The Dead and the Drying

Abstract

Many aspects of a culture's technology, such as techniques, tools or raw materials, are elaborated as metaphors or areas of meaning within the culture's ideology. The choice of raw materials and the techniques used to process them depend on the representation of these materials and tech niques within society. Such 'technical representations' play an important role in the trajectory of social and technological change. Examples drawn from present-day pottery making in the South-Central Andes are compared to other subsistence activities in the area to show how techniques may be used in a wide range of different social contexts. This has imbued the tech niques with culturally specific meanings, which affects the choice of con texts within which they are considered appropriate. It is suggested that the storage systems developed by the Inka were a reworking of the techniques used in the burial tradition that emerged in the preceding Late Intermediate Period. The previous context of death gave a meaning to the technique, a meaning that was utilized within the technique's new application for state storage.

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