Search

Kañawa/Cañihua (Chenopodium pallidicaule Aellen) is the lesser-known cousin of the domesticated Andean pseudocereal quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.). In 1970, Daniel Gade hypothesized that Andean farmers may have domesticated volunteer wild kañawa plants that occupied quinoa or potato fields after observing that they could survive harsh climatic events such as drought or frost. To revisit this question of kañawa domestication, this paper provides an overview of the current botanical, genetic, and archaeological knowledge of kañawa domestication. It then provides patterns in the presence of wild and domesticated kañawa seeds from archaeological sites in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia, spanning the Formative and Tiwanaku periods from approximately 1500 BCE to 1100 CE. This archaeobotanical evidence supports Gade's hypothesis that kañawa was a later domesticate, not appearing until after 250 CE. Regional paleoclimatic evidence of frequent climatic fluctuations lends support to the argument that kañawa contributed to a diversified food supply, which could provide a buffer against climate risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the 2014-2015 drying of Lake Poopó, on the central Bolivian Altiplano. While numerous fishing cooperatives and indigenous campesino communities were negatively affected by the lake's drying, arguably the greatest impact was experienced by the three communities of Urus indigenous peoples, located on the lake's eastern shore. As a consequence of their historical marginalization–which began in the the pre-Hispanic era, intensified during the Colonial period, and has continued into the present–Urus have virtually no land of their own and have historically depended on fishing, hunting, and gathering in the lake and the surrounding wetlands. With the drying of the lake, Urus communities have experienced high levels of out-migration and deepening immiseration. This paper examines the causes and consequences of the lake's drying and considers the broader political and economic context of regional socio-environmental transformation. While climate change undoubtedly plays a role in the lake's drying, it has been exacerbated by large-scale water withdrawals for mining, agriculture, and urban uses. Thus, the power relations involved in contemporary patterns of resource use, in combination with regional environmental change, have combined to magnify the vulnerability of fragile ecosystems and already marginalized populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hunting groups are closely linked to the environments in which they live, especially in the deserts. This paper explores the relationship between people and desert environments in the long term using key concepts such as resilience, refugia and habitat loss. A thorough paleoenvironmental analysis was conducted to improve our understanding about continuities and discontinuities in the archaeological record of the South Andean highlands. This allowed us to test ideas about the availability of adequate human habitats during the Holocene. Cultural archives such as archaeofauna and lithic technology are employed to illustrate and discuss methodological perspectives for the identification and description of resilient human habitats in arid landscapes in the South Andean Puna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the spatial organization of two layers corresponding to the first half of the Middle Holocene from the Hornillos 2 rockshelter (Susques, Jujuy Province). Some important issues taken into account are the good preservation of the site and the sedimentary deposition processes which coincide with paleoclimate aspects. Correlation of different archaeological lines of evidence allows interpretation of the connection between several activity areas and their occupational intensity. There is a trash heap related to a short occupation period at the beginning of the Middle Holocene and a main zone of intense activity ca. 6200 yrs BP. These facts are in accordance with the archaeological expectations proposed for certain periods of the Middle Holocene. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT; ~19º30'S-21º30'S) is an endorheic basin located today at the core of the Atacama Desert (northern Chile), the most arid desert on earth. Water, a fundamental resource for survival of humans, animals and plants, is a scarce resource in the PdT landscape given that precipitation fall upslope over the Andes and the Altiplano and perennial springs infiltrate in the foothills before reaching this basin. However, discontinue human occupations in the since 13ka and the presence extinct fauna dated 18-14ka southernmost part of the PdT, revealed the presence of water in the past under a highly environmental variability. It is widely known that two pluvial phases occurred in the Atacama Desert (CAPE I-II) and the Altiplano (Tauca and Coipasa phases) during the Late Pleistocene characterized by significant increases of rainfall amount and the consequent environmental changes. However, palaeoecological evidence that allowed to understand the environmental scenarios that supported human populations and extinct fauna in the PdT since and/or during the Late Pleistocene is scarce and fragmentary. Thus, this paper presents new palaeoecological evidences from the PdT in order to shed light to the environmental dynamics and landscape characteristics.Between the Guatacondo and Tambillos ravines, growing evidence shows different features of past landscapes and human activities. Thus, plant macro-remains as leaf litter packs, trunks in horizontal position, in situ bases of trunks, plant stem imprints as well as different sedimentary deposits revealed the presence of paleosprings, paleowetlands and small shallow lacustrine basins during the Late Pleistocene. In Quebrada Maní, for example, large paleowetlands developed until 11ka. Instead, the preserved vegetal macro-remains showed a peculiar spatial pattern of vegetation during that period where Prosopis trunks are more frequent in lowlands (~850 m asl) of PdT while the macro-remains, mainly of Escallonia, are abundant near to the foothill (~1150 masl). Later on, during the early and mid-Holocene, an abrupt decrease in rainfall in the Central Andes generated hiperarid conditions in PdT and consequently, no evidence of human populations was found. Sedimentological observations and OSL dates suggest the development of arid landscapes in the Guatacondo ravine (21ºS) by this time, dating the incision of the ravine sometime between 6.6-1.3ka.After that, a new humid pulse during the Late Holocene (2.5-1ka), associated with new human occupations in PdT characterized by the development of villages and wide field-crops occurred. This period of intensive cultural development and "re-use" of the PdT ended around 1-0.7ka, following a trend to aridization recorded in the rodent middens pollen record. After that the villages of PdT were abandoned and population moved to villages located at higher altitude or associated with water oases active until the present. Around 100-150 yr BP, a brief humid pulse in the PdT occurred synchronously with the reoccupation of the field-crops but probably just seasonally.Acknowledgments: FONDECYT# 1181829; CONICYT/PIA ANILLO SOC1405. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]