“Retorno de la civilización” a Quiriguá: Arqueología maya y los juegos de poder y prestigio en Centroamérica en los siglos XIX y XX

Abstract

A case study of the history of exploration of the archaeological locality known as Quirigua, in the lowlands of Guatemala, serves as a starting point for more general considerations on the nature of archaeology as a scientific discipline in its wider social and political context. Archaeology had been, since its commencement in the 19th century, under the influence of the reigning ideologies of the day, nationalism and imperialism, and this strongly shaped the nature of the research and the presentation of its outcomes; not to mention many other diverse factors, such as institutional competition and personal ambitions, that reflected on the scientific endeavors. On the basis of the case of Quirigua, the possessive attitude of the early explorers (John Stephens, Alfred Mauldsay etc.) and the subsequent domination of the site by the United Fruit Company, as well as the aspirations of North American scientific institutions (School of American Archaeology, Carnegie Foundation) are explored with respect to the interpretations of the pre-Colombian Maya civilization coined by them. The present text does not aspire to a thorough analysis of the problem of relations between nationalism, imperialism and archaeology in Latin America, but rather a presentation of one specific case illustrative of the basic premise of the necessity to always take into account the broader context in which the scientific “truths” are produced.