Dialogue and Preservation: Considerations About Contract Archaeology in Brazil (or, the Way It Works, and the Way It Does not)

Abstract

This chapter presents a critical discussion on the current standards regarding the protection of Brazilian archaeological heritage and the main results from their application. The discussion is carried out by an analysis on the role of the National Institute for Historical and Artistic Heritage Preservation —IPHAN and the archaeological companies for the archaeological data collection and preservation. From this discussion, we argue that there is an erroneous routing of these issues, inasmuch as IPHAN has been increasingly slow in the process, and only concerned with the knowledge spreading as “Heritage Education”. Paradoxically, agents do not seem to realize that there can be no knowledge spreading without knowledge production, as well as the role of archaeology companies in this area has proved to be scarce. In this process, we point out that the academic archaeology, which is really responsible for the knowledge generation, is increasingly placed in the backstage.