ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The formation of archaeology as a scientific discipline in South America has been quite different in each country.1 Although it is possible to point to some similarities, the continent-wide development of the discipline has been heterogeneous. When we talk about quintessential Latin America, most people, including scholars, imagine countries such as Peru or Bolivia, with large populations of indigenous peoples, or perhaps Brazil (see Funari 1995) and Colombia, where the population comprises a mixture of indigenous peoples and those of African or European ancestry. In contrast to the above examples, Argentina has a large population of European descent and one of the smallest indigenous populations in South America. Nevertheless, as an example of the development of archaeology in the region, Argentina is no more or less ‘typical’ than any of the other countries. In Argentina political changes have been extreme, and their impact on archaeology is perhaps more clear-cut than in the other countries.
