"Although The Loneliness is Great, Greater Yet is the Love of my Country". Archaeology of a Military...

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Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1.2 (2014) 323–350ISSN (print) 2051-3429 (online) 2051-3437 DOI:10.1558/jca.v1i2.18435

323“Greater Yet is the Love of my Country”

RESEARCH ARTICLE

“Although The Loneliness is Great, Greater Yet is the Love of my Country”:1

Archaeology of a Military Outpost on the Topaín Hillock (Antofagasta Region, Chile)

■ Manuel PrietoInstituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo P. G. Le Paige, Universidad Católica del Norte, [email protected]

■ Xurxo M. Ayán VilaBuilt Heritage Research Group, University of Basque Country, [email protected]

Abstract

Since the War of the Paci!c against Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883), the Chilean State has constantly reproduced its sovereign power in the Atacama Desert by using differ-ent technologies of governance. During the Pinochet military regime (1973–1990), this process was radicalized through the militarization of the area. This militarization, in turn, produced new materialities in the desert landscape, such as the Topaín military outpost. In this article, we use archaeological evidence in order to reveal the everyday life of this base. This research is the !rst approach to this geographic area from the perspective of the Archaeology of Con"ict. This, in turn, constitutes a methodological innovation for developing a new understanding of the reproduction of contemporary state sovereignty through the material culture of everyday life.

1. Military slogan. Chilean Police Post at Chilcaya, on the border between Chile and Bolivia.

Keywords: Archaeology of Con!ict; Archaeology of Contemporary Past; Atacama Desert; Chile; state sovereignty

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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324 Research Article

Introduction

On July 9, 2013, a traditional homage to the heroes of the Battle of Concepción was celebrated in the Atacama Desert, which served as a major theatre for Chile’s confron-tation with Peru and Bolivia during the Paci!c War (1879–1883).2 The local radio sta-tion recounted the heroic military feat on the hour for the whole day: as the broadcast recounted, a detachment of 77 soldiers from the Fourth Company—the sixth on the Cachabuco line— on this day 134 years before had heroically resisted a siege by over 1,000 Peruvian soldiers. The Chilean "ag had "own, and the men had all held their position until every last one had perished. The hearts of Capitan Ignacio Carrera Pinto, Lieutenant Julio Montt and Sub-Lieutenants Arturo Pérez Canto and Luis Cruz Martínez were sent to Santiago de Chile preserved in alcohol; today, they rest in the Chilean capital’s Catedral Metropolitana.

Chile’s victory added an important area of the northern Atacama Desert (the current Chilean Regions of Antofagasta, Tarapacá and Arica y Parinacota) to its sovereign ter-ritory, leaving Bolivia a landlocked country; these lands have of!cially been Chilean soil since the Peace and Friendship Treaty was signed in 1904. This moment was a turning point in Andean geopolitics and marked the beginning of Chilean state formation in the area, a contentious process that continues even today and is evident in the ongoing disputes that characterize contemporary diplomatic relations between Chile and Bolivia.

As part of the process of state formation in the Atacama, the Chilean state began an administrative border-drawing process over an area whose inhabitants had always perceived it as a single territory. The !rst step was to develop state bureaucracy through the classic statecraft techniques (Scott 1998): mapping, measuring, surveying and describing the land, the resources and the local population (Martínez et al. 2003). Sub-sequently, the state has been constantly reproducing its sovereign power in the area through different technologies of governance, technologies that continue to mark the landscape today. During the Pinochet regime (1973–1990), for instance, this process was radicalized through the militarization of the Atacama. This militarization, in turn, produced new materialities in the desert landscape, such as the Topaín military outpost, also known as Fort Henry.

Fort Henry is located at the II Antofagasta Region, at an elevation of 3,180 meters in the Atacama Puna, the highlands of one of the most arid deserts in the world.3 The site is located in the Upper Loa River basin area, at the Cupo creek between the Atacameño villages of Ayquina-Turi (to the south) and Cupo (to the north); the settlement of Paniri is located to the west (see Figure 1). The current inhabitants of the area self-identify as Ata-cameños or Likan Antai. At present, they maintain strong blood and trade relations with the neighbouring countries (Chile, Bolivia and Argentina), despite the geopolitical boundaries, and have particularly strong ties with Calama, a city where many of them have family and

2. For a brief historical description of the causes and development of the War of the Paci!c within the broader context of Chilean history, see Collier and Sater (1996). For a simple summary, see Bulnes (1976), and for a more extensive historiographical approach, see Cluny (2008). For a comparative analysis that deconstructs the hegemonic narratives, see Naranjo (2011).

3. For an analysis of the physical geography of the Atacama, see Clarke (2006); Nicholson (2011); Veblen et al. (2007).

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a second house.4 The inhabitants of villages and settlements in the area engage in agri-culture, mainly for self-consumption, and pastoralist activities in communal grasslands.

This article discusses our use of archaeological methods that help to reveal the role of material culture in the everyday life of this military outpost, built by the Pinochet military regime in the Atacama highlands. Archaeological research of the recent past in this vast area has so far focused only on the study of the material culture related to the nitrate industry (Vilches et al. 2008; Vilches 2011). In this sense, our work is the !rst approach to this area from the perspective of the Archaeology of Con"ict (cf. Scho!eld et al. 2002; Scho!eld 2005; Sutherland and Holst 2005; Scho!eld et al. 2006). This, in turn, would constitute a !rst methodological step for developing a new understanding of the repro-duction of contemporary state sovereignty through the material culture of everyday life.

Producing Chilean subjects

Like every nationalist project aimed at producing an “imagined sense of political commu-nity that con"ates peoplehood, territory, and state” (Alonso 1994, 391), the Chilean state has aimed to transform the diverse identities that exist in the Atacama into one singular

4. For a general overview of the Atacameño culture, see Castro and Martínez (1996)

FIGURE 1. Location map of the study area (Map by Manuel Prieto).

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formation: the ideal Chilean citizen. This is crucial to the process of state formation, insofar as the idea of national citizenship supposes a shared identity formed in relation to the sovereign state. This state power creates visibility and control while seeking to preserve the integrity of territorial boundaries (Deleuze and Guattari 1987; Scott 2009). Under this framework, those inhabitants who did not match the stereotype of the normal Chilean were othered as peripheral and antagonistic to so-called civilization and progress.

Following the annex of the area from the Bolivian state, the new Chilean state leaders viewed the local inhabitants as simply an a-historical population attached to a land that was now Chilean (Sanhueza 2001). They were considered non-citizens inhabiting the new Chilean territory and as barriers to the process of state-making, as explained by the then-mayor of Antofagasta when he said in 1894 that the main dif!culty for the state administration in the San Pedro de Atacama area “was the lack of Chileans, because its inhabitants are almost entirely Indians” (cited by Sanhueza 2001, 66). This perception was framed within the highly racialized discourse of explorers and priests, some of them funded by the state, that othered the indigenous as ignorant, poor, dirty, uncivilized and quasi-animal savages (see e.g. Bertrand 1885; San Román 1896).

Considering the border tensions that remained after the war with Bolivia and Peru, and the fact that the Chilean state saw local inhabitants as a barrier to reproducing its sovereign power, the state initiated a process of forced assimilation of local populations. In order to demarcate the territory both administratively and culturally with respect to neighbouring countries, the state intensi!ed the militarization of the area and initiated a process known as Chilenization (chilenización). This was a forced process of cultural assimilation aimed at imposing a homogeneous national identity that, ignoring any local speci!city, tried to assign to the indigenous population a shared Chilean identity and history. This was especially signi!cant in an area that, since pre-Hispanic times, has been a zone of rich interregional interaction characterized by high mobility and social contact (Nuñez and Dillehay 1979).

The Chilenization process thus aimed to impose a Chilean identity upon the north-ern population, which had been stigmatized either as indigenous (including Aymaras, Atacameños and Quechuas), Bolivians or Peruvians: those who did not !t under the hegemonic discourse of what a Chilean should be. Among other apparatuses (including the use of violence and coercion), schools became important ideological instruments of Chilenization, especially after the compulsory education law was passed in 1917. In addition, Atacameños were forced to either nationalize as Chileans or, alternatively, as Bolivians, in which case they would have to leave Chilean territory (Martínez et al. 2003). The emergence of a new political-economic scenario accompanied this process.

Once the Chilean state consolidated its sovereign power in the Atacama, the mining boom completely changed the local economy and the relation between capital and the state. From 1883, the state exerted its sovereign power by supporting intensive capitalist expansion in the area (Sanhueza and Gundermann 2007, 2009). The main transformation of the territory was driven by the boom of the extractive mining industry and the expanding railway infrastructure, as well as urban growth and development.

Following the collapse of the nitrate industry in the early 1930s, due to the invention of synthetic nitrate in Germany during the Great Depression, copper mining began to

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increase. This was due largely to increased demand from the growing electric industry, along with growth in the construction sector and the invention of new pro!table tech-nologies of extraction (Fermandois et al. 2009; Consejo Minero 2012).

Within this new economic scenario, the Chilenization process was developed mainly through the proletarization of the local population and the spatial conquest of the region by capital (Harvey 2010). Many Atacameños joined the labor market for the !rst time as the mining sector grew and exploited both metallic (i.e. copper) and non-metallic (i.e sulphur) resources. This process was accompanied by the Chuquicamata mining enclave’s exploitation of water and other natural resources of the region, a situation that encouraged migration to urban areas (Martínez 1985). These factors, among others (see Bengoa 2004), led to the proletarization of the Atacameños as mining workers (Rivera 1997; Sanhueza and Gundermann 2007, 2009) and consequently their migration toward the cities, especially to Calama (currently the city with the greatest concentration of Atacameños) and to Chuquicamata. As a result of these new political and economic developments, historical rural communities were reduced to very small agrarian and pastoralist villages (Gundermann 2003). Within this context, wage labour replaced the agrarian economy as the main economic structure of the Atacameños region (Sanhueza and Gundermann 2007, 2009).

These political-economic conditions required the Chilean state to change its approach toward the Atacameños. Beginning in 1930s, the process of forced assimilation was replaced by a model of integration based on practices of assistance and state intervention in local structures (Rivera 1994). Here the state again deployed a neo-colonial narrative that categorized the rural Andean people as simple peasants and stigmatized them as undeveloped, uncivilized, poor and marginal. These representations were mobilized as part of a new modernist project that led the state bureaucracy to implement multiple welfare policies and projects (e.g. roads, communication infrastructure, health infra-structure) whose aim was the “development” of the indigenous and their integration into Chilean society (Gundermann, 2003).

As part of this modernizing process, during the second half of the twentieth century the state developed powerful policies that aimed to continue the cultural homogeniza-tion of the indigenous. Traditional communities were organized under administrative units promoted by the state, called Juntas de Vecinos (neighbourhood associations), which where the key institutions through which Pinochet´s dictatorship later developed a decentralized but effective control in the area (Gundermann and Vergara 2009).

Dictatorships, frontiers and exits to the Paci!c (1975–1978)

Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup reinstated the armed forces as the backbone of the country’s functioning. Violence and militarization returned as technologies of governance for reproducing state sovereignty and reinforcing nationalism, and these accompanied the blanket repression of the left-wing opposition. Meanwhile, the regime’s human rights aggressions began to elicit strong international reactions, and the country became cut off from the rest of the world. The Pinochet regime sought allies in other dictatorships, such as Hugo Banzer Suarez’s regime in neighbouring Bolivia. At a time seen as ripe for solving the high plain country’s maritime border con"icts (following the Ayacucho Dec-

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laration of December 9, 1974 in Lima, signed by the Union of South American Nations), Pinochet offered Banzer territorial compensation in exchange for peace. February 9, 1975 marked the start of the diplomatic path known as the Charaña Embrace.

After this meeting, Pinochet and Banzer decided to restart diplomatic relations and to try to put an end to a con"ict which was ultimately rooted in the Paci!c War. The talks failed, though, due to Peru’s refusal to grant Bolivia access to the sea: the 1926 Lima Treaty speci!es that Peru must be consulted about such decisions, and at the time of the Charaña meetings, Peru refused to give up a corridor which would have run through the north of the Arica region. From this point on, relations grew increasingly tense until there was a !nal diplomatic break-up in 1978. This was a particularly critical year for the Pinochet dictatorship: the remains of executed peasants were uncovered at the town of Lonquén and Air Force General Gustavo Leigh was dismissed for his democratic af!liations (following which 18 of the 21 generals of the Chilean Army resigned). Further, the US was putting pressure on the Chilean military dictatorship to capture those responsible for the death of Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean diplomat and activist, and had imposed an arms embargo—backed by some European countries—in response to human rights violations.

This context illustrates the ensuing process by which the entire South American region became destabilized. Military dictatorships, under pressure from the economic crisis and international politics, resorted to old territorial claims as a means to legitimize and guarantee their continuity. Perhaps the most isolated of them all, the Pinochetista regime mobilized the social imagery of Chilean nationalism and reactivated the old motto of the armed forces: “Always victors, never defeated.” Bolivian, Peruvian and Argentine territorial claims were used to foster a feeling of dogged resistance, and of defensive patriotism which mobilized even the most indifferent subjects and opponents of the armed forces. The 1978 Beagle con"ict between Jorge Rafael Videla, the then-dictator of Argentina, and Pinochet almost escalated into war. This situation was considered critical for the Chilean Army as long as it saw that it could open the doors for the revival of a possible armed con"ict with Peru and Bolivia. The Chilean Army had to confront the situation in a weaker position as, unlike Argentina, Chile was at the time under a USA- and British-led embargo.

The process of state formation and Chilenization that was reinforced in the Atacama area occurred within this tense geopolitical context. Pinochet’s regime reversed the of!cial recognition of the indigenous and proclaimed that all Chileans were equals (Decree No. 2,558), and the state restricted migration to and from neighbouring countries (a situation that limited the historic cultural interchange between the Andean populations of Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina). The revival of the Chilenization process during Pinochet’s regime was accompanied by an administrative reform that created new communes on the border (Ollagüe in 1979 and San Pedro de Atacama in 1980) through which the state more effectively channelled its control and welfare programs through a new decentral-ized model (Gundermann 2003). An educational policy was implemented through rural schools located at the border (known as escuelas de concentración fronteriza), for reinforcing education in patriotic values, reproducing discourses of national integration, imposing national symbols and importing Chilean cultural practices from the central zone. Through this plan, in addition to strengthening the Chilenization process, the

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state tried to prevent the depopulation of a key geopolitical territory (Comisión Chilena de Derechos Humanos 1988).

We interviewed an Atacameña from the community of Chiu Chiu who went to the board-ing school of Caspana. She told us her experience of when she was seven years old:

Like all the other children from other communities, I was taken to the boarding school at Caspana, which was an escuela fronteriza [border school]. The government took children from all the communities and sent them to this kind of school. My boarding school was packed. That was in 1978 or 1979. We went to the school every March and came back home for the winter break, and then we went back to the boarding school until Christmas. There was no transportation to Caspana, so we hitchhiked or jumped on the army truck or the truck that used to bring goods to the communities. [...] At the boarding school we were forced to sing the complete national anthem in front of the "ag. The soldiers were always there. They were always dressed in gray. The teachers made us march like those soldiers in front of the Chilean "ag. We suffered a lot, because we were children, we were alone, and we had to march. That is how we spent the year, learning how to read, studying the history of Chile, singing the national anthem and missing our parents.

We asked another peasant from Chiu Chiu how he self-recognizes, and despite his recognition that his mother and father were indigenous he said to us that he “felt more like a Chilean than an Atacameño indigenous.” We asked why. He replied:

Because of the school. They told us that the indigenous does not exist anymore; that the only people that exist in Chile were Chileans. Pinochet told us “we are all Chileans, Chile is for the Chileans.” If you did not follow that [mimicking the act of cutting his throat with a knife].

These borderland schools remain active in the area today, performing the ongoing process of Chilenization.

Discursively, the military regime denied the existence of the Atacameños. Indeed, defending a thesis of cultural homogeneity, the Military Geographical Institute stated that

With the exception of small spatially marginalized ethnic minorities, especially the Aymaras from the highlands, the inhabitants of Easter Island, and the southern Alacalufes, the Chilean population has a tendency to both ethnic and cultural homogenization. (Instituto Geográ!co Militar 1983, 13)

The ideological reproduction of state sovereignty was accompanied by a radical milita-rization of the area. The regime installed explosive mines, and promoted military service among the Andean communities (Aymaras, Atacameños and Quechuas). Border areas were thus subjected to a total militarization of their landscape and the systematic use of landmines, to combat external and internal enemies alike (activists, exiles, foreign journalists, etc.). All border regions were forti!ed and new military outposts were built on the second defensive line, behind the natural access routes to the country’s high

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plains. This context, and within it a silenced con"ict between Bolivia and Chile, saw the erection of the enclosed and forti!ed complex of Topaín at the very centre of the Atacama Puna, between the communities of Cupo and Paniri.

No one writes to the coronel: army life between the Puna and the Andes

At a crossroads on the tracks leading eastwards to Turi and northwards to Cupo stands a still-readable sign saying “Property of the Chilean Army.” Two poles mark the entrance to the ruins of the main camp of the Topaín military outpost, at the foot of a small vol-canic tuff-crowned hillock (see Figure 2). The south-oriented military outpost maximizes exposure to sunlight, a decisive feature in the hard winter season of the Atacama Puna grasslands (Parcero-Oubiña et al. 2012).

The Chilean Army’s strategy to stop the Bolivian or Argentinian invasion was to secure a military position, the Topain camp, that would give them an advantage on the potential battle!eld. Such camps were designed to manage the territory’s capacity to divide,

FIGURE 2. Topaín military outpost: 1. Camp; 2. Latrines; 3. Room; 4. Radio station; 5. Trash Pit Number 1; 6. Trash Pit Number 2.; 7. Trash Pit Number 3; 8. Trash Pit Number 4; 9. Trash Pit Number 5; 10. Rubbish (Figure by Xurxo Ayán Vila).

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isolate and destroy the forces of potential opponents gradually and piece by piece. Within this system, the Topaín position played a containing role against hypothetical tanks and artillery coming from the Bolivian side. It was exactly here that the artillery forces of the Number 1 Reinforced Calama Regiment from the !rst Antofagasta Division were placed. Although it is at present impossible to consult Chilean military sources, the place’s microhistory can be reconstructed using the material culture preserved at this archaeological site. In this sense, this article is an exercise in archaeological methods that reveal the role of material culture in the daily lives of those who once inhabited this military site. This, in turn, constitutes a new way of understanding the reproduction of state sovereignty through everyday material culture.

This northeast–southwest-oriented cantonment consists of several rectangular archi-tectural structures, built in local stone masonry (see Figure 3). All of the preserved window openings point northeastwards, facing the Bolivian border. No evidence is preserved of either the original roofs or the furniture, suggesting the camp was abandoned in a delib-erate and orderly fashion which allowed systematic dismantling. In some cases, internal walls appear to have collapsed inside some of the rooms. As informants from Cupo told us, the remains were reused by a family that periodically inhabited the place until the early 1990s. It is also possible that local inhabitants may have reused some of the structures as corrals, chicken coops or dustbins. However, most of the structures’ functions have been identi!ed: latrines, kitchens, of!cers’ residences and barracks to house the troops.

An access analysis of the buildings shows us the importance of what appear to be two nodal points. One of these is a bailey, into which the two main access routes

FIGURE 3. View of Topaín military outpost. Behind, Topaín mountain (Photograph by authors).

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lead: this open space has a stone plinth in the shape of a cross, which almost de!-nitely once held a Chilean "ag.5 It is easy to assess its symbolic importance within an architectural scenography designed to inoculate patriotic values into the conscripts.6 The bailey was meant to maintain military discipline through daily drilling exercises, and inscribed the idea of a stronghold into the site. These were both clearly desired effects, in an area which was peripheral to the national territory and still undergoing a process of Chilenization. In the middle of the Puna grasslands, the use of the "ag and the bailey was a fundamental way of marking the state’s presence. The importance of these symbols, marches and parades, especially at schools, became clear during interviews with several members of the local communities (i.e. from Toconce, Caspana, Chiu Chiu, Lasana, Ollagüe, Ayquina). The interviewees had vivid recollections of these marches being commandeered personally by of!cers. With spades and hoes over their shoulders, the army used these ceremonies as daily rituals to “form the national spirit.” Indeed, on Chile’s National Day in 2010 (September 18), an Atacameño from Chiu Chiu told us during an interview about the remains of the military culture that:

The military culture is still here; for example, you can see how today children are marching in the streets with the Chilean "ags like milicos [derogative term for soldiers] did and still do. Teachers have put that huevadas [bullshit, referring to patriotic values] in their heads. That huevadas [bullshit] is still here [pointing to his temple]. They impose it with great force.

The day after, the most important local newspaper, El Mercurio de Calama, published on its front page a picture of the students from the border school of Ollagüe celebrat-ing the Chilean National Day by marching with the soldiers in charge of patrolling the border with Bolivia.

These ceremonial practices and the "ag have had a strong impact on local people. A clear example of this is the canal-cleaning ceremony celebrated in San Santiago de Río Grande at the beginning of August. As seen during participant-observation conducted in 2010, men carry out imitation military formation exercises during the ceremony, with their spades and hoes over their shoulders. The exercises were carried out at the foot of the channels themselves and also at the churchyard, with the Chilean "ag presiding over the event. Another element is that the colours of the "ag have been naturalized in the ceremonies, as an Atacameño leader told us:

In [the community of] Talabre, for example, the ribbons that they tie on the "ags for the carnival, now they are tricolor: white, blue and red, the colours of the Chilean "ag. They are traditionally supposed to show our colours, different colours, the colours of our ancestors. These are the kinds of things that the Chilenization did.

5. We have documented the importance of this type of square in domesticating individuals (prisoners, soldiers) (Foucault 1977) at military-controlled facilities in Spain, such as concentration camps (López 2009; González-Ruibal et al. 2011; Ayán and González-Ruibal 2013).

6. The Chilean state instituted an oath to the "ag in 1939, as a means of instilling patriotic values into young soldiers. In 2013, over 300 young men swore allegiance to the Patria at the facilities of the First Reinforced Calama Regiment.

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In Fort Henry, therefore, we found an architecture that materialized and reproduced the discipline and patriotism of Pinochet’s army. The Fort’s living spaces can be read as a material metaphor of the social order.

The area where privacy is greatest is the southwest corner, where a series of smaller rooms can be found along streets, with their own terrace and a more elaborate !nish (a cement plaque on the "oor, side shelves and an internally-segmented space). In this part of the camp, the westernmost structure is worth noting, as "oor surfaces yielded a makeshift lamp made by recycling a big can, as well as batteries and a small piece of paper (see Figure 4). The !rst two objects illustrate the absence of electric light, a surprising feature of the military settlement which we have been able to document. In turn the lamp, made with knife cuts, constitutes an explicit attempt to personalize and embellish daily space. We have also been able to transcribe and translate the text writ-ten on the small piece of paper, which comes from a 1988 periodical publication (either a magazine or a newspaper).

[——]romises each and every [——]/es, potential and activ/ [——] expressed under the con/ Arms” and “Total War,” damental from which to dis/ achieve Victory are the[——] /rit of Victory of its people, /by the activating of its Air For[——] or when these AA FF (Armed Forces) and /their double or multiple responsibility, / a to victoriously confront one /or another part conduct a government /ric- political

Ñez Langlois,7 appeared in 77 entitled “Church !aj/assed debate about na /tain doctors that thought-and contraception were es/n, therefore, the “intromission” of/ ia. They were guided by the concept /mi-god, which, while dispersing the gift of good and evil of mortal laws. But this attitude was not: The Ministry recognized since [——]

This documentary evidence places us at the very end of the Pinochet regime, after the dictator’s failed 1988 plebiscite. One can easily imagine a young of!cer sitting at a table on a cold night inside the barracks, reading a pro-government newspaper by candlelight. The political situation was indeed delicate, and was no doubt followed avidly by both the civil population and the entire Armed Forces. This minuscule piece of paper is as telling about military control of the entire country as it is about the last phase of life in the very military complex whose mission was about to come to an end with the return of democracy.

In the rest of the buildings, surfaces have yielded fragments of cans, batteries, cow bones and reused bits of wire, which we can relate to some form of trench art (Saunders 2003, 2007), a symptom of the routine and boredom of the young soldiers’ lives at the complex. Commissioned out to the “middle of nowhere,” their sole company and contact with the outside world was provided by the radio. On the kitchen cookers, bits of bone from long-forgotten food can still be seen, as well as some nails, probably taken out of pieces of wood used to make !re. At the foot of one of the larger barracks, we found

7. José Miguel Ibáñez Langlois (born 1936) is a Chilean priest and member of Opus Dei, who in 1988 belonged to the Ponti!cal International Theological Commission. He supported the ban on therapeutic abortion in Chile. This was one of the numberless “tie-up laws” signed by the Pinochet government, shortly before the end of the dictatorship but to be applied in the future, after the plebi-scite of October 5, 1988 (Lagos 2001). Ibáñez Langlois is the author of Doctrina social de la Iglesia (The Social Doctrine of the Church, 1986).

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FIGURE 4. Occupation level at Room 1. Reused can as a lamp and fragment of newspaper (Photograph by authors).

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a 7.62 mm x 51 mm ammunition clip used for Mauser Steyr ri"es, the Chilean Army’s of!cial infantry weapon during the 1970s and 1980s (see below).

North of this group of buildings is a terrace leading to another enclosed area, in turn sur-rounded by eight sharpshooter posts that protected the old military outpost’s radio station. The fact that these structures were later reused as rubbish bins while the military barracks were still in use makes them a very interesting window into the daily lives of the soldiers.

Among these structures, Trash Pit Number 1, which completely covers a sharpshooter’s post in the northeast corner of the most distant barracks, is of particular interest (see Figure 5). This pit perfectly exempli!es the type of materials we have found throughout the entire camp (see Figure 6). Among the objects found were many Cristal-brand beer cans, Capel-brand Pisco bottles8 and a number of glass bottles, presumably of wine, although they might have been reused for water. It was common for soldiers to drink alcohol, both during their free time and over lunch as well as while on guard, this duty being particularly hard in the cold and windy nights of the Atacama winter. Also signi!cant is the presence of food remains. Judging by the size of most cans present, canned beef must have made up an important part of the diet.

The picture is completed by small 42.5-gram peanut butter jars, supplied to the Chilean army by the US company Kern Foods Inc. Toothpaste tubes and Gillette-brand razors re"ect a concern for personal hygiene, while personal objects including clothing remains do not seem to match the of!cial military uniform, except for two buttons and

8. This is a grape distillate widely consumed in Chile and produced in the IV Región de Coquimbo.

FIGURE 5. Trash Pit Number 1 (Photograph by authors).

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a sock found near the trash pit. This and other pits, as well as many other structures, feature sports shoes designed in unmistakably 1980s style, and which clearly imitate the characteristic German brand Adidas. The material complex is completed by cough-mixture bottles and a sort of pipe made of recycled material (copper and tin). Scores of batteries have also been found, probably used for torches and radio sets. Finally, three bullet shells illustrate the lack of spent ammunition in the entire military camp area. Trash Pit Number 2, found only a few meters away from Number 1, has been intentionally sealed off with mid-sized stones. Here, meat cans are clearly predominant.

Trash Pit Number 3 is smaller, and is found at the foot of a rocky outcrop. It has no delimitating structure and its contents are, unusually, scattered downhill. Among the materials, we have found a bottle of wine, a Coca-Cola bottle and remains of the bivalve mollusc Pectinidade.9 This species is also present in Trash Pit Number 4, along with US Rayovac-brand batteries, a Chilean-made plate of industrial porcelain, cow bones, a bot-tle of Pisco and an orange Bic pen. Trash Pit Number 4 is adjacent to Sharpshooter Post Number 1. The presence of meat cans and some peanut butter jars is also signi!cant.

Sharpshooter Post Number 3 is clogged by Trash Pit Number 5. Among the most signi!cant materials, apart from food cans, is the evidence of alcoholic beverage con-sumption: three different brands of Chilean Pisco (Bauzá, Huasco and Control), a wine

9. Argopecten purpuratus, which is a local type of scallop known along the Antofagasta Coast as fan shell. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon in 1982–1983 massively increased its popula-tion, leading to rapid exploitation as a commercial resource, especially for the foreign markets. The boom faded as the effects of the El Niño phenomenon wore off (Avendaño et al. 2008).

FIGURE 6. Main archaeological objects recovered at Trash Pit Number 1 (Photograph by authors).

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bottle and a Pabst Blue Ribbon can10 are the exceptions to the almost total predomi-nance of the king of Andes beers, Cristal. The picture is completed by a 1980s Pepsi-Cola bottle. Among other peculiar pieces, a copper tube reused as some sort of pipe to inhale tobacco or other substances is also worth mentioning. Also, there is the lid of a Black Nugget bitumen shoe-polish tin and a deep porcelain plate made in Chile by the national factory (FNLP Chileware). War materials include two spent cartridge cases (one from a bullet) and an aluminium fragment of a grenade mortar.

As mentioned, the radio station sits at the centre of one the highest points of the military outpost. It rests on a circular structure of large stone blocks, all extracted from the rocky outcrop. Among these rocks we have clearly distinguished three petroglyphs, with "ames and geometric motifs which are similar to those found at the nearby pre-Inca and Inca settlement of Turi (see Figure 7). This small hill stands in a strategic region which controls the old caravan routes leading down from the high plains.

The place is also a small oasis at the foot of a spring, which according to of!cial records was still being by Don Juan Cruz for irrigating land (0.655 hectares) in 1991 (CEPA 1991). This also explains why the military chose exactly this small estate to occupy in the late 1970s. The presence of petroglyphs at this site seems connected to their role as territorial markers (Nielsen 1998–1999; Berenguer 2004) within the sur-

10. This is a beer which has acquired an interesting place in US popular culture in recent years. It is a cheap, watery, working class beer. However, in the last ten years the company has been successful in marketing it to the “hipster” youth.

FIGURE 7. Prehistoric petroglyphs were reused for the walls of the radio station (Photograph by authors).

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rounding crop-growing areas, which date back to the Late Intermediate Period11 of the site of Topaín (Urbina 2007; Parcero-Oubiña et al. 2012). These petroglyphs coexist with graf!ti drawn by the soldiers themselves (see below). Among the materials connected to this structure is a can of Morenita beer,12 fragments of a bottle of Pepsi-Cola and a 1977 50-cent coin with a hole in it made with a sharp object (see Figure 8).

Latrines are found on the southwest slope, almost completely clogged by the crum-bled walls. Trash Pit Number 6, to the southwest, contains meat cans and cow bones. Sports shoes and fragments of porcelain have also been found, and among them a beer mug and a plate which is identical to others documented at Trash Pit Number 5, Sharpshooter Post Number 3 and the annexed room.

The east area is completed by a sharpshooter’s post which stands right in front of an old agricultural pasture area with cockpits and a gable-roofed house with two rooms. The Army occupied this house and inside it are remains from this very period. Its legitimate owners have never since moved back into the place. The "oor of Room 1 is completely full of material: a 7.62 mm bullet shell, pieces of Gillette blades, Power-brand sport

11. The Late Intermediate Period (950–1450 C.E.) is characterized by regional developments in the Loa River and Salado River basins. The variety of distinctive regional traits resulted in complex social structures and increasing political social autonomy, accompanied with demographic increase expressed in altitude settlements, political instability and caravan traf!c (see details in Nuñez and Dilahay 1979, Berenguer 2002; Schiappacasse et al. 1989; Nielsen 2006).

12. Black beer brand made in Chile since 1935 by the United Brewers Company (Cervecerías Unidas).

FIGURE 8. Archaeological objects discovered at radio station: Morenita beer, fragment of Pepsi bottle and Chilean !fty-cent coin dated 1977 (Photograph by authors).

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shoes, Cristal- and Morenita-brand beer cans, peanut butter jars, batteries, yellow plastic spoons and brooms to sweep the "oor, next to a boat-shaped hand mill with a grinding stone. The most signi!cant artefacts in Room 2 are a can of Pepsi and a pair of Power-brand shoes. The southwest corner of the great cockpit associated with this old room holds the last trash pit, which we can connect to the military occupation of this site (Trash Pit 7). The pit features the same array of materials which we have recorded at other waste areas. As signi!cant materials, we may highlight the presence of a sports shoe with the motto ESPAÑA 82, related to the 1982 football cup of that year, and the remains of an Eristoff vodka bottle.

As well as the camp, the military outpost includes !ve rectangular buildings of armed concrete, covered with masonry and placed at the foot of the southwest altitude point of the Topaín hillock. These structures were all left half-built and are closely linked to both the forti!cation of this strategic high point and to a likely move away from the original camp to a new placement. Down the hillock’s northern slope, several sharpshooting posts are hidden amongst the rocky outcrops. The higher area and the northeast slope, directly overlooking the mountains, host the larger-sized posts, full of soldiers’ graf!ti. As associ-ated material, we found a bucket which has been reused as a urinal, a can of Pepsi-Cola and a 7.62 mm x 51 mm shell. There is also another fragment of anti-tank rocket-launcher grenade, of exactly the same type as that documented at the camp’s Trash Pit Number 3.

The desert foxes: an island hillock for an isolated dictatorship

Bolivians are meta-morphed auchenia.13

(Admiral José Toribio Merino)14

Not a single leaf may tremble in this country unless I’m shaking it, may that be absolutely clear.

(Augusto Pinochet, October 13, 1981)

The few arms and ammunition remains documented at Topaín are a good re"ection of the delicate military and political situation facing the Pinochetista dictatorship from 1978 (Table 1), with the US arms embargo declared in that year by the Kennedy Amendment.

The depletion of materials which predate the embargo can be seen clearly, as well as the adaptation of NATO ammunition: the embargo forced the Chilean Armed Forces to recalibrate 100,000 Mauser Steyr ri"es to use 7.62 mm x 51 mm NATO bullets. These were used to load both the short and the long models of the 1912 bolted Chilean Mausers, and isolation also accelerated national production and brought about the 1978 Chilean Mauser. The acquisition of Brazilian and Spanish armament from 1978 can also be perceived clearly, as well as domestic production from that date by FAMAE (Factories and Armouries of the Chilean Army, Fábricas y Maestranzas del Ejército, the Chilean state-owned !rearms manufacturer).

13. Auchena is a zoological term for the South American Camelids. These include llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and guanacos.

14. Admiral José Toribio Merino was commander-in-chief of the Chilean Navy (1973–1990), and presi-dent of the military junta from 1981 to 1990.

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As well as the Mauser ri"e, the soldiers at Topaín are likely to have used this ammuni-tion with a type of machine gun, the MG-42/58 (M1A1) and the SIG semi-automatic ri"e, an advanced version of the Swiss ri"e SIG 510-4 adopted in 1966 by the Chilean Army and which is still used to arm its !rst-line units to this day. The SIG 542 uses a 7.62 mm x 51 mm calibration and was adopted at this time of isolation.

Two aluminium alloy fragments were also collected, one at the hilltop, and the other inside Trash Pit Number 1, both corresponding to a different type of armoury. In this case, they are the remains of an 88.9 mm-calibre grenade from an anti-tank rocket launcher model 65, built by the national company of Santa Barbara, from Palencia in Spain. This 300-meter-range bazooka needs two people, a shooter and a charger. The speci!c grenade remains found correspond to a training piece; that is, grenades that were used for practice before real !ring. These grenades have a bolt to place a 7.62 mm x 51 mm caliber tracing cartridge. Both are placed inside the M-65 and, when !red, the tracing bullet "ies in a simulation of the grenade’s trajectory. The fragment and shells found on the Topaín hillock all speak of exercises and manoeuvres carried out by soldiers using this kind of rocket launcher at the camp.

In the midst of Spain’s transition to democracy,15 the country continued to send these arms to Chile in 1979. Due to the embargo, the regime also sought contracts with Austria and France between 1978 and 1980. However, in 1981 Austria and France joined the embargo to isolate Pinochet. It was in this context that Carlos Cardoen built his fortune as an arms manufacturer and dealer. Cardoen’s companies, along with the factories and armouries of the Chilean Army, practically monopolized Chilean arms production at the time of the embargo.

The Topaín position represents this historical phase very faithfully. The embargo forced the regime to carry out a parody of a National Consultation against this so-called inter-national aggression. That same year, the opposition leader, Eduardo Frei, died under suspicious circumstances and a new constitution was put in place to give the regime

15. It seems that Franco and Pinochet kept excellent relations up to the very death of the Spanish dictator, whose funeral Pinochet attended in 1975. It is also worth mentioning that the legitimating discourse of the 1973 Chilean coup repeated the commonplace assertions of the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939): foreign intervention, the Marxist yoke, etc.

TABLE 1. Ammunition documented at the military outpost of Topaín

No CONTEXT MARK MANUFACTURE

1 Room FR 7.62 Realengo Factory Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1979)

2 Topaín Hill HP 71 7.62x51 N Hirtenberger Patronen Zundhütchen und Metallwarenfabrik, from Hirtenberg, Austria

3 Trash Pit Number 5 F NATO 75 FAMAE (Factories and Armouries of the Chilean Army)

4 Pukara Topaín HP 71 7.62x51 N Hirtenberger Patronen Zundhütchen und Metallwarenfabrik, from Hirtenberg, Austria

5 Trash Pit Number 1 NATO/M.S./66 Manusaar-Büdingen,Germany (1966)

6 Trash Pit Number 1 RA F 10 75 Remington Arms, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

7 Trash Pit Number 1 7.62x51 SB 79 E. N. Santa Bárbara de Palencia, Spain

8 Trash Pit Number 5 F NATO 79 FAMAE (Factories and Armories of the Chilean Army)

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some semblance of legal backing. The embargo prevented ammunition from being decommissioned and fostered the rationalization of existing production techniques. Perhaps symptomatically, intensive prospecting has yielded only nine !red shells and two fragments of anti-tank rocket-launcher grenades (see Figure 9).

In turn, the autarchic and self-suf!cient model is represented by the supplies them-selves. The canned food, the clothing, the drink and the ammunition (from 1978 onwards) are almost entirely Chilean made, with the exception of a few imported products, interestingly from the United States: peanut butter, Pepsi-Cola, batteries and a can of beer. Despite the arms embargo, commercial exchange with the United States contin-ued, although in some cases these items might have been acquired prior to 1978 and consumed later (including a Cuban-origin can of sardines). Consumption of Chilean products reaf!rmed the of!cial patriotic discourse.

On the other hand, the archaeological materials of the military camp’s trash pits show us quite a different picture from the experience endured in rural areas like Atacama. An ef!cient supply of food and water is well documented at the military complex, with plenty of beef and pork meat. Dietary needs were supplemented with imported prod-ucts, such as the above-mentioned US peanut butter. Even seafood was available, from Antofagasta, the site of the headquarters in charge of this post. In addition, as local informants from Cupo and Turi told us, and as con!rmed by one archaeologist from El Grupo de Toconce,16 meat was obtained from cuyes (guinea pigs) and rabbits that they stole from inhabitants of Turi.

16. V. Castro (Universidad Alberto Hurtado and Universidad de Chile), pers. comm., September 3, 2013. El Grupo de Toconce is a group of archaeologists who started to systematically develop research for the !rst time in the Loa River basin in the early 1970s.

FIGURE 9. Chilean Mauser ammunition and two remains of an 88.9 mm-calibre grenade from an anti-tank rocket launcher model 65, built by the national company of Santa Barbara, from Palencia in Spain. The left one was picked up on the hill of Topaín, and the right one on the Trash Pit Number 1 at camp (Photograph by authors).

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These conditions contrasted with the effects of the severe economic crisis of 1982, which brought hunger to many of the country’s rural areas. In 1983, the !rst National Days of Protest erupted (Zapata 2004). The !rst signs of a movement to counter the effects of the crisis were also seen, with camps and shelters established for poor families in an atmosphere of opposition to the military regime. While the civil population suffered the consequences of the crisis, recruits at border positions lived inside a patriotic bubble of their own. It was yet another example of the overweening power of the army, which imposed itself upon communities by the use and force of its weapons while allegedly protecting them from all enemies, both internal and external.

The social con"icts of the early 1980s were strongly manifest in the territory where the Topaín position stands. It is worth remembering that the headquarters of the 15th Calama Infantry Regiment was once a detention centre and a site of torture. The high-est number of detentions occurred in the period 1973–1974, although there was also increase in 1978 in comparison to 1974, and the headquarters was a stop-by facility. In 1984, the National Commission of Political Prison and Torture heard testimonies about detainees being blindfolded and held incommunicado, and subjected to fre-quent threats and beatings, as well as to deprivation of food, water and sleep. At the regiment’s central yard, prisoners were immersed in tanks of dirty water, subjected to mock executions, partial burials inside pits, beatings, electric shocks and hang-ings. At other times, they were hooded and conducted to the building’s underground areas, where an of!ce had been set up for their torture and interrogation (Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura 2004, 321). Testimonies also accused the authorities of moving political prisoners to other isolated centres for interrogation, such as the Political Prisoner Camp of Cachabuco and the military camp of Conchi, in the same area as Topaín. In 1978, the enclosed area of Conchi was a very active centre of systematic torture, although we do not know whether the military camp of Topaín was also the scene of such practices. In any case, the camp was an integral part of a network of coercion put in place to silence and counter political resistance at a time of social con"ict and economic crisis. In August 1978, when labour unrest sparked a mobilization at Chuquicamata (the Guerra de las Viandas), 600 detainees were sent to Conchi. The regime decreed a state of siege in the area (Aguiar 2009, 37). In 1985, when Topaín was at the peak of its activity, the military facility was used to house soldiers from different parts of the country later to be redirected to different northern locations, including the nearby hamlet of Toconce (Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura 2004, 323). This is re"ected by soldiers’ graf!ti (see Table 2); most graf!ti suggest the full or incomplete names of soldiers, sometimes followed by dates, places of origin and the positions held in the army. Occasionally, female names such as Claudia also appear.

These military camps not only articulated a defensive line to counter potential enemy attacks, but also worked as a penitentiary arquipielago to combat and destroy inter-nal enemies (e.g. unionists, opponents, indigenous community leaders). Again, these prisoners were beaten up, terrorized through mock executions and subjected to such practices as electric shocks or the extraction of their teeth with pliers (Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura 2004, 321–323).

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While the sadistic members of the DINA (Direction of National Intelligence or Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional) police forces, the CNI (National Centre of Information, Centro Nacional de Información) or the SIM (Military Intelligence Service, Servicio de Inteligencia Militar) carried out their “cleansing” of the Patria’s internal enemies, the task of defending Chile from external aggressions lay in the hands of young recruits, conscripted soldiers who carved their names on the rocky walls of the Topaín camp and hilltop. These young men left written testimonies of their experience by the use of graf!ti (see Figure 10). Their memories of friends and girlfriends, their yearning on Christmas Day 1985, and their reinforced territorial identity in relation to their city or region of origin are all carved into the walls. Topaín received soldiers from Calama (2nd Region), Copiapó (3rd Region) and Andacollo (4th Region). All these young men from the northern regions had been mobilized by the Army with the clear intention of making them perceive themselves as the !rst defensive line of the Patria.

The patriotic discourse that imprinted into the minds of these draft soldiers the nationalist ideology which legitimated their military service stands in stark contrast with the archaeological record. Sharpshooter Post Number 3 speaks volumes about the long guard duty nights under the harsh atacameño climate; it depicts soldiers on the verge of freezing, drinking increasing amounts of alcohol, and clinging onto their ri"es and the radio as escape routes. The camp’s architecture re"ects the typical hierarchic structure of the military; of!cers were segregated from the bulk of the troops, who were treated as mere cannon fodder and con!ned inside the barracks like cattle. The material culture suggests long hours, boredom, routine and desperation. However, at the same time, despite the isolation of the area and the absence of high-ranking military of!cers, the shoe polish, the razor and the toothpaste reveal the reproduction of self-discipline (Foucault 1991).

TABLE 2. Main graf!ti documented at the Topaín position.

GRAFFITTINO.

PLACEMENT TEXT

1 Radio Station Terrace RDO. 2H/1/86/DURAN.N./VALLES. CASTILLO. BUGEÑO. ARALLA. C. ARALLA. T MORA. ASTUDILLO 2n BAT

2 Radio Station SLC/PATO ALVARADO/12/3/88

3 Room 2 CARLOS SALVA/VIVA

4 Hillock JORGE IVÁN GÓMEZ/ZAMORA 10/7/83

5 Hillock RDO/ARTILLERO SERGIO OVALLE PLAZA/ 25-DIC- 85/ EL PALQUI

6 Hillock CLAUDIA/8/7/83

7 Hillock WALDEMAR CALLEJAS/19/05/87

8 Hillock ANDACOLLO/FZO Y GINA

9 Hillock COPIAPÓ 82/INSTITUTO COMERCIAL

10 Hillock 3RA REGION/1 4 82

11 Hillock 3ª REG/HÉCTOR/VENEGA/ DIEGO/ DE/ ALMA

12 Hillock MAURO/ HINOJOSA/COPIAPÓ/M/I

13 Hillock RDO/JORGE/LOTADOR/MADARIAGA/CALAMA/10-5-

14 Hillock [Victory Symbol] 1990

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At the start of the 1980s a scienti!c team from the University of Chile appeared on the scene to carry out a study in ethnobotany. At the height of the military dictatorship, those responsible for the project were forced to ask permission from the military chief, who authorized the work as long as they could be duly escorted. The arrival of this mission, whose staff included women, must have been quite an event in the guides’ desperate lives and routine in the desert.17 In some cases the archaeologists from El Grupo de Toconce were also stopped and asked about their research.18

In the winter of 1982 rookie soldiers at Topaín paid more attention to the Chilean football team’s accomplishments than to the arrival of Bolivian enemies, and this is illustrative of how times were changing under the dictatorship (the Chilean football team, led by Carlos Caszely, lost all its !rst-round matches in the Spanish area of Asturias). Torch and transistor batteries are spread all over the military camp, and while the radio station was the only connection to the rest of an isolated country, nothing was said on the stations about the social con"icts or the political opposition. Assassination attempts on the lives of political opposition leaders abroad were equally silenced, as was the use of torture inside the country’s borders.

It is hard to tell whether any of these young soldiers’ relatives were detained and tor-tured or executed, never to be found again, as was the case with many desaparecidos

17. A. Maldonado (palynologist, CEAZA), pers. comm., July 8, 2013.18. C. Aldunate (Museo de Arte Precolombino), pers. comm., August 26, 2013.

FIGURE 10. Graf!ti at Topaín hill (1983). Behind: sacred mountain of Paniri (Photograph by authors).

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(missing persons). As far as we know they might have actively supported the regime. It is hard to know whether, on the other hand, they might now belong to the radical National Association of Former Conscript Soldiers 1973–1990. This association demands “economic reparations, as well as unpaid debts” and denounces “lack of psychological aid.”19 They also consider their basic human rights to have been violated, as they were forced to obey orders while under adult age (21 years old at the time) and endure a three-year-long military service, and were subjected to cruel treatment.

Final word: always victors, never defeated

The archaeology of the recent past provides tangible evidence that is recognizable by everyone and that allows us to capture the different meanings of place created through archaeological sites. Still, sites’ potential as material culture goes far beyond mere sug-gestion, imagination and recreation of a certain past. The archaeology of the recent past can go even further. It can become a useful tool in reconstructing the misery of territorial regimes and takes us past the often impenetrable walls of propaganda, manipulation and revisionism. Thus, analyses of the daily lives of those who dwelled within military spaces can shed light on the role of military space in the reproduction of state sovereignty.

As in many other military contexts we have worked in (Ethiopia under fascist occupa-tion [González-Ruibal 2010] or Francoist Spain [González-Ruibal et al. 2010]), we !nd an almost invisible military outpost bearing the marks impressed by major geopolitical interests. It also reminds us of the vile character of militarist regimes and their oppres-sion of the very civilian populations they claim to protect. The Topaín position reveals a practically unexplored material realm of the Pinochet regime. Chilean archaeologists have embarked on the study of the memory and history of the repression unleashed by the military regime: detention and torture facilities are being studied (Di Vruno et al. 2008; Sepúlveda et al. 2010; Fuenzalida 2011), along the lines set forth by other South American projects over the past decade (Company 2009; Funari et al. 2009; González and Lema 2011). Obviously, this research is crucial for restoring gaps in the national memory, !nding out what happened to disappeared persons, con!rming relatives’ accounts, and revealing the truth. Still other areas remain less explored. This is the archaeology of the perpetrators (González-Ruibal et al. 2011), of the daily life that the regime created in controlling territory and society, and of the nationalist discourse through which it tried to cement large sectors of the population. After combating internal enemies, the dictatorship again turned to address external ones (Constable and Valenzuela 1993). In the Atacama Puna, an occupied territory since the Paci!c War, the Pinochet regime completed just another phase in the continuous process of Chilenization. The army took control of this frontier area, imposing its will over any interest, demand or right on the part of the local communities, who were formally recognized only in 1993.

Our work in Topaín approaches the militarization process experienced by Chilean society during the late 1970s and the 1980s. The trash pits used by young conscripted soldiers—mere cannon fodder in situations on the verge of escalating into war, such as the December 1978 Beagle con"ict with Argentina—illustrate the fortunes and misfor-

19. The Association has a webpage, “Para que nunca mas en Chile”: www.agrupacionexconscriptos.blogspot.com.

http://www.agrupacionexconscriptos.blogspot.com

http://www.agrupacionexconscriptos.blogspot.com

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tunes of an isolated dictatorship. Such self-legitimating die-hard discourse can be seen as a strategy which in the case of neighbouring Argentina led to the Falklands War. In Chile, it degenerated into a true cold war with Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. This is the politico-military context in which the material culture of the Topaín site was embedded.

Finally, the archaeology of the recent past reminds us of the reusing and re-signifying practices taking place at memory sites. These processes often go hand in hand with reac-tivating archaeological ruins. The Topaín position is to this day abandoned, the new military buildings set up at its foot having been left un!nished (see Figure 11). The surrounding areas are used as grazing grounds for llamas and sheep. The sign at the entry gate into the area has had the correction “Former” added onto the original motto: “Property of the Chilean Army.” Still, state nationalism, with a hail-to-the-chief tone which is not unfamiliar to those of us who come from Spain, continues to resonate to this very day.

On January 25, 2013, three Bolivian soldiers were detained by Chilean forces near the frontier pass of Colchane. Evo Morales referred to this as yet another incident re"ecting and reinforcing the fortitude of his country’s armed forces; an incident that digni!ed Bolivians. It can be better understood against the backdrop of Bolivia’s famous landlocked borders. Issues over access to the sea continue to destabilize this South American area. The bilateral crisis has triggered a criss-cross of declarations, boycotts and confrontations that await a de!nite answer from the International Court

FIGURE 11. The Military outpost of Topaín was abandoned in 1989–1990. At that time, water disappeared from the agrarian !elds. Nowdays these agrarian structures are also archaeological ruins (Photograph by authors).

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at The Hague, but also a re-arming process. If the failure of negotiation in the 1970s brought about the fall of the Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer, in 2013 border questions continue to set the political agenda. This tension strengthens social imaginaries gener-ated over decades (Aliaga 2006) and massively deployed by military dictatorships.20

We don’t know whether the young soldiers who cut their names into the Topaín hillock in 1982 were against the military regime, or if they were faithful servants of the Chilean cause. Internet forums con!rm that many members of that generation not only idealize their experience in the Armed Forces as the good-old days of their youth but also reaf!rm their patriotic convictions. Notwithstanding the return of democ-racy to Chile in 1990, the nationalism to which the Pinochet regime contributed has continued to in"uence foreign policy in the country. Indeed, the region revisits the memory of the Paci!c War even today. Despite the new technologies of governance that reproduce state sovereignty through neoliberal policies and a state-sponsored multiculturalism (Postero 2007), the Topaín defence line at the Chilean rearguard may be reactivated at any time. This reminds us that Topaín is not an archaeological site frozen in time and space. Geopolitical contexts could reactive the site and bring back the drunk soldiers, who, practicing shooting with a perfectly clean-shaven faces and polished boots, will be experiencing the cold Atacama Desert nights as they expect the return, amidst the Paniri and San Pablo hills, of the eternal imaginary enemies, ghosts so pro!table to the national oligarchy that it has never once had to pay the death toll of saving the patria.

Acknowledgements

We authors wish to thank Frances Hayashida, Beau Murphy, Miguel Martínez (University of New Mexico), Cristian González (University of Chile) and Ester Echenique (University of Arizona). Without them this !eldwork would have been impossible. Fieldwork was carried out as part of the project “Agriculture and Empire in the High Altitude Atacama, co-directed by Frances Hayashida” (University of New Mexico), César Parcero-Oubiña (INCIPIT, CSIC), Andres Troncoso (University of Chile) and Diego Salazar (University of Chile), and funded by the National Science Foundation (Catalyzing New international Collaborations Grant OISE-1265816), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropologi-cal Research (International Collaborative Research Grant) and the National Geographic Society (Research and Exploration Grant 9296-13). We also thank the Inter-American Foundation and the Institute of International Education (Grassroots Development Fel-lowship), the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Science (Dissertation Research Grant), the University of Arizona Institute for the Environment and CONICYT + PAI / Concurso Nacional de Inserción en la Academia, Convocatoria 2014 + Folio 79140003. Many thanks are owed to the inhabitants of Cupo, Paniri, Turi, Chiu Chiu and Santiago de Río Grande, who shared their experiences with us. We would like

20. In the course of our research we noti!ed the police that we would be carrying out !eldwork in a border area from which in 2011 we were illegally expelled by employees of the National Copper Corporation of Chile. The policeman seeing to our request answered “don’t worry, this is a free access area, in fact, over the next few weeks there’ll a lot of soldiers coming and going.” All this “coming and going” was due to the upcoming International Court of Justice decision about Peru’s demands to Chile regarding access to the sea, a situation which has generated certain regional tensions.

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especially to thank to Jacob Miller for help polishing the English of this manuscript. Finally, we wish to thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive reviews that helped improve this paper.

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