¿Por qué la arqueología oculta la importancia de la comunidad?

Abstract

Archaeology and ethnoarchaeology contribute to legitimate the current social drift of the western world because they take part in the truth regime (in Foucault’s terms) of capitalism. At frst the ‘others’ of the past (and the present) were considered inferiors. Subsequently they were considered as equals. In neither case, however, was their right to be different recognized nor, consequently, the equality of their rights. This has occurred because our society, guided by the individualistic values of capitalism, does not recognize that belonging to a community and establishing human bonds –both of them essential factors of the identity of those ‘others’– constitute the basis for ontological security in our own society. Archaeologists must attend to the material evidence of communal dynamics in the past not only in order to understand their cultural processes, but also in order to stop legitimizing the dehumanized social order we are constructing in the present.