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1 The Challenge of Protecting Archaeological Heritage in Argentina María Luz Endere Argentina is a federal republic divided into 23 provinces and the autonomous government of Buenos Aires. According to its National Constitution, natural and cultural resources, including cultural heritage, are part of the provincial domain, although they are also under national jurisdiction. This means that they should be ruled by national and provincial legislation and controlled by both national and provincial authorities. This chapter presents a brief review of the extant legislation applied to archaeological cultural heritage and to indigenous communities regarding heritage issues in Argentina. Problems and contested situations generated by the application of these laws in everyday life are also discussed. Concluding comments address the next steps that Argentina should take in order to put into practice its constitutional obligations, as well as those deriving from the international conventions ratified by the country.1 The Legal and Administrative Framework of Cultural Heritage Protection In 1913, Law 9080 (no longer enforced) placed archaeological and palaeontological resources under federal jurisdiction. In 1968, the Argentinean National Civil Code established that archaeological heritage of scientific value belongs to the public domain of the nation (Civil Code, article 2340, clause 9), regardless of whether the resources are located on public or private lands. This means that the national government had assumed the legal authority and responsibility for their protection. In 1994, an amendment of the National Constitution solved the conflicts between federal and provincial laws with respect to ownership and jurisdiction over archaeological resources. The new constitution recognized provincial ownership over archaeological heritage and stated that the national government has the duty to develop policies for the management and protection of this heritage in coordination with provinces (article 41). Protecting Archaeological Heritage in Argentina 9 In 1999, the Register of the National Cultural Heritage was created by Federal Law 25.197, which established the need to carry out an inventory of cultural property, including “the materials recovered through terrestrial and underwater archaeological and palaeontological surveys and excavations” (article 2). Finally in 2003, a new law concerning the protection of archaeological and palaeontological resources was passed (Law 25.743). This law, which replaced the antiquated Law 9080, stipulates that the preservation , protection, and control over archaeological and palaeontological resources is part of the national cultural heritage in order to enable their scientific and cultural exploitation. Law 25.743 created new national authorities to protect these resources in federal lands (that is, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano [National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought] is in charge of the protection of archaeological resources and the Bernardino Rivadavia National Natural Sciences Museum is responsible for palaeontological remains). It has also distributed responsibilities between the national government and the provinces and has created a register of sites and collections as well as one for law offenders. At the subnational level, legal protection of cultural heritage is quite variable . Only some provinces have updated their cultural heritage legislation in the last few years (for example, the provinces of Mendoza, Law 6034/93; Chubut, Law 3559, Decree 1387/98; Tierra del Fuego, Law 370/97; and Santa Cruz, Law 2472/97). However, some of these laws are not being applied because the necessary decrees have not yet been enacted (for example, Tierra del Fuego and Santa Cruz). This is complicated by the fact that most of them were enacted before Federal Law 25.743 (an exception is the new Law 7500/05 of Tucumán Province). However, many provinces have already signed agreements with national authorities in order to update and coordinate their policies and actions according to the new federal law. To complicate the complex Argentinean legal structure for cultural resources protection even more, local (municipal) governments have also enacted their own rules (called “ordenanzas”) to preserve archaeological sites located in their territories (Endere 2000). As a consequence, the legal framework of archaeological heritage protection in Argentina is the result of a mosaic of local, provincial, and national laws that create separate governing bodies. This makes it necessary to carry out a caseby -case study in order to determine the legislation applicable at each particular site. The lack of a clear national heritage management policy—to be applied throughout the territory in accordance with provincial authorities—results in preservation actions without coordination between different governmental levels or continuity through time. Thus, accomplishments depend exclusively on decisions of the particular authority in charge. Furthermore, natural and cultural heritage is artificially divided into...

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