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Perez Gollan, Jose Antonio

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prehistoric Amazon. The bibliographic record

on the subject deserve highlights: (1) the article
Testimony in Stone: Rock Art in the Amazon
(2001), which provides a summary of research
conducted on the Amazon so far; (2) the book
Arte Rupestre na AmazoniaPara (2003), which
finds, describes, and classifies information about
each site, and addresses issues such as diversity
of Amazon rock art, the problems of dating and
archaeological context. It also sounds an alert on
the issue of preservation of these sites, and the
Academy of History Paulistana gave this book
the CLIO award of History (2005); (3) the book
Petroglifos Sul-Americanos of Koch-Grunberg
(2010), whose translation into Portuguese was
organized by Edithe Pereira; and (4) the articles
Historia de la investigacion sobre el arte
rupestre en la Amazona brasilena, (2006) and
Histoire, territorialite diversite et dans lart de
lrock Amazonie bresilienne (2011).
In 2008, Pereira Edithe coordinated the First
International Meeting of Archaeology Amazon,
based in Belem do Para in an embodiment of the
Goeldi Museum, in partnership with the IPHAN
and the State Secretary of Culture for the State of
Para. This event fostered discussion on archaeological research conducted in the Amazon over
the past 20 years, discussing topics related to the
ancient settlement of this region, coastal occupations, domestication of plants, climate change,
expanding linguistic, social complexity in
ancient Amazonia, historical archaeology, transformations in the landscape, paleogenetic
paleodemography, art and archaeology in the
Amazon pre-colonial, and heritage education.
The book Arqueologia Amazonica (2010),
co-edited by Edithe Pereira & Vera Guapindaia,
presents the outcome of this meeting in two volumes that demonstrate the undeniable growth of
different theoretical and methodological
approaches in the study of prehistory Amazon
(Whitehead 2011). Edithe Pereira continues to
undertake her career as a researcher, producing
knowledge that resulted in the recent book publication of A Arte Rupestre de Monte Alegre
(2012). As the fruit of her research in Monte
Alegre and aiming at the formation of new generations, she has published a childrens book titled

Ita A carinha pintada (2012), authored by Juraci

Siqueira and illustrated by Mario Baratta, and has
produced a documentary about the rock art of
Monte Alegre (2012). Edithe Pereira is also
a talented photographer taking most of the photos
contained in her books, and having published
a book of photographs titled Poemas deMiriti,
with Luiz Carlos Francas poetry.

Cross-References
Heritage Tourism and the Marketplace
Tourism, Archaeology, and Ethics: A Case
Study in the Rupununi Region of Guyana

References
PEREIRA, E. 2003. A arte rupestre da AmazoniaPara.
Sao Paulo: Unesp; Belem: Museu Paraense Emlio
Goeldi.
- 2012. A arte rupestre de Monte Alegre, Para, Amazonia,
Brasil. Belem: Museu Paraense Emlio Goeldi.
PEREIRA, E. & V. GUAPINDAIA. (ed.) 2010. Arqueologia
Amazonica. Belem: MPEG, IPHAN, SECULT.
WHITEHEAD, N. 2011. Arqueologia Amazonica (Resenha).
Boletim do Museu Paraense Emlio Goeldi. Ciencias
Humanas Belem 6 (2): 613-16.

Perez Gollan, Jose Antonio

Javier Nastri
CONICET Universidad Maimonides/
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires,
Argentina

Basic Biographical Information

Jose Antonio Perez Gollan, born in 1937, is
a prominent Argentinean archaeologist who has
made a main contribution to the archaeology of
the southern Andes. Born in the city of Cordoba,
Perez Gollan was educated in history at the
National University of Cordoba, earning a B.A.
in History in 1965 with a thesis on Peopling
Patterns of Northwestern Argentina. That same
year he became a fellow of the newly created
National Council of Scientific and Technical

Perez Gollan, Jose Antonio

Research (CONICET), and two years later he

became a teaching assistant in anthropology at
the National University of La Plata. In 1969 he
became a researcher at CONICET and in 1971
he was appointed professor at the National
University of Cordoba.
In 1977 Perez Gollan obtained a doctoral
degree from the National University of Cordoba
with a thesis entitled Analysis of Archaeological
Ceramics at the Site of Cienaga Grande
(Tumbaya Department, Jujuy Province). Immediately after this, he went into exile in Mexico
because of the dangerous situation generated by
the military dictatorship installed in Argentina in
March 1976. In 1979 Perez Gollan was appointed
professor and chair of Andean Ethnohistory at the
National School of Anthropology and History
and researcher of the National Institute of
Anthropology and History, Mexico. Once
constitutional order in Argentina was restored in
1983, he returned home to Argentina in 1987 and
was reinstated and promoted at CONICET. In the
same year he became director of the
Ethnographic Museum of the University of
Buenos Aires. In 2005 he left that position to
assume the direction of the National Historical
Museum, where he served until 2013.
Perez Gollan has received throughout his
career many honors, such as the First Prize
(in collaboration) to the Regional Scientific
Production (Central Zone), 19661967 of the
Secretary of Culture of the Nation (Argentina);
the Prize for Scientific and Technological
Research of the Secretary of Science and Technology of the University of Buenos Aires (three
times, in 1992, 1993, and 1994); the Critics
Award 2004 of the Argentina Association of Art
Critics; the Marta Wegier Prize in 2005; the
Konex Award 2006; and the Merit Diploma and
Gratia Artis Award 2012 of the National
Academy of Arts (Argentina).

Major Accomplishments
Perez Gollan undertook his first archaeological
experiences as a student at sites in the province of
Cordoba, Argentina. From excavations in Los

5883

Molinos, he obtained the first radiocarbon dating

of the province. Later he devoted his efforts to
study of the formative period in the Humahuaca
Valley, in northwestern Argentina, developing
a chronology of La Isla pottery, through
cross-referencing information from sites in
Jujuy with evidence from mortuary contexts of
San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile.
Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, Perez
Gollan published in collaboration with Alberto Rex
Gonzalez (Fig. 1) several works of synthesis on
ceramic times in northwestern Argentina. One of
them, Indigenous Argentina. Eve of the Conquest
(Gonzalez & Perez 1972), remains to date the most
widespread book on Argentine pre-Hispanic past,
widely trespassing the boundaries of academia.
In the early 1970s, Perez Gollan opened up
new areas of research in partnership with his
colleague and friend Osvaldo Heredia, another
of Gonzalezs disciples from the University of
Cordoba. Together, these two investigated the
little known area of Cafayate, in Salta, and then
Ambato Valley, in the province of Catamarca. In
the latter area they made a transcendent discovery
in the history of archaeological research in
Argentina: the site of La Rinconada, also known
as Iglesia de los Indios, is the first known
ceremonial center of the La Aguada culture
(see Perez Gollan et al. 1997). This archaeological culture had been defined by Gonzalez
a decade before, extending the proposals of Max
Uhle, but until then had not been specifically
recognized as an indigenous settlement. La
Rinconada, subsequently investigated by
Gonzalez and then by Gordillo (see Gonzalez
1998 for synthesis), provided extensive
information on the middle period and on the
social organization of sedentary populations in
the northwest of Argentina.
In 1975 Perez Gollan attended the famous
meeting Reunion de Teotihuacan, in which
a group of Latin American archaeologists drafted
the key document of the Marxist-inspired Latin
American Social Archeology trend. During that
trip, Perez Gollan made contacts that would allow
him to settle in Mexico two years later, in order to
be safe from political persecution in Argentina by
the military government. During his exile he

5884

Perez Gollan, Jose Antonio

Perez Gollan, Jose

Antonio, Fig. 1 Jose
Perez Gollan (at the right)
with his master Alberto Rex
Gonzalez at the
Ethnographic Museum of
Buenos Aires in 1999
(Courtesy of Perez Gollan)

conducted several field projects and also began to

investigate the history of archaeology, around the
figure of Vere Gordon Childe. Perez Gollans
(1981) book about Childe was the clearest
demonstration of a theoretical commitment to leftist thinking by an Argentine archaeologist until that
time. However, by then Perez Gollan had begun to
distance himself from the more orthodox and
reductionist positions that flourished in the context
of Latin American Social Archeology. His
teaching work in Mexico put him in contact with
Andean chronicles, in which he learned to
investigate the symbolic interpretation of preColumbian iconography. His interpretations of
the iconography of Lafone Quevedo Disk
(corresponding to the Aguada culture) is
a milestone in terms of the development of an
original form of hermeneutical studies of Andean
aboriginal material culture (Perez Gollan 1986).
On a similar vein he produced a new interpretation
of the artifacts known as pleadings (suplicantes),
small stone sculptures of high artistic value,
corresponding to the formative period of the
Argentine Northwest (Perez Gollan 2000) (Fig. 2).
During the 1990s Perez Gollan resumed fieldwork in Ambato, Argentina, with colleagues from
the National University of Cordoba, revealing ceremonial and habitation sites of the Aguada culture.

Perez Gollan, Jose Antonio, Fig. 2 Bronze plaque

known as Lafone Quevedo Disk, whose iconography
was studied in detail by Perez Gollan (Taken from
Gonzalez 2007)

Periodization in Japanese Prehistoric Archaeology

5885

Childe, Vere Gordon (Political and Social

Archaeology)
Childe, Vere Gordon (Theory)

References

Perez Gollan, Jose Antonio, Fig. 3 Facade of the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Buenos Aires
(Photo by Javier Nastri)

BIANCIOTTI, A. 2005. Alberto Rex Gonzalez: la imagen y el

espejo. Arqueologa Suramericana 1(2): 155-184.
GONZALEZ, A.R. 2007. Arte, estructura, arqueologa.
Buenos Aires: La Marca Editora.
- 1998 Cultura La Aguada. Arqueologa y disenos.
Buenos Aires: Filmediciones Valero.
GONZALEZ, A.R. & J.A. PEREZ. 1972. Argentina indgena.
Vsperas de la conquista. Buenos Aires: Paidos.
PEREZ, J.A. 1981. Presencia de Vere Gordon Childe.
Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia.
PEREZ GOLLAN, J.A. 1986. Iconografa religiosa andina en
el Noroeste Argentino. Boletn del Instituto Frances de
Estudios Andinos 15(3-4): 61-72.
- 2000. Los suplicantes: una cartografa social. Temas de
la Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes 2: 21-48.
PEREZ GOLLAN, J. A., M. BONNIN, A. LAGUENS, S. ASSANDRI,
L. FEDERICI, M. GUDEMOS, J. HIERLING & S. JUEZ. 1997.
Proyecto Arqueologico Ambato: un estado de la
cuestion. Shincal 6: 115-24.

Further Reading
He conducted then a rethinking of that culture,
proposing to redefine the middle period as the
Regional Integration Period. Questions like
this gave a strong impetus to research on the
topic, which crystallized even in specific
conferences on the issue. In recent years, Perez
Gollans research has focused on the study of the
late period at Ambato Valley, about which very
little is known until now. In addition to his archaeological fieldwork, Perez Gollan is widely recognized for his work as a director of major museums.
He introduced modern standards of preservation
and exhibition of collections, refurbishment of
infrastructure, repatriation of remains, and publishing catalogues during his periods as director
at both the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Buenos Aires (Fig. 3) and at the National
History Museum of Argentina.

BONNIN, M. 2010. Osvaldo Heredia: los proyectos de

investigacion, el aula y otros contextos de instruccion
en la arqueologa de los 60 y 70. Revista del Museo
de Antropologa 3: 195-204.
PEREZ GOLLAN, J.A. & M. DUJOVNE. 2002. De lo
hegemonico a lo plural: un museo universitario de
antropologa. Entrepasados 20/21: 197-208.
POLITIS, G. & J.A. PEREZ GOLLAN. 2004. Latin American
archaeology, from colonialism to globalization, in
L. Meskell & R. Preucel (ed.) A companion to social
archaeology: 353-73. London: Blackwell.

Cross-References

Introduction

Andes: Prehistoric Art

Andes: Prehistoric Period

It is possible to apply European periodization to

Japanese history: prehistory, protohistory,

Periodization in Japanese Prehistoric

Archaeology
Makoto Tomii
Centre for Cultural Heritage of Kyoto University,
Kyoto, Japan