Archaeologies of the Clandestinity. A Review of the Works Carried Out at the Clandestine Detention Centers of the Last Military Dictatorship in Argentina

Abstract

Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina suffered under a military dictatorship that employed enforced disappearance as one of its main weapons to silence all forms of opposition. Clandestine detention centers played a key role in the strategy of disappearance: people illegally detained where taken there, subjected to all kinds of torture and –frequently– murdered. Since the return of democracy, but especially in the last decade, some archaeologists became interested in understanding what happened in those places. In this article we offer an overview of the works conducted by archaeologists in Argentinean former centers of detention, torture and extermination. We have multiple goals: contextualize the history and development of the investigations; discuss the relationship of archaeologists with other social actors (including civil servants, survivors, victims’ relatives, society as a whole); present their main lines of inquiry (search and identification of the bodies, analysis of the materiality of space and objects); consider some emblematic projects that allow understanding the diversity of activities conducted and the results obtained.