Twee gezichten op een ruïne van een rotswoning in Mesa Verde National Park before 1893

These two photographic prints of a ruin in Mesa Verde National Park were made by Gustaf Nordenskiöld. They are a part of his late 19th-century survey of cliff dwellings in the American Southwest, an area inhabited by Ancestral Puebloans. The photographs evoke various social, cultural and institutional contexts. In the American West, the late nineteenth century was a period of settlement and expansion accompanied by the forced displacement of Native American communities. In this context, the ruins of ancient settlements like Mesa Verde took on special significance for archaeologists and ethnologists, but also politicians and policymakers. Nordenskiöld’s photographs are powerful cultural documents of the time and in order to get a better understanding of their meaning we would want to know more about the history of archaeological fieldwork and the institutional pressures that shaped the reception of indigenous cultures. By studying the history of photography and its uses in the human sciences, we can begin to appreciate the many layers of this complex image.