Archive Work
How are transcriptions done?
The archive, which is part of the Latin America Historical Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts – Boston, is composed mainly of documents from the collections of the National History Archive located in Ecuador and the General Archive of the Indies in Spain. These documents belong to a historical range from the 17th to the 19th century. The different archival collections that make up this archive have been processed for proper organization and classification according to their nature.
The practice of paleography or transcription of old documents begins with a general visual scan of the document to identify general elements in the text. There are certain methods that can be applied to archival documents; however, those in the LAHAL-LAB belong to the 17th–19th centuries and are in Spanish. This requires an understanding of grammar, but many semantic aspects are necessary to contextualize and make sense of the text.
Who collaborated?
The archival work was previously initiated by the research team led by Dr. Balanzátegui, focused on identifying data for the cemetery “Garden of Memory Martina Carrillo,” as well as for her Master’s and Doctoral thesis and research topics related to maroon communities in Ecuador.
From its beginnings, at LAHAL, the work of transcribing hundreds of historical documents continued, with the collaboration of undergraduate students who became interested in the topic and diligently worked on the transcriptions.
The undergraduate students who have participated in the transcription activities have demonstrated extensive skills in processing the archives, greatly supporting the academic activities and goals of the laboratory.
Photographs
The search for documents in historical archives resulted in the accumulation of a series of images of texts that need to be processed. During the transcription process, a series of photographs is also generated for comparative and paleographic research purposes to understand the meaning within the document.
Special findings
The archival collections are primarily classified by themes; however, within each area, elements have been found that indicate connections with population groups, landscape markers, or historical figures that have shaped the past of Afro-descendant communities.
