Archaeology and Art History in Ancient South America: Toward Disciplinary Détente

Abstract

Despite their shared interests, anthropology and art history have had an uneasy relationship in American archaeology since the 1950s. Anthropological archaeologists often ignore or dismiss the contributions of art historians, and art historians often fail to articulate the stakes of their disciplinary training. These fields are, however, mutually dependent. Working through three examples of monumental works of mural art made on the coast of Peru between about 2000 BCE (Late Preceramic) and 400–800 CE (Moche)—which anthropological archaeologists have used as transhistorical evidence of mythology, culture, cosmology, and ontologies—the author demonstrates how art history's strengths in close looking and localized historicizations of image practices offer critical perspectives on ancient American art and history.