Of nation, erudition, and racism

Belisario Díaz Romero’s archaeological narrative in Bolivia (1904-1925)

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of a “racial allocthonism” narrative, developed by Belisario Díaz Romero in Bolivia between 1904 and 1925. It summarizes the author’s biography and it dissects the narrative, highlighting its main ideas and relating them to the state of debate at that time. It also posits that Díaz Romero, a polymath and fanatic of “positive science”, selectively incorporated arguments –sometimes then already obsolete- from diverse social and natural sciences. The author’s strategies within the intellectual-political context of his time are analyzed, linking his narrative to the heyday of the liberal “oligarchic state”; the paper suggests that by glorifying a “white” pre-Hispanic Tiwanaku and place the contemporary indigenous ancestors as destructive agents, racial allocthonism was functional to the objectives of Bolivian nation-state. Finally, the impact of Díaz Romero’s raciological notions on Arthur Posnansky and, through the latter, on 1930s and 1940s Bolivian archaeology is pondered.