Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The article studies the interest that produced the existence of agrarian communities in the concept of social history in Marx and Marxism. It argues that Marx elaborated a system of categories such as primary and secondary formation, archaic community and rural community for the materialistic understanding of the different types of community present throughout the multiple and random courses of human history.

During the summer of 1977, Lawrence Krader was in Mexico attending an invitation from Ángel Palerm, to dictate a seminar in the Center of High Investigations of the National Institute of Antrhopology, the CIESAS of today. The text “Lawrence Krader in Mexico” is a wide reflection about Krader’s imputs not only about a new reading of Marx’ writings but also on the convergences between marxism and anthropology.

Against the grain of some readings that recognize a Eurocentric gaze on Karl Marx's theoretical-political project that would not have contemplated the colonial margins in capitalist development, in this work part of Marx's anti-colonial thought is recovered. The question of Marx's Eurocentrism is problematized in the face of his attention devoted to the Irish question, as a mirror that reflects the colonial peripheries, and also, some specific connections between Ireland, Latin America and the Caribbean are outlined.

Karl Marx's reading of Lewis H. Morgan not only produces a paradigm shift from a progressive and linear view of history towards a multilinear perspective in which there is room for uneven development, leaps and returns from the "archaic" past into the future of communism. It also enables Marx Marx, based on the profound history of ancient Mexico, to anticipate the possibility of the revolutionary uprising of the community as a commune, just as it would in fact occur in Morelos. Marx in his final stage was approaching a new understanding of the link between the community as a form of reproduction of collective life and the commune as an expansive political form that cannot be limited exclusively to its best-known version, associated with the Paris Commune of 1871. In Mexico, this understanding places Marx in the company of famous historians of the Mexican Revolution such as Jesús Sotelo Inclán or Adolfo Gilly, who--already in the twentieth century but without explicitly referring to each other--will contribute new chapters to the history of that other commune, the Mexica or Mexican one on whose tracks the American ethnologist in our opinion had already put Marx.

The relationship between Marx's work and anthropology is far from constituting a finished field. During the last decade, new research and translations of unknown manuscripts of the German thinker have renewed the debate about the centrality that ethnological analysis could have in Marx's thinking. Thereby, in this dossier, we invite to ponder these open debates that, in our context, were detonated by the brilliant contribution of anthropologists such as Lawrence Krader, a central figure in the knowledge we today have about the ethnological analysis of the German intellectual.

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Presentación del número 16 de la Revista Antrópica

The Museo de La Plata has a long history in the study of continental fossil reptiles, represented by dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles and squamates. The studies of these groups date back to the end of the 19th century, in all cases driven mainly by the pioneering studies of Florentino Ameghino, Santiago Roth, Richard Lydekker and Arthur Smith Woodward. Such studies extend throughout the 20th century, although sporadically. During the first half of the 20th century, studies on continental forms were scarce, highlighting those of Frederick von Huene and Ángel Cabrera. In the 60’s two important events occur. Firstly, Rodolfo Casamiquela made several expeditions to Patagonia, increasing notably the knowledge on mesozoic paleoherpetofauna, hosting the collections at Museo de La Plata. Secondly, the vision of Rosendo Pascual, professor and head of the División Paleontología de Vertebrados, who encouraged young applicants to study amphibians, reptiles and birds by the end of the 60’s, namely, Ana Maria Báez, Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini and Eduardo P. Tonni, respectively. All of them left a legacy behind, represented today by their disciples that continue the research on those clades. Already at the beginning 21st century, lines of research derived from the legacy of Gasparini have a permanent place of work in the institution, studying the anatomy, phylogenetic relationships and paleobiology of continental South American archosaurs. Such lines are focused on pseudosuchians and sauropodomorph dinosaurs, led by Paula Bona, Julia Desojo and Alejandro Otero.

The two most relevant institutions dedicated to the promotion of natural sciences in the south of the Mendoza Province are the Museum of Natural History of San Rafael (MHNSR) (Department of San Rafael) and the Regional Museum of Malargüe “Jorge Luna” (MRM) (Department of Malargüe). The first institution was founded in 1955 whereas the second one in 1973, and both were incorporated into the municipal management in the first years of the ‘70s during the last century. These museums have had different trajectories and projections regarding their scientific activity. This was also reflected in the paleoherpetological development at the MHNSR with the incorporation of researchers and fellows from CONICET since 2002. The Regional Center for Cultural Research and Development is an institution that conducted paleontological activities in southern Mendoza Province between the years 2006 and 2015.With the recent creation of the Institute of Evolution, Historical Ecology and Environment, an institute that depends both from CONICET and the National Technological University, paleontologists would continue their work in this unit without leaving the MHNSR, where paleontological collections are housed. For the MRM, fossils are housed both in the adjacent old mill at the estancia “La Orteguina”, as well as in the palaeontology exhibition room of this museum. These institutions house small collections of fossil reptiles.

With more than 200 years, the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia” has been since its creation the reservoir of important paleontological collections and the home of renowned naturalists and paleontologists, such as Carl Hermann Konrad Burmeister, Florentino and Carlos Ameghino, Lucas Kraglievich, and José Bonaparte. In this contribution, we briefly relate the history of paleoherpetological research produced in this institution and its past and present impact on the paleontological field. In addition to its high scientific production and important collections, including numerous fossil specimens, the museum plays a fundamental role in the outreach of paleontology, with one of the most relevant exhibitions on Mesozoic and Cenozoic faunas in South America.