Contract archaeology and news archaeological contracts

Abstract

This paper addresses two topics related to the current situation of archaeology in Latin America and Colombia. The first section of the paper deals with the impact of contract archaeology in Colombia. The fact that programs of contract or preventive archaeology have rocketed in recent years is well known. Less known, however, are the broad tendencies and dimensions of this phenomenon. The second issue discussed here is the relationship between global tourism politics and processes of local recovery and enhancement of heritage assets, which will be explored through the analysis of two archaeological sites. The recovery and touristification of an archaeological site is used as starting point to reflect about the differences between a new tendency in archaeological contract opposed to the dominant tendency in the field.

Keywords

• Arqueología por contrato
• Chairama
• Ciudad Perdida
• turismo