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This article explores the commemorative monumentality of the Battle of San Carlos, focusing on material evidence, documentary sources, and oral memory spanning nearly a century of monumental landscape (1935-2024) at the site of Los Cuatro Vientos (Bolívar, Buenos Aires, Argentina). By examining these landscapes as activators of memory, this study sheds light on their role in shaping and perpetuating hegemonic discourses that overlap, persist, and conflict over time, as well as the social actors involved. The objective is to understand the monument’s place within dominant narratives and the sociohistorical context of each period as part of its social history. Archaeology, as a science of traces, reveals not only the phases or stages of monumentality but also attempts at erasure, damage, or decay due to time and environmental factors, uncovering multiple layers of meaning that can be excavated both literally and metaphorically. Far from being a static landscape, the site is continually redefined through new meanings, social actors, commemorative practices, and performative actions. In contemporary times, conflicting discourses and materialities coexist within the landscape. Like all representations of the past, the monument selectively relates to historical events, contributing to both remembrance and oblivion, including and excluding, exalting and concealing, amplifying certain voices while silencing others. Initially, this monument was intended to symbolize the triumph of civilization over the so-called barbarism of the desert, casting the indigenous population as the defeated, relegated to invisibility through their forced incorporation into the Argentine nation-state. However, the memory of the defeated persists, latent within the city and embedded in the landscape’s folds. En este trabajo se analiza la monumentalidad conmemorativa de la batalla de San Carlos. Para ello se revisa la evidencia material, documental y la memoria oral de los casi cien años de paisaje monumental (1935-2024) en el paraje Los Cuatro Vientos (Bolívar, Buenos Aires, Argentina), en una serie de fases constitutivas. El estudio de estos paisajes como activadores de memoria contribuye a problematizar su función frente a la construcción de discursos hegemónicos que se superponen, permanecen y entran en tensión en su devenir y los actores implicados. El objetivo de este artículo será comprender la existencia del monumento como parte de los discursos imperantes y la coyuntura sociohistórica de cada etapa como parte de su historia social. La arqueología, como ciencia de las huellas, puede dar cuenta de fases o etapas monumentales, así como también de intentos de borramiento, daño o pérdidas por el accionar del tiempo y los elementos, al vislumbrar los múltiples sentidos plausibles de ser excavados tanto metafórica como literalmente. Lejos de constituirse como un paisaje estático, sigue en constante redefinición por medio de nuevos significados, actores sociales, actos conmemorativos y performáticos. De esta manera, en la contemporaneidad coexisten discursos y materialidades antagónicas. Como toda representación del pasado, el monumento es selectivo en relación con los acontecimientos pretéritos. Aporta tanto al recuerdo como al olvido, incluye y excluye, exalta y oculta, otorga voz y silencia. Este monumento buscó materializar, en su origen, el triunfo de la civilización sobre la barbarie del desierto, siendo el indígena el enemigo vencido y relegado a la invisibilidad que presupone su incorporación forzosa al Estado nación argentino. Pero los vencidos y su memoria siguieron y siguen latentes en la ciudad y en los pliegues del paisaje. neste artigo, é analisada a monumentalidade comemorativa da batalha de San Carlos. Para isso, são revisadas as evidências materiais e documentais e a memória oral dos quase 100 anos de paisagem monumental (1935-2024) na área de Los Cuatro Vientos (Bolívar, Buenos Aires, Argentina), em uma série de fases constitutivas. O estudo dessas paisagens, como ativadoras da memória, contribui para problematizar sua função na construção de discursos hegemônicos que se sobrepõem, permanecem e entram em tensão em seu desenvolvimento e nos atores envolvidos. O objetivo deste artigo é compreender a existência do monumento como parte dos discursos dominantes e a conjuntura sócio-histórica de cada etapa como parte de sua história social. A arqueologia, como ciência dos vestígios, pode dar conta das fases ou estágios monumentais, bem como das tentativas de apagamento, dano ou perda pela ação do tempo e dos elementos, vislumbrando os múltiplos significados plausíveis de serem escavados tanto metafórica quanto literalmente. Longe de ser constituída como paisagem estática, ela permanece em constante redefinição por meio de novos significados, atores sociais, atos comemorativos e performativos. Dessa forma, discursos e materialidades antagônicos coexistem na contemporaneidade. Como qualquer representação do passado, o monumento é seletivo em relação a eventos passados. Ele contribui tanto para a lembrança quanto para o esquecimento, inclui e exclui, exalta e oculta, dá voz e silencia. Esse monumento buscou materializar, em sua origem, o triunfo da civilização sobre a barbárie do deserto, sendo o indígena o inimigo derrotado e relegado à invisibilidade que pressupõe sua incorporação forçada ao Estado-Nação argentino. Mas os vencidos e sua memória permaneceram e permanecem latentes na cidade e nas brechas da paisagem.

Monumental architecture is a prime indicator of social complexity, because it requires many people to build a conspicuous structure commemorating shared beliefs. Examining monumentality in different environmental and economic settings can reveal diverse reasons for people to form larger social units and express unity through architectural display. In multiple areas of Africa, monumentality developed as mobile herders created large cemeteries and practiced other forms of commemoration. The motives for such behavior in sparsely populated, unpredictable landscapes may differ from well-studied cases of monumentality in predictable environments with sedentary populations. Here we report excavations and ground-penetrating radar surveys at the earliest and most massive monumental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) constructed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m² mortuary cavity accommodated an estimated minimum of 580 individuals. People of diverse ages and both sexes were buried, and ornaments accompanied most individuals. There is no evidence for social stratification. The uncertainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacerbated by dramatic environmental shifts—may have spurred people to strengthen social networks that could provide information and assistance. Lothagam North Pillar Site would have served as both an arena for interaction and a tangible reminder of shared identity.

Adobe bricks, or mud bricks, are construction elements which have defined major architectural traditions in the Andes over thousands of years. From Moche pyramids and the ancient city of Chan Chan in pre-Hispanic times, to Spanish casonas of the colonial period and rural houses in contemporary South America, adobe has been a central component in Andean architecture. Discovery of the remains of an early monumental building constructed primarily of adobes at Los Morteros (lower Chao Valley, north coast of Peru) places the invention of adobe architecture before 5,100 calendar years B.P. The unique composition, internal structure, and chronology of the adobes from Los Morteros show the beginnings of this architectural technique, which is associated with El Ni~no rainfall and the construction of the earliest adobe monumental building in the Americas. We propose that adobe architecture became a major Andean tradition after a long period of technical evolution and experimentation with both shape and composition.

This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Northern Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic and Classic periods. As in some parts of the Southern Lowlands, ceremonial spaces likely predated sedentism and monumental construction predated large-scale inequality. Nevertheless, the process of construction and the resulting monuments facilitated complex societies. In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intra-household inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.

Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of modern times, pushing back the origins of monumentality beyond the emergence of agriculture. We are pleased to present a summary of work in progress by the excavators of this remarkable site and their latest thoughts about its role and meaning. At the dawn of the Neolithic, hunter-gatherers congregating at Göbekli Tepe created social and ideological cohesion through the carving of decorated pillars, dancing, feasting—and, almost certainly, the drinking of beer made from fermented wild crops.

The American Southeast saw the development of large ceremonial village centers, the coalescence of households, and monumental architecture integrated into village layout during the Middle Woodland period (ca. AD 1-600). These shifts toward more sedentary lifeways occurred independently of, and prior to, the domestication of plants across the Southeast. This paper examines the seasonality of monumental construction at the Garden Patch site located on the central Gulf Coast of Florida. This site contains evidence for rapid mound construction that followed a predetermined site plan. Here, we present oxygen isotope analyses of archaeological mollusk shells (Crassostrea virginica) to evaluate the seasonality and periodicity of monument construction. We conclude that mound construction occurred during the cooler months of the year. Ultimately, this contributes to an anthropological understanding of the development of these early ceremonial centers in the Southeast.

Scholars have offered various approaches to create a synthetic view of the Middle Woodland period that integrates geographically expansive and heterogenous material remains. Situation theory offers a synthetic analytical approach to the multiplicity of Middle Woodland ceremonialisms, allowing us to conceive of how people and communities across the midcontinent got caught up in shared conditions. Scioto situations-the Middle Woodland situations occurring within the central Scioto River valley of southern Ohio-have long been famous for their earthen monuments and ornate material symbols. This article analyzes Scioto situations through an examination of the monument assemblage of the Steel Group-an earthwork site with at least 13 earthen enclosures. In doing so, it offers an approach to monumentality that grounds interpretations of the aesthetic and physical nature of monuments within the complicated historical entanglements from which they emerged.

Prehistoric stone structures are prominent and well-studied in the Levantine desert margins. In northern Arabia, however, such structures have received less attention. This article presents the results of investigations of a 35m-long stone platform, first constructed in the mid sixth millennium BC, overlooking the oasis of Dûmat al-Jandal in northern Saudi Arabia. Excavation of the platform has yielded bioarchaeological and cultural remains, along with evidence for several phases of construction and intermittent use down to the first millennium BC. Analysis of the platform and nearby tombs highlights the persistent funerary and ritual use of this area over millennia, illuminating nomadic pastoralist lifeways in prehistoric Arabia.

Revivals of public interest in the Neolithic Near East have generally coincided with the emergence of powerful imagery, such as the discovery of Çatalhöyük’s striking wall paintings in the 1960s. Now, sixty years later, the sculptures of Göbekli Tepe are ensuring the period’s widespread appeal. The capacity of these well-preserved buildings to carry such imagery until today has made them, in turn, an image of the supposed achievements of Neolithic sedentism. But the popularity of these images depends on their decontextualization. This modernist notion that permanent architecture represents the conquest of spatial forms over time is in contradiction with the early Neolithic experience of settled life, which had more to do with the unstable duration of places than with an emancipation from motion. This essay explores the Neolithic preference for earth architecture over more stable construction materials such as stone, its influence on visual culture, and how it contributed to building new living relations to the inhabited landscape. Instead of the sense of fixity and completeness that we, moderns, desperately seek in plans, reconstructions, and monumentality, it is the very transience, repetitiveness, and cumulativeness of earth that determined the transformations of the archaeological record. In other words, rhythms are key to understanding Neolithic sedentism in ways that differ wildly from the static images we have substituted for it.

In 2021, an Italian-Peruvian archaeological team began a research project in the Ancash Sierra to investigate the origins of early monumental architecture in the northern-central Andes. The large complex of Tumshukayko—located in the northern part of the town of Caraz in Ancash, Peru—was immediately found to be the most suitable site for this project. This report presents an initial description of the current state of the remains, topographical data, and test pit results. Preliminary data suggest that Tumshukayko is a multicomponent site comprising at least two mounds that were built during the Initial Formative period (2500–1500 BC).