Memories from Darkness

Theoretical Discussions.- Torture, Truth, Repression and Archaeology.- Archaeology and Left in Colombia.- The Archaeology of Conflict in Brazil.- An Archaeological View of Political Repression in Uruguay (1971-1985).- Search for and Identification of Desaparecidos.- Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology: A Balance Sheet.- Clandestine detention centers.- The Materialization of Sadism; Archaeology of Architecture in Clandestine Detention Centers (Argentinean Military Dictatorship, 1976-1983).- Objects and Representations.- "They Must Have Done Something Wrong...": The Construction of "Subversion" as a Social Category and the Reshaping of Identities Through Body and Dress (Argentina, 1976-1983).- Scratching Behind the Walls; Graffiti and Symbolic Political Imagination at Cuartel San Carlos (Caracas, Venezuela).- Emblematic Case Studies.- The Archaeology of a Search: An Archaeological Search; The History of the Finding of "Che" Guevara's Remains.- "Mexico, 1968": Among Olympic Fanfares, Government Repression and Genocide.

Memories from Darkness, edited by Pedro Funari, Andres Zarankin, and Melisa Salerno shows us the kind of archaeology that really matters, in a particularly important way. It contains a real mixture of papers, covering different aspects of repression and dictatorship in a number of South Amiercan countries...There are theoretical papers, scientific pieces, material culture studies and first hand accounts on Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Bolivia, and Argentina, all adequately illustrated and, we must be thankful given the range of exciting South American scholarship presented here, with individual bibliographies for each paper. This book is about freedom of speech. None of the papers end with something as restrictive as a 'Conclusion'; rather those that choose end with 'Final Remarks'--a reminder of the importance of individuality and subjectivity when archaeology chooses to discuss matters of life and death.

Most of the book verges on shocking, but only in that minute scales to which the archaeologists here go in discussing the conditions and effects of repression are not commonly reported at the distance from which I write. Occasionally the contents of the book are downright hard...Memories from Darkness also has useful opinion pieces at its start (Laurent Oliver) and end (Martin Hall) that, rather than disrupting the distinctly South American collection of papers, serve to set them in useful wider contexts. Overall, this is an important publication. Its style feels quite 'raw', but this fits the subject matter and ethos of the book well. Required reading for contemporary and conflict archaeologists, it will also be of particular use to those among the wider world of post-medieval archaeology who are unsure as to the importance of studying the recent past and the present.

James Dixon
Post Medieval Archaeology
46/2, (2012)