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En este trabajo exploro algunas circunstancias derivadas del exterminio de los pueblos nativos de Uruguay y la integración de los sobrevivientes a la sociedad de clases pos colonial. Se creía que este tema estaba superado por el perfil de país europeo asumido por el Estado uruguayo. Episodios de la historia reciente cuestionan fuertemente los mitos asociados a una pretendida homogeneidad social y cultural producto de la inmigración europea. Una crisis social y política (1973-1984) puso a prueba el simbolismo y los estereotipos sociales del llamado Uruguay moderno. La reactivación de nuevas identidades indígenas es un proceso de construcción de memoria en el que se combinan la investigación científica sobre el pasado, la lucha por los derechos sociales, y el cuestionamiento a las narrativas históricas oficiales. En los últimos años aproximaciones antropológicas y procesos patrimoniales han colaborado con hacer más visible el legado de los pueblos nativos. ; In this paper I explore derives circumstances of the extermination of native people of Uruguay and their integration to postcolonial class society. It was thought that this affair was a problem solved, but the recent history questions Uruguayan State identity and the myth of social and cultural homogeneous society products of European immigration. Social and political crisis (1973-1984) put in discussion symbolism and social stereotypes of the called modern Uruguay. The re activation of a news Indians identities is a memory processes under construction which combine scientific research with the fight for Human Rights, and deep questions about official historical narratives. In recent years Anthropological studies and heritage process collaborated with making more visible natives American heritage.

Preprint of our chapter for the book edited by S. van der Linde, European Archaeology Abroad. Global Settings, Comparative Perspectives, that will come out during 2013 published by Sidestone Press, Leiden, the Netherlands. This book and the present chapter are a major product from the project "Archaeology in Contemporary Europe", funded by the Culture Program of EU, and lead by INRAP, in which Incipit and Leiden University participated from 2007 to 2012 ; For the last ten years, the Institute of Heritage Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of the Republic in Uruguay (Universidad de la República, UdelaR) have had cooperation links. These began as research projects, but have now led to the establishment of a joint scientific research and work unit. The recent creation of the Landscape Archaeology and Heritage Laboratory (in Spanish, LAPPU), as a scientific unit of the UdelaR, is the final and most outstanding result of this international cooperation. The LAPPU mainly carries out activities in the field of the integrated management of cultural heritage. Its focus is on the consolidation of lines of action aimed at the integration of cultural heritage within public policies, institutional enforcement, knowledge transfer, local development and the socialization and participative construction of heritage through different projects and inter-institutional agreements.In this paper we will present the epistemological basis and the path towards the cooperation we have maintained, exemplified by one of our main projects: The Archaeological Landscape of Lowlands in Uruguay, which took place in the rural areas of Tacuarembó. This archaeological and anthropological project has its foundations in the research-project Situated in Place and in the dialogical interaction between local and global, rural and urban, and traditional and modern, as a way of generating practical knowledge and instruments for local community empowerment. The specific act of researching "other heritages" that represent groups of indigenous peoples and those of African origin who have been marginalized culturally and historically in the construction of the Uruguayan Nation -State has made it possible to create a platform for multi-vocal and postcolonial articulation on different levels (such as academics, politicians, urban public, rural communities and African descendants). But it has also led us to deal with new ways of approaching heritage (not only in academic practices but also in social processes) involving new actors and including inter-generational dialogues. As a result, participative methodologies emerged as something engaged in the very nature of heritage understood as a social resource. From these experiences, the challenge for the LAPPU will be to de-centralise and create more platforms for the articulation of these multi-vocal approaches to heritage. ; This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. ; Peer reviewed