But patterns can.

At the Capachequi site, researchers began finding a collection of artifacts associated with the sixteenth-century Spanish presence.

Among them were lead bullets, fragments of bladed weapons, iron tools, and chains.

The chains were particularly disturbing.

They are consistent with the violent system through which Spanish expeditions forced Indigenous people into labor and captivity.

These objects were not simply signs of “contact.”

They were evidence of a specific kind of contact.