Teaching-Learning Experience in Decision-Making: Rescue of the Picacho Pelón Relief, Altavista Archaeological Area, México.

Abstract

In November 2009  it was carried out the first stage of the Integrated Conservation Project for the Archaeological Site of Altavista (PCIZAAV), a Pre-Columbian area located in Zacatecas,  northern Mexico. This was devoted to salvaging the Picacho Pelón relief a remaining architectural piece of a building cornice decorated with geometric patterns and fresco polychrome. It was found as part of the debris of the Astrónomos Apartments during  early 1990s archaeological excavations.

Apart from the technical challenges related to this intervention, the PCIZAAV also involved teaching challenges: it added a teaching-learning component for the students attending the Seminary-Workshop of Archaeological Conservation, an advanced course of the B.A. in Restoration by Escuela Nacional de Restauración, Conservación y Museología of Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, better know as Centro Churubusco. Therefore, the PCIZAAV was based on the premise of fusing real professional practices within the educational systems to promote that students acquire, besides adequate technical abilities, self-reflective propositional and methodological capacities, especially those concerning decision-making process in the interdisciplinary field wich is archaeological conservation.

This paper exposes this teaching-learning experience, examining its origins, rationale, development and achievements. It also provides reflections from the united perspective of both teachers and  students in order to fuel debate regarding key elements for professional education of conservators-restorers.