REFLEXIONES EN TORNO A LA REPRESENTACIÓN DEL PASADO INDÍGENA PREHISPÁNICO. EL MUNICIPIO DE TORNQUIST COMO CASO DE ESTUDIO (PROVINCIA DE BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA)

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to present the results of the analysis of the practices and social representations constructed around the pre-Hispanic indigenous settlement and its archaeological record in the Ventania´s area, province of Buenos Aires. Methodologically, we worked with the Tornquist district as a case study around three axes, which addressed the representations created by different organisms and sectors of the community of this Buenos Aires district. The first was aimed at recording the cultural practices around archaeological materiality and the representations associated with them, in two archaeological sites included in cultural tourism circuits located in the Parque Provincial Ernesto Tornquist (Cueva del Toro and the Alero Corpus Christi). A second analytical path sought to investigate the representations of indigenous groups present in the institutional discourse of a heritage institution (Interpretation center), an entity that is associated with the previously mentioned archaeological sites. Finally, a third axis was linked to the study of the social imaginaries of the public educational community around the history of the settlement of the study area, through the opinion survey of students from a school in the municipality of Tornquist. The methodological approach allowed the results obtained to be triangulated, which showed a correlation between the current practices developed in the sites and the representations built around the pre-Hispanic settlement of the Ventania´s area. The importance of this type of study resides in the potential to make visible the collective identification relationships of a community in relation to its past and the material record that accounts for it.