The Historical Archaeology of Buenos Aires: A City at the End of the World

Abstract

What do Juan Manuel de Rosas, English and French porcelain, and the remains of revienta caballos seeds have in common? Both are among the telling bits of evidence that demonstrate the new dimensions historical archaeology brings to the history. Rosas, the xenophobic governor of Buenos Aires province, prohibited imports of European products, but had English and French porcelain, French floor tiles and toothbrushes from Paris in his country residence. Revienta caballos, a plant with strong abortive qualities, was used by someone in at least one elite household between 1850 and 1895.Daniel Schávelzon, the author of this study, is an acknowledged leader in the field of historical archaeology, a relatively new field in Latin America. The results of his extensive research on urban archaeology are presented in this interesting and highly readable book. Although he eventually plans to study Buenos Aires through the twentieth century, this volume concentrates on the architecture and material culture of the city from its first (unsuccessful) founding in 1535 to the end of the nineteenth century. Along the way he uncovers evidence that adds to the historical record, while also outlining lasting settlement and living patterns of the city and its inhabitants.From its earliest days as a marginal town at the end of the Spanish world, Buenos Aires strove to conform to European patterns, and consistently gazed eastward for its material, intellectual, cultural, and social values, and its racial models. Nonetheless, the author stresses that from its sixteenth-century founding to its nineteenth-century emergence as a major urban center of South America, Buenos Aires was always a multicultural, multinational, multiethnic and (until the twentieth century) a multiracial city.The author introduces his archaeological findings with a detailed and interesting discussion of the urban history of Buenos Aires, tracing its evolution from a small outpost of mud huts to an imposing city. He skillfully combines the results of excavations with historical evidence using physical remains and documents such as censuses, Jesuit writings, and travelers reports to inform his research. In addition, he discusses specific archaeological findings that provide insights into the lives of Indians, Africans, women, and children.Schávelzon includes detailed descriptions of more than 15 sites excavated by him and his students. These range from sites on the edges of the colonial city to the centrally located Cabildo, and include the defensive network of tunnels planned by the Jesuits in the eighteenth century and the nineteenth-century Caserón de Rosas constructed in Palermo Park. The author underlines the importance of the 1784 Royal Ordenanza in imposing order on a rather haphazard colonial city. The Ordenanza started a process of recycling which continued through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as one and two room colonial buildings were transformed into slightly less modest homes and then into large early nineteenth century establishments, eventually becoming conventillos (tenements) housing European immigrants. Schávelzon finds that the result of frequent reconstruction or conversion of dwellings was that few households remained in the same architectural condition for more than one generation.In addition to architecture, the author is interested in material culture. Initially the inhabitants of Buenos Aires used both European and non-European ceramics, with examples of indigenous and local produced, possibly African influenced, wares. Over time locally produced goods were replaced with ever increasing European imports. Although the material evidence suggests that porteños frequent owned objects that were no longer in fashion, by the nineteenth century all social classes used European manufactures to a similar degree. What separated the wealthy from the workmen was the quality of European goods they consumed.The book also shows how an analysis of middens can provide helpful information about the food consumption. Schávelzon reports that average porteño’s diet was far more complex that previously thought. While the reports of European travelers emphasized the overwhelming consumption of beef by Buenos Aires denizens, animal bones demonstrate that lamb, poultry, cuís (guinea pig) and fish also figured in the local diet. The same evidence also suggest that wealthy families probably had a more monotonous diet that the poor.This is an interesting, worthwhile, jargon-free book that enhances urban, social and economic histories of the city. We hope that other historical archeologists succeed in uncovering similar materials for other cities throughout the Spanish and Portuguese world.

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