Una chacra en Montevideo, dos hoteles en Carnac. Tres casos paradigmáticos de ciencia en lugares impensados a ambos lados del Atlántico

Abstract

This article focuses on two places that acted as spaces of training or “scientific” sociability for archaeology and palaeontology in the nineteenth century: two hotels in Brittany and a small house in Montevideo, which were meeting points and places for the exchange of ideas among the fieldworkers of these disciplines in the making. The spaces discussed here have in com- mon their being located in regions far from the main scholarly institutions: this is a phenomenon that occurs in the private sphere, at the crossroads of a literate and commercial culture that characterizes the scientific practices of Europe and Latin America, in spaces that are not necessarily linked to state or metropolitan infrastructures. The study of places that are removed from the metropolis reveals the great similarity between European and non-European provincial localities, which explains why Montevideo and Carnac are brought together in the same article.