Revista del Museo de Antropologia (Aug 2010)
Cuerpos en contraste: reflexiones sobre el tratamiento de los difuntos en dos entierros de 3.000 años A.P. (Valle del Cajón, Noroeste argentino)
Abstract
Two funerary contexts dated to 3.000 years B.P. from the southern Cajón Valley showed interesting contrasts as far as the treatment, disposition and association of the bodies with diverse objects is concerned. The first one is a multiple internment where several bodies were laid out mixed with one another without any anatomical articulation. These were associated to an anthropomorphic copper mask. The second one is the inhumation of a child in an extended position associated to a lithic bead and a copper pendant. Both contexts were set adjacent to each other though separated by symmetrical and opposed stone structures.Along with some perspectives suggested by the anthropology of the body and studies of materiality, I explore a first interpretation in which bodies are considered the axis of the analysis. The way bodies were treated –the obliteration or conservation of their anatomy, their association with objects that could refer to a human collective in contrast to those of personal use and demarcation, as well as the inverse disposition of the structures that contained them, allows to think that notions of symmetry and opposition would have been implied in the treatment of the deceased by those who inhabited the valley three thousand years ago.
