A Past as a Place

Abstract

The existence of a situational concept indissolubly spatial and temporal in the Bolivian altiplano, better defined by the aymara term pacha, in the south-central Andes is well sustained by ethno-historic and ethnographic accounts. However, the implications of this concept for archaeological research have not been considered enough. Is especially suggestive that, the past being necessarily a place, humans may have conceived various ways to physically interact with their pasts through ceremonialism. This chapter considers the implication of this idea within a framework of archaeology of time, applying a fractal model of the pacha concept in its various nested scales. In order to illustrate the material forms that the idea of relating with the entities of a “place of the past” can adopt, this chapter discusses three case-studies along a historic sequence. The chapter finishes with some thoughts about the specific material conducts that can be adopted, even within the same ontological framework.