ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a brief discussion of the history of the culture concept in archaeology. Research on the mixing of remnants of material culture provides a means of identifying social groups and the construction of new identities and worldviews. The manner in which such research has unfolded suggests that, as in the case of feminist archaeologists, there has been an implicit acceptance of the culture concept. The objects discussed by Heather Lechtman clearly fit with the interpretation, since they were produced for an elite class of persons that may have dominated the Moche artisans who produced the objects studied, and they need not refer to the culture as a whole. Interactions at social boundaries are perfect sites in which to observe processes by which culture is reorganized, produced, or reproduced, because objects and information that move among people and networks develop out of the social, political, and economic activities in which they are involved.
