Dr Marisa Lazzari
Research interests
The archaeology of circulation in the south-central Andes
I look at social interaction and the exchange of goods as components of what is considered a wider field of social practices, namely the sphere of circulation. My work focuses on the south-central Andes and north-western Argentina in particular, looking at long-term trends in the technology, consumption, and distribution of lithic tools and raw materials (obsidian and others). I consider these materials in the context of other kinds of archaeological evidence, such as ceramic iconography, and the intra-site and regional material patterns connected to everyday life in the past. This approach allows the exploration of ancient circulation practices, focusing on mobile artefacts as mediators in the weaving of landscapes as both real and imagined spaces.
Provenance studies and social archaeology
I am developping a research programme that integrates geochemical sourcing methods of obsidian and pottery within social archaeology interpretive frameworks. The programme focuses on identifying the geochemical fingerprints of archaeological lithics and ceramics from NW Argentina through Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, and combining these results with petrography, technological analysis, and archaeological contextual analysis. The latter tasks are conducted in collaboration with the PASCAL research project, based at the Museo Etnográfico “J.B. Ambrosetti” (Buenos Aires, Argentina), as well as researchers based at the University of Tucumán (Argentina). Dr Glascock (MURR, University of Missouri) and his team conduct the geochemical analysis of archaeological materials.
Funding:
AHRC Early Career grant (2011-2013) A social landscape without a centre: the circulation of materials and skills in NW Argentina (First millennium AD).
British Academy Small Research Grants (2009-10) Ancient social networks of North Western Argentina: The provenance of obsidian and pottery in early sedentary communities (First millennium AD).
Collaborators
Museo Etnográfico 'Juan B. Ambrosetti', Universidad de Buenos Aires
http://museoetnografico.filo.uba.ar/portalMuseo.html
Instituto de Arqueología y Museo, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán
http://www.unt.edu.ar/fcsnat/iam/
MURR Archaeometry, University of Missouri
http://archaeometry.missouri.edu/
Materiality, landscapes, and heritage
This research explores issues of materiality, landscape and cultural heritage that are at the heart of contemporary Indigenous identity in north-western Argentina. The project started as a comparative approach to this topic through the exploration of different contemporary case studies in Argentina and Australia, and is currently focused on the Argentinean case.
A new stage is currently underway, expnding the initial concerns to develop an international research network on identity, materiality and archaeological practice. Two workshops have been organised to facilitate this network, the first one at the University of Tucumán, Argentina (April 2011) and the second one at the University of Exeter (September 2011). More information on this project can be found here:
http://identities.exeter.ac.uk/
Funding: AHRC Research Networking Scheme (2011-12) Identities as socio-material networks: past and present configurations in South America and beyond.
Partner Institution: Instituto de Arqueología y Museo, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina
