ABSTRACT
Interest in the central Andean past, in the area that would later become Peru, goes back to the prehispanic period, when societies such as the Tiwanaku and the Inca used sites and special places, known as huacas, as a means to create historical narratives for themselves. If any one person attempted to create what we now call a 'national archaeology' at that time, it would be the Arequipan Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustariz. Ustariz did not focus solely on archaeology; in the great natural history tradition of nineteenth-century Europe, he also deal with biology and geology. Rivero found himself in a climate in which discussions of the past, at least through the acquisition of antiquities, was a relevant topic of discussion among the Lima political class, as well as in the other cities of Peru;his work did not go unnoticed in other intellectual spheres, especially in western and central Europe, where his book was published and translated.
