. In the same year 1943 the director of the museum Francisco de Aparicio writes to von Hauenschild with the reason to obtain more information about the archaeological context of the urn to be able to catalogue the funeral urn. The Application of Collection Management on the von Hauenschild Collection If we follow the reasoning of Simmons and Muñoz-Saba (2003, see part III) the von Hauenschild collection has moved up and down the xyz space since the formation of the collection in the 1920’s. For almost 50 years, between 1951 and 1999 the collection was almost untouched and moved slowly down on the three axes. In 1976 with the donation of Paulina Runge de von Hauenschild a leap up on the y-axis happened. In 1999 when the collection was reactivated and several persons started to work with the collection we slowly started to move up the three axes. In question of growth the collection has gone up and down the y-axis. Mostly because of that elements in the collection were disappeared through the years it has constantly been falling down except for the donation in 1976. There are now expectations that the collection will start growing once again, not so much with more actual objects but with the information concerning the collection. Order and preservation has steadily been growing and we have been moving up the xz- axes since 1999 but in a very slow pace. When the different projects working with the collection finished a rapid movement down the axes has always happened. Since a lot of the written documentation of the intervention in the collection cannot be found it was first in 2007 that a big leap up on the x- and z-axes was done with the identification, reorganization and repacking of the human remains in the collection.

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Faculty of Exact Science, Physics and Nature.

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Part IX Discussion From the shadow of the past emerges an unknown civilization (Emilio R. Wagner, El Liberal 1923)70 Museums in Sweden versus Museums in Argentina with similar types of archaeological collections The museum sector in Sweden differs quite a lot from the museum sector in Argentina, if we look at museums where archaeological investigations are done and which holds similar collections in their deposits. Many of the museums in Argentina are bound to universities. In these institutions a large part of scientific research is made and the archaeological investigations are also done by the investigators in the museums. In Sweden however this is not the case, many of the museums are municipal museums not and university museum like in Argentina. The Ethnographic museum in Gothenburg for example was a municipal museum until it was transferred to the state in the late 90’s and became a national museum. In this museum after the 60’s the policy of the museum was not to perform research on the collection so this responsibility became part of the universities (Muñoz 2003). In the museums in Sweden for example, the VKM, which has extensive collection from Latin America, around 75 % of the collections, here almost no investigations are done on the collections. If research is done it is often with the aim of exhibiting the objects in the museum in a new exhibition. The department of archaeology at the universities carries out investigations alongside with RAÄ and several regional museums in Sweden, but the aim in these investigations performed by RAÄ and the regional museums is to gather information about archaeological sites and at the same time of exploitation of a new area, so called “Rescue Archaeology”. In the case of Argentina this research is done at the museums, which in many cases form part of the university organization. During an epoch for example the Institute of Anthropology didn’t have any material at all in exhibition. This has however changed during the years but the focus between the museums in the two countries is very different. The situation in both countries has both its pros and cons. The problem in Sweden is that not much research is done on the collections and this makes the deposits look like mausoleums where “dead” collections/objects are stored. Much effort is however put into public activities, which is good and makes people come into the museum, but the interpretation of the objects or collections are the same. In the Museum of World Culture we 70

My translation from Spanish, originally “De la sombre del pasado surge una civilización desconocida”.

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still meet “the other” the basic structure of ethnographic museums in Sweden hasn’t changed much. Reinterpretation of the objects and collections are needed and this must be done in cooperation with the people from where the objects once originated. It is still a colonial interpretation of “the other” when members of the originate communities are excluded from the interpretations and the lack of their voices can’t be heard in the museum space. In Argentina the situation is different, not much money are put into public activities in the university museums, which are mostly focused on scientific research. This however depends on a totally different system and depends on the university system in Argentina. In Argentina the voices heard in the museums are of the scientific communities from the universities and the voices from the originate communities are often lacking in the interpretations of the collections and objects. Movement of the Objects From having been produced by the prehistoric inhabitants of Santiago del Estero, from about 3000- 500 BP the objects have travelled through time and space and through the hands of many people. Most of the objects in the von Hauenschild collection come from funeral contexts and were excavated/extracted from tombs by von Hauenschild himself in the 19201950. If not, they were collected or brought by von Hauenschild from peasant living in Santiago del Estero. After being in display in his personal museum in his house in La Banda, Santiago del Estero, the whole collection was transported to Córdoba at four different occasions in 1948. At the Instituto de Arqueología, Lingüística y Folklore “Dr. Pablo Cabrera” the collection went through some restoration during the years until the death of von Hauenschild in 1951. In 1976 a second part was added to the collection when the donation from Paulina was made. Since 1951 the collection underwent two movements until it ended up in what is now the Heritage Reserve of the Museo de Antropología, UNC in the Ciudad Universitaria71 in 1978-79. During this time a few of the objects from the collection have been on display but most have been practically untouched. In 2002 some minor work was done, mostly with the archival record of the collection. Since then the information has slowly risen every year with minor investigations, registration and photography of objects belonging to the collection. It was first in 2007 when a larger project was started to investigate the collection72 that the collection really was reactivated. Slowly the information has climbed up the staircase 71

University city Project planned by Darío Quiroga for my internship concerning collection management in the Heritage Reserve in 2007. 72

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according to Simmons model and it is of great interest that the collection will not be left alone again so that the small amount of information that exists will once again decrease. Hopefully the collection will once again be focus of attention when the museological guide will be produced73. Hauenschild’s reasons to collect If we follow Caple (2000) reasoning earlier about the eight reasons to collect. Hauenschild seem to have passed from different reasons through his life. First his started out with Caple’s first reason, curiosity, them in a later stage in his life his reason is understanding/scholarship which is Caple’s second reason. In Hauenschild’s last years a combination of the Caple’s first to reasons can be detected in his reasons to collect and the third reason, control, can also be added. The Institution, the Collection and the Collector -The Context of How the Collection Was Collected. The von Hauenschild collection was formed in an epoch when collection frenzy was apparent in many parts of the world. The European institutions and museums collected to strengthen it dominant position in the world and the colonial heritage is always present in the way the collections were collected in a colonial paradigm. Political, economical and social prestige is tightly bound to the collection gathered up in our European museums and the Museo de Antropología, UNC is no exception, founded on the same premises and modelled after the European institutions. The first director Antonio Serrano wanted to create a center of study of the prehistory in the centre of the Argentinean nation. This was done and with the incorporation of the von Hauenschild collection in the museum (or institute) he managed to appropriate an important part of the Argentinean prehistory ignored by the intellectual elite in Buenos Aires. The collection itself mostly consists of ceramics, which might depend on that ceramic is one of the objects normally best preserved in the archaeological register together with lithic objects. But the fashion of the time was to collect ceramic “master pieces” for the collections. This gave the collector a social prestige and a position in the society. This was even more important for von Hauenschild, which had a German descent, to be able to position him in the Argentinean society, even if at the time pro European attitudes were present in the 73

Musealization of the von Hauenschild collection, project planned for 2008 by Mirta Bonnin, Henrik B. Lindskoug and Darío Quiroga.

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Argentinean society and many immigrants came from Europe at the time. Germans had had bad reputation since the First World War and after the Second World War even worse. Antonio Serrano writes to the rector of the university, when he asks for the establishment of von Hauenschild’s position, that he is of German descent but a man of democratic values. This was an epoch when one of the disciplines, anthropology, strongest connected to the European colonialism developed it was an need to understand, interpret and dominate “the other “, in this case the American “other”. This

epoch

in

Argentina

is

characterized

by

the

establishment

of

archaeology/anthropology in universities and as in many countries in the Americas; archaeology is closely related to anthropology. In many cases the Argentinean state invited European scholars to the universities in Argentina as a desire to Europeanise the country according to the standard of the Argentinean elite. The European immigration was immense in the first part of the 20th century and was encouraged by the Argentinean government. It was important to a “new” nation and especially after the negation of indigenous rights and extermination of the indigenous in the conquest of the desert in it first part of the 20th century, in which influential anthropologists took part and started to collect to the Argentinean university museums. Von Hauenschild as collector was selective and interested in ceramics, which was fashion at the time, and this is reflected in his collection and selection of objects/artefacts. This interest can also be seen in his publications and the material he sent for analysis was mostly ceramic samples. Von Hauenschild’s interpretation of the prehistory of Santiago helps to provide a provincial pride so important to one of the poorest provinces in Argentina, which had suffered so many ecological disasters with the English companies cutting down all the forest and selling all the trees, making fast money and leaving the once green forested province a barren dessert. The railway project that left so many ghost-towns and of course the canal projects which changed the course of río Dulce, which von Hauenschild took active part in working as an engineer, all this can have influenced von Hauenschild, who was resident in Santiago del Estero for almost 30 years, to help to strengthen the image of provincial pride to a poor and forgotten province in the middle of Argentina. Von Hauenschild’s collection can be seen as a scientific collection and he made efforts to keep up with the latest archaeological interpretations and methods to create a new vivid image of the prehistory. The collection can be compared with many other private collections from the same epoch collected under some other paradigms and not with the aim 53


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to form a scientific collection to answer questions about the prehistory of Santiago del Estero, as was the aim of von Hauenschild. von Hauenschild might have started as a simple grave robber but ended as working as a professional using the modern archaeological methods for that time.

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Part X Conclusions We use knowledge to change things, and we learn from things. Thinks ‘speaks’ to us about events to which we have no other means of access, and we ‘read’ things in order to produce meanings. (Julian Thomas 1996:20). The use of collection management to obtain information of a museum collection can be applied in a number of ways but organizing and retrieving information about the collections in our deposits can lead us to new information not only archaeological like in the case of von Hauenschild. It also tell us a great deal about the collector and the historical context it was gathered in and about the society and social groups and social positions in that given society. With the help of a collection and the documentation accompanying the von Hauenschild collection a recreation of the historical context of how it was collected has been done. The formation process of the collection was studied using a multidisciplinary approach based in several different disciplines like museology, archaeology, anthropology, conservation and history to investigate and analyse the collection with the help of collection management. This approach will give us new perspective of the heritage in our museum deposits and can be used to confront an object or collection in a new angle, which can be useful in new ways of interpreting our information and our heritage for example to use in public outreach activities and in new exhibitions in our museums. The collecting practices can give us indication and understanding of contemporary collecting in our society both in private collections and museum collections. In this light we must see the importance of conservation and documentation of our collections done in our deposits to save and protect our heritage for future generations. Summary The first part of the thesis is an introduction where the aims, objectives and methodology are presented. Part II is the theoretical framework in which the thesis is resting upon, discussing material culture theory, objects/artefacts and collectors and their collections in a wider perspective and why some objects are selected or not to form part of collections. Part III concerns conservation and collection management and how it can be applied in museum settings. The fourth part presents the institutional context where the collection is located today, that is in the Museo de Antropología, UNC. In the next part an introduction to the 55


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historical background is done where the collection was collected in the province of Santiago del Estero, Argentina. Part VI treats the life of the collector Jorge von Hauenschild and is more a short biography based on documents in his personal archive. Part VII discusses the von Hauenschild’s collection in the Museo de Antropología, UNC. The next part, part VIII concerns the conservation and registration of the collection. Part IX is the discussion where applications of collection management theory is applied in the case of the von Hauenschild collection further a discussion between museums in Sweden and Argentina is done. The Last part X is the conclusions and summary of the thesis.

Henrik B. Lindskoug Córdoba June 2008

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Literature: Arqueología en Córdoba, Pensamiento y Practica. 1999. Folder from Museo de Antropología, Centro de Investigaciones, Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Assandri, Susana y Mariela Zabala. 2002. Documentación de la Colección Jorge von Hauenschild. Manuscript presented at: III Jornadas de Encuentro Interdisciplinario y de Actualización: las Ciencias Sociales y Humanas en Córdoba, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (4 to 6 of September). Belk, Russell W. 1994. Collectors and collecting. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York. pp: 317-326. Bonnin, Mirta. 1999. Museos, Universidad y Sociedad. In: Estafeta 32, Número 1, Revista de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Diversidad Nacional de Córdoba. Bonnin, Mirta. 2007. Capitulo 3: El Museo de Antropología. pp: 22-45. Bonnin, Mirta and Darío Quiroga. 2007. Conservación de colecciones Bioantropológicas en el Museo de Antropología. In: XVI Congresso Nacional de Arqueología Argentina. Tomo II, Revista PACARINA, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, Jujuy pp 231-237. Caple, Chris. 2000. Conservation skills judgment, method and decision making. Routledge, London and New York. Cassman, Vicky and Odegaard, Nancy. 2007. Storing and Transport. In: Human Remains, Guide for Museums and Academic Institutions. V. Cassman, N. Odegaard, J. Powell (eds.). pp: 103-128. AltaMira Press, Lanham, New York, Toronto, Oxford. Deetz, James. 1977. In Small Things Forgotten. Garden City, New York, Doubleday Natural History Press. Durost,W. 1932. Children’s collection activity related to Social Factors. Bureau of Publications, Teachers’ Collage, Columbia University, New York. Fasth, Natalia. 2003. La Candelaria- Preservation and Conservation of an Archaeological museum Collection from North-Western Argentina at the Museum of World Culture, Sweden. Göteborgs University, Department of Environmental Science and Conservation, Institute of Conservation. Unpublished MA thesis. Ferreyra, Carlos Alfredo. Museo, Ciencia y Sociedad en la Córdoba moderna. El Museo Historico Provincial y el Museo de Antropología: pensamento y práctica. Publicaciones, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Gómez, Roque Manuel. 1970. Alfarerias intrusivas en las culturas indigenas de Santiago del Estero. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Instituto de Antropología. Publication XXXI. von Hauenschild. 1943a. Revista de la Junta de Estudios Históricos de Santiago del Estero” Año I, N° 1. Santiago del Estero. von Hauenschild. 1943b. Los Aborigenes de Santiago del Estero. In: Revista de la Junta de Estudios Históricos de Santiago del Estero, Año I, N° 2., pp: 116-137, Santiago del Estero. von Hauenschild. 1949a. La técnica de la alfarería arqueologica de Santiago del Estero. Publicación de la Sociedad Argentina de Americanistas, Tomo I, Buenos Aires von Hauenschild, Jorge. 1949b. Ensayo de clasificación de la documentation arqueológica de Santiago del Estero. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba von Hauenschild, Jorge. 1951. Influencias Paranaenses y Pampeanas. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.

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Hodder, Ian. 1994. The contextual analysis of symbolic meanings. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 12. International Council of Museums (ICOM) 2006. ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums. Kersten, Ludwig. 1968. Las Tribus Indígenas del Gran Chaco Hasta Fines del Siglo XVIII. Una Contribución a la Etnografía Histórica de Sudamérica. Translated by: Jorge von Hauenschild. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Facultad de Humanidades, Departamento de Historia, Resistencia (Chaco). Kojan, David and Dante Angelo. 2007. Dominant narratives, social violence and the practice of Bolivian archaeology. In: Journal of Social Archaeology. Vol. 5 (3), pp: 383-408. Lindberg, Christer. 1996. Erland Nordenskiöld- ett indianlif. Kungliga Vitterhets Akademins Serie: Svenska Lärde. Bokförlaget Natur & Kultur, Stockholm. Lindskoug, Henrik B. 2007ms. Informe sobre actividades realizadas en la Reserva Patrimonial de la Museo de Antropología, UNC dependiente FFyH. Report of investigation and conservation done of the von Hauenschild collection at the Museo de Antropología, UNC during 2007. Manuscript presented at the Museo de Antropología, UNC. Martínez, Ana Teresa, Constanza Taboada and Luis Alejandro Auat. 2003. Los Hermanos Wagner: entre ciencia, mito y poesía. Arqueología, campo arqueológico macional y construcción de identidad en Santiago del Estero 1920-1940. Ediciones Universidad Católica de Santiago del Estero. Santiago del Estero. Miller, Daniel. 1994. Things ain’t what they used to be. . In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 13-18. Miles, Gwyn. 1988. Conservation and Collection Management: Integration or Isolation. In: The International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship, No 7, pp: 159163. Muñoz, Adriana. MS. When ”the other” became the neighbour. The Bolivian Collections at the Museum of World Culture. Manuscript in press, paper presented at the NAMU conference in Oslo, November 2007. Muñoz, Adriana. 2003. La Formación de las colecciones arqueológicas sudamericanas en Göteborg. El período de Erland Nordenskiöld. In: Anales del Museo de América. pp: 237-252. Mörner, Magnus.1953. The political and economic activities of the Jesuits in the La Plata region. The Hapsburg Era. Library and Institute of Ibero-American Studies, Stockholm. Ocampo, Beatriz. 2005. La Nación Interior- Canal Feijóo, Di Lullo y los Hermanos WagnerEl Discurso culturalista de estos intelectuales en la provincia de Santiago del Estero. Antropofagia, Buenos Aires. Price, N.P. Stanley. 1984. Conservation on archaeological excavations with particular reference to the Mediterranean area. Edited by N.P. Stanley Price, ICCROM, Rome. Publicaciones del Instituto de Antropología. 1982. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades. No. XXXVIII-XXXIX. Pearce, Susan M. 1994a. Introduction. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 1-6. Pearce, Susan M. 1994b. Objects as meanings; or narrating the past. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 19-29.

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Pearce, Susan M. 1994c. The urge to collect. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 157-159. Pearce, Susan M. 1994d. Thinking about things. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 125-132. Pearce, Susan. 1995. On collecting. An investigation into collecting in the European tradition. The Collecting culture series, Routledge, London and New York. Pearce, Susan. 1997. Archaeology as collection. In: G.T. Denford (editor) Representing Archaeology in Museums, The Museum Archaeologist, 22, pp 6-12. Poiman, Krzysztof. 1994. The collection: between the visible and the invisible. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 160-174. Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología.1940. N°2, Buenos Aires. Roda, Natalia Eugenia and Enrique Fernando Zanoni. 2004. Informe “Practica Archivística”. Report presented at Escuela de Archivología, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. December 2004. Santos Varela, M. 2002. Preventive conservation of a unique world collection: mummified Chinchorro bodies”. In: Conserva No. 6. National Center for Conservation and Restoration. Simmons, John E. and Yaneth Muñoz-Saba. 2003. The theoretical bases of collections management. Collection Forum, 18(1-2):38-49. Tilley, Christopher. 1994. Interpreting mlaterial culture. In: Interpreting Objects and Collections. Edited by Susan M. Pearce. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge, London and New York, pp: 67-75. Thomas, Julian. 1996. Time, Culture and Identity- An interpretive archaeology. Routledge, London and New York. Wagner, Emilio and Duncan, Ladislao. 1934. La Civilazión Chaco-Santiagueña y sus correlaciones con las del Viejo y Nuevo Mundo. Tomo I, Buenos Aires. Internet sources: Technical Update no. 1 of the Standards and Guidelines for Archeological Investigations in Maryland. 2005. Collections and Conservation Standards. Maryland Historical Trust. www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/rkpubs/advices/advice1.html#equip Viewed 25 of March 2008. PArtes de la cultura- artes visuals-música-teatro-danza-talleres-artes-populares Historia de la Música- Pueblos primitivos (I) y (II), Pueblos de la Mesopotamia www.partesdelacultura.com.ar/archivohistoriamusica.htm Viewed 14 of April 2008 American Institute for Conservation Directory, 1998, “AIC Definitions of Conservation Terminology www.aic.stanford.edu/about/coredocs/defin.html viewed 05 of May 2008

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Personal communication: Jan Amnehäll, Head of collections, Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden. Pablo Becerra, specialist in conservation of photos, Archivo de la Memoria de la provincia (Córdoba). Argentina. Mirta Bonnin, Director of Museo de Antropología, UNC, Córdoba, Argentina. Adriana Muñoz, Curator, Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden. Darío Quiroga, Head of preventive conservation at the Museo de Antropología, UNC, Córdoba, Argentina. Various newspapers: La Gaceta (San Miguel de Tucumán) Mundo (Santiago del Estero) La Nación (Buenos Aires) La Prensa (Buenos Aires) El Orden (Puerto Deseado) Critica (Buenos Aires) El Indio (Buenos Aires) La Razón (Buenos Aires) El Liberal (Santiago del Estero)

Archives sources: The archive of the Museo de Antroplogía, UNC The personal archive of Jorge von Hauenschild

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List of figures: Front-page: Logo Göteborg University Front-page: Photo scanned from APH document 99, from the newspaper Mundo Argentino 24 November 1937. Photo 1: The Laboratory of preventive conservation, Museo de Antropología, UNC. Photo by author, May 2008. Photo 2: von Hauenschild in his private museum in La Banda. Photo scanned from APH document 99, from the newspaper Mundo Argentino 24 November 1937. Photo 3: Scanned photo from La Prensa from the Industrial fair (12 of April 1934, APH document 67). Photo 4: von Hauenschild (right) and unknown person at the río Dulce. Scanned photo from the collection of photos belonging to the von Hauenschild collection. Photo 13: von Hauenschild (left) and unknown person in the field. Construction of the defence of río Dulce. Scanned photo from the collection of photos belonging to the von Hauenschild collection. Photo 6: The Santiago del Estero showcase, Museo de Antropología, UNC. Photo by author, May 2008. Photo 7: View of Reserva B with funeral urns from the von Hauenschild collection. Photo by author, May 2008. Photo 8: The first inventory card. Photo by author, April 2008. Photo 9: Funeral urn H48-39 reconstructed with plaster of Paris. Photo by author, May 2008. Photo 10: A cranium (D102L1) from the von Hauenschild collection cut into two pieces. Photo by author, December 2007. Photo 11: Lote D86L1 before intervention and changing of packing material. Photo by author, November 2007. Photo 12: Lote D86L1 after intervention with new packing material. Photo by author, November 2007. Figure 1: A model for artefact studies. This model comes from E. McClung Fleming (1974) adopted from figure 18.1 from Pearce (1994). Figure 2: Past perspectives of habit of collection. Adapted from Pearce (1995 model 1.1). Figure 3: Semiotic analysis of objects and collections. Model adapted from Pearce (1994a figure 01). Figure 4: Map of the province of Santiago del Estero. Image 1: Scanned map of Santiago del Estero with important sites marked, from von Hauenschild (1949b:75).

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Appendix

Appendix 1: Scanned document from AMA. Found in Plan de gastos 1948. (Budget 1948).

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Henrik B. Lindskoug

Appendix 2: Receipt from the transportation of the von Hauenschild collection to Córdoba.

Appendix 3: Official document confirming the donation of the von Hauenschild collection donated in 1976 by Paulina Runge de von Hauenschild.

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Appendix 4: The inventory list from 1976 from the von Hauenschild collection

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Appendix 5: Continuation of the inventory list from 1976

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Appendix 6: Photo of the new location of the human remains from the von Hauenschild collection. The red label indicates that the material comes from Santiago del Estero. Photo by author, May 2008.

Appendix 7: Inside of Lote D108L2 after intervention. Photo by author, November 2007. V


Henrik B. Lindskoug

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades MUSEO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA

Ficha de conservación para lotes y sublotes de colecciones N de Ficha:..............

LOTEAR

INVENTARIAR

(Marcar tarea a realizar)

Persona que reporta..............................................Fecha de inicio...................Fecha de finalización...................: Ubicación Reserva Estantería Plano Cajón Numero de Numero de anterior: inventario............................... Lote (Provisorio)....................................

Plástico Cartón

Cartón Libre de Acido

Espuma de Polietileno en Polietileno Polietileno Burbujas Polipropileno

Otros

(Unidad) soportes de conservación)

Appendix 8: Front-page of conservation sheet used at the Museo de Antropología, UNC. Developed by Darío Quiroga.

VI


INVENTARIAR

LOTEAR

Henrik B. Lindskoug

(Marcar tarea a realizar)

A B C D E F G H I

J K L LL M N Ñ O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Excelente Bueno Pobre Estable Inseguro

Datos de documentación:

Soporte de escritura o

En nuevo Embalaje:

Folio: Carpeta:

Procedencia:

:

Numero de Inventario:

e ión a d ac ch rv Fi nse co

:

Fecha de carga en Stock:............./......./........

Datos:

: te ado blo on Su laci re

e ión a d ac ch rv Fi nse co

: te ado blo on Su laci re

Procedencia:

Fecha:

Numero Rel. Al conjunto:

Croquis:

Informes:

Etiquetas: Escritura en caja: Escritura en bolsa:

Sublote: Elemento:

Numero de Inventario:

Procedencia:

Nueva Ubicación:

Responsable:...............................................................

Appendix 9: Back-page of conservation sheet used at the Museo de Antropología, UNC. Developed by Darío Quiroga. VII


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Appendix 10: Scanned plan I from von Hauenschild (1949b). Plan with all the archaeological sites were von Hauenschild performed his excavations. Not to scale. VIII