More than 2 million animals perish in Bolivia wildfires

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on September 26, 2019 / comment : 0 Bolivia, Natural Heritage, Rainforests, South America, Wildlife

More than two million wild animals, including jaguars, pumas and llamas, have perished in weeks of wildfires that devastated huge swaths of Bolivian forest and grassland, environmental experts said Wednesday.

"The forest is totally charred and the damage is irreversible. It will never get back to normal," said Sandra Quiroga of Santa Cruz University [Credit: Pablo Cozzaglio/AFP]

The fires devastated the Chiquitania tropical savanna in the east of the country. "We have consulted the biologists of Chiquitania and we have exceeded the estimate of more than 2.3 million missing animals in many protected areas," Professor Sandra Quiroga of Santa Cruz University told AFP.

Latin American ocelots, and other wild cats like pumas and jaguars, as well as deer, llamas -- and smaller forest animals like anteaters, badgers, lizards, tapirs and rodents -- were victims of the fires, according to biologists investigating the scale of the damage.

Local media showed images of charred animal carcasses in the smouldering forests and birds fleeing to zones spared by the flames.

This snake could not escape the flames of a fire in the Otuquis National Park in eastern Bolivia [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

The fires, which have devastated more than four million hectares (10 million acres) since August, has completely destroyed the "primary forest" extending over 100 hectares in the Tucavaca reserve in the eastern Santa Cruz department.

"The forest is totally charred and the damage is irreversible. It will never get back to normal," said Quiroga.

The eastern department of Santa Cruz has been the hardest hit of Bolivia's nine departments since the fires began in May and intensified in late August

The remains of a fox killed in a forest fires in the Otuquis National Park in eastern Bolivia [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

Bolivia in August enlisted special firefighting planes, a Supertanker Boeing 747 and a Russian Ilyushin, as well as helicopters, 5,000 firefighters, soldiers and police but the fires have still not been extinguished.

Environmentalists blame laws enacted under leftist President Evo Morales, who has encouraged burning of forest and pasture land to expand agricultural production.

The government attributes the blazes to dry weather and flame-fanning winds.

Source: AFP [September 26, 2019]

1,400-year-old ritual vessels discovered in Bolivia's Tiwanaku ruins

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on September 18, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, South America

Pre-Hispanic vessels over 1,400 years old have been found in the center of Bolivia's Tiwanaku ruins, archaeologists said Wednesday.

An archaeologist shows a recently excavated pre-Hispanic vessel at the Kalasasaya temple  in the ancient city of Tiwanaku, Bolivia [Credit: Juan Karita/AP]

The finding was made at the Kalasasaya temple during a research, conservation and restoration project undertaken with the support of UNESCO on the grounds of the ancient city, which is about 47 miles (75 kilometres) from the capital of La Paz, near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca.

Mary Luz Choque, an assistant archaeologist at the Archaeological Investigations Center of Tihuanaco, told The Associated Press that the circular shape in which the objects were buried suggests they formed part of an offering made at the funeral of a person of noble lineage.

Tiwanaku, located in the Bolivian highlands, 70 kilometres from the city of La Paz, is nearly 4,000 metres high in the heart of South America [Credit: Ministerio de Culturas y Turismo de Bolivia]

Tiwanaku was a spiritual and political center considered to be one of the most important pre-Hispanic empires. It was declared a religious heritage site by UNESCO in 2000.

A group of four archaeologists and more than 50 researchers have been excavating at the site for 15 days and will continue to work for six weeks more before giving a final report on their findings.

Archaeologists extract pre-Hispanic vessels at the Kalasasaya temple in the ancient city of Tiwanaku, Bolivia [Credit: Ministerio de Culturas y Turismo de Bolivia]

Julio Condori, director of the archaeological center, said the vessels date from the time of Tiwanaku III, between A.D. 400 and 600, and include iconography of fish and birds.

He said the initial discoveries allowed one to "rethink what the actual function of the Kalasasaya temple was and redefine the interpretation of its origin."

The discovery will shed more light on the function of the Kalasasaya temple in the ancient city  of Tiwanaku, Bolivia [Credit: Ministerio de Culturas y Turismo de Bolivia]

Tiwanaku Mayor Octavio Choque said, "This serves to revalue our heritage site, which we try to preserve over time and not lose."

An Aymara priest presided over a ceremony dedicated to Mother Earth before the objects were extracted.

Source: The Associated Press [September 18, 2019]

Wilderness areas halve extinction risk

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on September 18, 2019 / comment : 0 Biodiversity, Bolivia, Endangered Species, Natural Heritage, Rainforests, Wildlife

The global conservation community has been urged to adopt a specific target to protect the world's remaining wilderness areas to prevent large scale loss of at-risk species.

Areas surrounding the Madidi National Park in the Bolivian Amazon has been identified as a vital 'at risk' wilderness area [Credit: University of Queensland]

A University of Queensland and CSIRO study has found that wilderness areas - where human impact is minimal or absent - halves the global risk of species extinction.

UQ Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science Director Professor James Watson said vital wilderness areas could not be restored so urgent action was needed to ensure these areas were marked for conservation and remained protected.

"Wilderness areas have decreased by more than three million square kilometres - half the size of Australia - since the 1990s," Professor Watson said. "Once these wilderness areas are gone, they are lost forever."

CSIRO researcher and UQ Adjunct Fellow Dr Moreno Di Marco said wilderness areas acted as a buffer against extinction risk, and the risk of species loss was more than twice as high for biological communities found outside wilderness areas.

The research showed some wilderness areas, such as areas surrounding Madidi National Park in the Bolivian Amazon, play an extraordinary role in their respective regional contexts, where their loss would drastically reduce the probability of persistence of biodiversity [Credit: Rob Wallace/WCS]

"This new research has identified the importance of wilderness areas in hosting highly unique biological communities and representing the only remaining natural habitats for species that have suffered losses elsewhere," he said.

Vital 'at risk' wilderness areas include parts of Arnhem Land, areas surrounding the Madidi National Park in the Bolivian Amazon, partially protected forests in Southern British Columbia, and surrounding savannah areas within the Zemongo Reserve in the Central African Republic.

The researchers used new global biodiversity modelling infrastructure developed at CSIRO integrated with the latest wilderness map developed by UQ, University of Northern British Colombia and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The study provided fine-scale estimates of probability of species loss around the globe.

Professor Watson said that beyond saving biodiversity, Earth's remaining intact ecosystems are critical in also abating climate change, regulating essential biogeochemical and water cycles, and ensuring the retention of long-term bio-cultural connections of indigenous communities.

The study is published in Nature.

Source: University of Queensland [September 18, 2019]

500-year-old mummy of Incan girl returns to Bolivia

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 20, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, Heritage, South America

A 500-year-old mummy of an Incan girl has been returned to Bolivia some 129 years after it was donated to the Michigan State University Museum, marking what an official says is the first time human remains of archaeological importance have been repatriated to the Andean country.

The 500-year-old mummy of an Incan girl sits inside a vault at the National Museum of Archaeology in La Paz, Bolivia. Nicknamed Nusta, a Quechua word for "Princess," the mummy recently returned to its native Bolivia 129 years after it was donated to the Michigan State University museum in 1890 [Credit: AP/Juan Karita]

Known as Nusta, a Quechua word for "Princess," the mummy amazes many because of its excellent state of preservation: Its black braids seem recently combed and its hands still cling to small feathers.

Experts say the mummy originally came from a region in the Andean highlands near La Paz during the last years of the Inca civilization. Radiocarbon tests also have revealed that it dates to the second half of the 15th century, confirming the likelihood that its tomb burial preceded the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the conquest of the Inca by the Spanish.

"Despite the fact that it was given the name Nusta, or 'Princess,' we don't know if she was really a princess. We will only be able to answer that with DNA studies," said William A. Lovis, an MSU emeritus professor of anthropology who worked for years to help bring the remains home.

A 500-year-old mummy of an Incan girl clinging to bird feathers, inside a vault at the National Museum of Archaeology in La Paz, Bolivia. The girl is believed to have been around 8 years of age when she died. She is also believed to have  been part of an ethnic Aymara group known as the Pacajes, which was under Inca control, said William A. Lovis,  an MSU emeritus professor of anthropology who worked for years to help return the mummy  to the Andean country [Credit: AP/Juan Karita]

The mummy was returned more than two weeks ago with the assistance of the U.S. embassy in La Paz, and a new study is expected to be carried out by November by Bolivian academics and foreign experts. Until then, accompanying funerary objects will be exhibited to the public during a celebration that pays homage to the dead on Nov. 2.

Culture Minister Wilma Alanoca said that in recent years, the Bolivian government has achieved the repatriation of several archaeological goods that were taken illegally, but this is the first time that a body has been brought back.

An anthropology student analyzes bird feathers that were held by the 500-year-old Incan girl mummy now stored at the National Museum of Archaeology in La Paz, Bolivia. The mummy had originally been placed in a stone tomb along with sandals, a small clay jar, pouches, feathers and several types of plants, including maize and coca. Andean civilization used to give offerings to the dead under the belief that it would help their transition  into the other life [Credit: AP/Juan Karita]

"It's the first time that a body has been recovered, a mummy from the Inca period," she said.

Still, many mysteries remain unsolved. The girl, who is thought to have been part of an ethnic Aymara group known as the Pacajes, had originally been placed in a stone tomb along with sandals, a small clay jar, pouches, feathers and several types of plants including maize and coca—perhaps because some Andean civilizations believed that offerings helped the dead transition into the next life.

"It's possible that the girl was an important person and that the objects placed with her had as much sacred importance as they had a useful purpose," said Lovis. "Another possibility is that her death was an Inca sacrifice to appease or an offer to Inca deities."

The fingers of a 500-year-old Incan girl mummy holds bird feathers, inside a vault at the National Museum of Archaeology  in La Paz, Bolivia. Experts say the mummy originally came from a region in the Andean highlands near La Paz during the last years of the Inca civilization. Radiocarbon tests also have revealed that it's as old as the second half of the 15th century, confirming the likelihood that its tomb burial predated the arrival of Christopher  Columbus and the conquest of the Inca by the Spanish [Credit: AP/Juan Karita]

Nusta is believed to have been about 8 years old when she died and was buried in a dress made with threads from llama or alpaca, animals which were domesticated more than 4,000 years ago in the Andes and still roam the highlands of Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

David Trigo, who heads the National Archaeology Museum in La Paz, said the well-kept objects open new doors into a society that has barely been studied.


"We can say that she was an important member of her ethnic group," Trigo said, referring to Incan and Aymara traditions of building adobe or stone tombs known as chullpa for elite members of their communities.

For now, the remains are being preserved in a refrigerated chamber at the National Archaeology Museum in downtown La Paz.

Author: Carlos Valdez | Source: The Associated Press [August 20, 2019]

Climate change had significant impact on Amazon communities before arrival of Europeans

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on June 17, 2019 / comment : 0 Amazonia, Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, Climate Change, Earth Science, South America

Climate change had a significant impact on people living in the Amazon rainforest before the arrival of Europeans and the loss of many indigenous groups, a new study shows.

This is the megalith site in Amapa, Brazil - often called Amazon Stonehenge [Credit: Frank Mayle, University of Reading, UK]

Major shifts in temperature and rainfall caused the disappearance of communities long before 1492, researchers have found. In contrast other cultures still flourished just before the Spanish colonisation of the Americas.

New analysis of what the climate was like in the Amazon from 700 to 1300 shows the changing weather led to the end of communities who farmed intensively, and had a strong class structure. Those who lived without political hierarchy, who grew a greater variety of crops, and took more care to look after the land so it remained fertile, were able to adapt and were less affected.

During this period the Amazon was home to dozens of sophisticated communities who lived in flourishing towns and villages. Conflict between these communities, and migration, also contributed to the downfall of some.

Dr Jonas Gregorio de Souza, who led the research while at the University of Exeter and is now based at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, said: "Some Amazon communities were in decline or had changed drastically before 1492. Our research shows climate change was one of the responsible factors, but some groups survived because they had been working with their natural environment rather than against it. Those who farmed intensively, and had more pressure to produce surplus food because of a strong class structure, were less able to cope."

Aerial photograph of Pre-Colombian raised field from Llanos de Moxos, Bolivia [Credit: Umberto Lombardo, University of Bern, Switzerland]

It is thought the population of indigenous communities declined by 90 per cent to 95 per cent after Europeans came to Amazonia due to epidemics and violence. Before this up to 10 million people had lived in Amazonia, and this loss reshaped landscapes and cultural geographies across the region.

Experts analysed the climate in ancient Amazonia through analysis of pollen and charcoal remains, sediments from lakes and stalagmites. This allowed them to track how much rainfall there was in the region from year-to-year. They also analysed archaeological remains showing crops grown by communities in the past, and the structures they lived in.

In the Eastern Amazon the Marajoara elite lived on large mounds, which each could have been home to around 2,000 people. These chiefdoms disintegrated after 1200. It had been thought this was due to the arrival of Aruã nomadic foragers, but the study suggests decreasing rainfall also played a part. Communities used the mounds to manage water, with the rich monopolising resources. This made them sensitive to prolonged droughts.

At the same time Santarém culture, established in around 1100, was flourishing. They grew a variety of crops - maize, sweet potato, squash - and worked to enrich the forest. This meant drier conditions had less impact.

Raised fields in the Bolivian Llanos de Moxos region [Credit: Umberto Lombardo]

Experts have found communities in the Amazon built canals to manage seasonal floods. In the southern Amazon people fortified their ditches, walled plazas, causeways and roads as the climate became more volatile.

Professor Jose Iriarte, from the University of Exeter, said: "This study adds to the growing evidence that the millennium preceding the European encounter was a period of long-distance migrations, conflict, disintegration of complex societies and social re-organisation across lowland South America. It shows the weather had a real impact."

The research, part of the Pre-Columbian Amazon-Scale Transformations project, funded by the European Research Council, was carried out by academics at the University of Exeter, Pennsylvania State University, Baylor University, Universität Bern, Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto Geofísico del Peru, Northumbria University, Universidade Federal do Pará, French National Centre for Scientific Research, The University of Utah, University of Reading, Reading and the Universiteit van Amsterdam.

The study is published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Source: University of Exeter [June 17, 2019]

Bolivia restores myth-generating funerary towers

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on June 02, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, Heritage, South America

Unique quadrangular pre-Inca towers made of earth and straw, standing up to eight meters tall, dot the landscape at Condor Amaya on the Bolivian altiplano - giving rise to myths and legends.

View of some of 11 'chullpas' (funerary tower) restored by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation during  a handing over ceremony at the Condor Amaya archaeological site, in Umala, 130 km south of La Paz [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

These eight "chullpas" standing almost side by side are funerary towers that have been built with a technique unique to this site in the Bolivian Andes.

Severina Flores, a skilled wool weaver and sheep breeder, remembers that she was scared of the towers when she was young.

"Before, when I was 'wawa' (a child) we would never approach them because when we did we would fall ill," the 29-year-old mother of four told AFP.

The chullpas measure between two and eight meters high and two to four meters wide. They all have a small entrance door facing the rising sun in the east. That gave rise to myths and legends relating to the sun.

All the small doorways in the chullpas funerary towers face east, a fact that has been responsible for the development of numerous myths and legends [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

A story told by a Don Estanislao Colque claims that the pre-Incan towers "lived with the moon" and "walked on the earth" many generations ago.

But the earth changed position and the sun stopped rising in the west to be born again sometime later in the east, "burning" all those chullpas facing the other way.

"It's a myth, but valuable, because mythology is also part of heritage," said Greek archaeologist Irene Delaveris.

Other, more rational, explanations for the doors' orientation: wind and rain arriving from the west.

The chullpas funerary towers are made mostly from straw and mud, with some stone and a secret organic material yet to be identifed [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

The towers were built during two cultural periods: the pre-Incan Aymara kingdoms and the Inca-Pacajes period, conservation expert Guido Mamani told AFP.

The oldest of these towers were built in the 15th century, according to Delaveris.

Chullpas were first built in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Aymara kingdoms following the end of the Tiwanaku culture. The practice continued through the Inca period until the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.

They were used for the burials of royalty, military officials or wealthy people.

Some local people used to be afraid of the towers, believing them to cause illnesses [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

Condor Amaya - known as Kuntur Amaya in the Aymara language - is a small village of 40 families around 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the southwest of La Paz.

It has 11 funerary towers restored by the culture ministry in collaboration with the government of Switzerland.

There are 39 chullpas in the area, some in ruins, ravaged by time and the unforgiving climate. In the La Paz department there are around 300 overall, according to the culture ministry.

There are also similar funerary structures in neighboring Peru, but those are circular.

Experts say these funerary towers are unique for the way in which they were built [Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP]

"For me it's an expression of engineering that is unique in the world, because these constructions were not built in any other part of the world with this technique," said Delaveris.

The walls appear to be made from "a mix of whole straw with mud" which "generates a material like fabric," she added.

However, there is a secret organic ingredient as well, yet to be identified, that "could be the collagen in llama bones or a local plant that gave it that hardness that has allowed it to be preserved over centuries."

Author: José Arturo Cardenas | Source: AFP [June 02, 2019]

Ancient fish ponds in the Bolivian savanna supported human settlement

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 15, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, South America

A network of fish ponds supported a permanent human settlement in the seasonal drylands of Bolivia more than one thousand years ago, according to a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Gabriela Prestes-Carneiro of Federal University of Western Para, Brazil, and colleagues. The study is the first to document the full range of fish species likely kept in these constructed ponds, and provides new insights into how humans modified the savannah environment to cope with the months-long droughts that characterize this region of the Amazon Basin.

Interior of circular pond with canal exit visible in the center of the far margin [Credit: Prestes-Carneiro et al. 2019]

The Llanos de Mojos region in central Bolivia is a vast plain which receives flooding rains from October to April, and then virtually no precipitation the rest of the year. Beginning about 500 AD, humans began to create monumental earthen mounds in the region, on which permanent settlements were established. One, called Loma Salavtierra, located more than 50 kilometers from the nearest major river, has become an important archaeological site.

Previous work has established the existence of a series of shallow ponds rimmed by low earthen walls and connected by canals, which are believed to have captured rainfall and stored it throughout the dry season, potentially built to serve multiple purposes including water storage, drainage, and fish management.

Fish remains from Loma Salvatierra [Credit: Prestes-Carneiro et al, 2019]

In the current study, the authors conducted osteological and taxonomic identifications on the remains of over 17,000 fish found in midden piles at the site with the aid of a comparative collection. They identified more than 35 different taxa of fish, with four types of fish predominating: swamp-eels, armored catfish, lungfish, and tiger-fish, all of which are adapted to conditions of low oxygen and fluctuating water levels, as would be expected to arise in the ponds during the long dry period between annual rains.

Together with evidence of similar pond networks elsewhere in the region, the authors suggest that their results point to the use of these ponds for harvesting fish year-round, far from any rivers, permanent natural ponds, or other open-water habitat. Further studies will be needed to investigate fish storage and holding activities, and whether these activities changed in response to precipitation and landscape fluctuations.

The authors add: "The savanna, in contrast to the large Amazonian rivers, presents a distinct set of fishing habitats where humans likely established specific fishing strategies."

Source: Public Library of Science [May 15, 2019]

Ancient ritual bundle found in Bolivia contained multiple psychotropic plants

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 06, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, South America

A thousand years ago, Native Americans in South America used multiple psychotropic plants -- possibly simultaneously -- to induce hallucinations and altered consciousness, according to an international team of anthropologists.

The team found psychoactive compounds in an animal-skin pouch constructed of three fox snouts stitched together [Credit: Jose Capriles, Penn State]

"We already knew that psychotropics were important in the spiritual and religious activities of the societies of the south-central Andes, but we did not know that these people were using so many different compounds and possibly combining them together," said Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology, Penn State. "This is the largest number of psychoactive substances ever found in a single archaeological assemblage from South America."

The researchers were searching for ancient occupations in the dry rock shelters of the now-dry Sora River valley in southwestern Bolivia when they found a ritual bundle as part of a human burial. The bundle -- bound in a leather bag -- contained, among other things, two snuffing tablets (used to pulverize psychotropic plants into snuff), a snuffing tube (for smoking hallucinogenic plants), and a pouch constructed of three fox snouts.

The team used accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the outer leather bag and found that it was about 1,000 years old.

"This period in this location is associated with the disintegration of the Tiwanaku state and the emergence of regional polities," said Capriles.

Ritual bundle with leather bag, carved wooden snuff tablets and snuff tube with human hair braids, pouch made  of three fox snouts, camelid bone spatulas, colorful textile headband and wool and fiber strings [Credit: Juan Albarracín-Jordán & José Capriles]

In addition, the team used a scalpel to obtain a tiny scraping from the interior of the fox-snout pouch and analyzed the material using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry.

"This method is highly sensitive and very effective for detecting the presence of minute amounts of specific compounds from very small samples," said Melanie Miller, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and research affiliate at the University of California, Berkeley, who was responsible for analyzing the samples.

The researchers identified the presence of multiple psychoactive compounds -- cocaine, benzoylecgonine (the primary metabolite of cocaine), harmine, bufotenin, dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and possibly psilocin (a compound found in some mushrooms) -- from at least three different plant species (likely Erythroxylum coca, a species of Anadenanthera and Banistesteriopsis caani).

According to Capriles, the fox-snout pouch likely belonged to a shaman: "Shamans were ritual specialists who had knowledge of plants and how to use them as mechanisms to engage with supernatural beings, including venerated ancestors who were thought to exist in other realms," said Capriles. "It is possible that the shaman who owned this pouch consumed multiple different plants simultaneously to produce different effects or extend his or her hallucinations.'"

The ritual bundle included two carved and decorated wooden snuffing tablets that would have been used as a platform on which to pulverize psychotropic plants [Credit: Jose Capriles, Penn State]

Capriles noted that the co-occurrence of harmine and DMT, which are the primary ingredients of ayahuasca -- a beverage that is reported to induce hallucinations and altered consciousness -- in the pouch suggests the use of this beverage as one of the drugs in the shaman's kit.

"Some scholars believe that ayahuasca has relatively recent origins, while others argue that it may have been used for centuries, or even millennia," said Capriles. "Given the presence of harmine and DMT together in the pouch we found, it is likely that this shaman ingested these simultaneously to achieve a hallucinogenic state, either through a beverage, such as ayahuasca, or through a composite snuff that contained these plants in a single mixture. This finding suggests that ayahuasca may have been used up to 1,000 years ago."

Not only does the presence of numerous compounds suggest simultaneous use of drugs and earlier use of ayahuasca, in particular, but it also indicates intricate botanical knowledge by the owner of the pouch and an effort to acquire hallucinogenic plants, as the plants came from different regions of mostly tropical South America.

The researchers found a ritual bundle in the Cueva del Chileno rock shelter located in southwestern Bolivia [Credit: Jose Capriles, Penn State]

"The presence of these compounds indicates the owner of this kit had access to at least three plants with psychoactive compounds, but potentially even four or five," said Miller. "None of the psychoactive compounds we found come from plants that grow in this area of the Andes, indicating either the presence of elaborate exchange networks or the movement of this individual across diverse environments to procure these special plants. This discovery reminds us that people in the past had extensive knowledge of these powerful plants and their potential uses, and they sought them out for their medicinal and psychoactive properties."

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Pennsylvania State University [May 06, 2019]

Human settlements in Amazonia much older than previously thought

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on April 24, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, South America

Humans settled in southwestern Amazonia and even experimented with agriculture much earlier than previously thought, according to an international team of researchers.

Excavations at the site of La Chacra [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"We have long been aware that complex societies emerged in Llanos de Moxos in southwestern Amazonia, Bolivia, around 2,500 years ago, but our new evidence suggests that humans first settled in the region up to 10,000 years ago during the early Holocene period," said Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology. "These groups of people were hunter gatherers; however, our data show that they were beginning to deplete their local resources and establish territorial behaviors, perhaps driving them to begin domesticating plants such as sweet potatoes, cassava, peanuts and chili peppers as a way to acquire food."

The archaeological team conducted its study on three forest islands -- Isla del Tesoro, La Chacra and San Pablo -- within the seasonally flooded savanna of the Llanos de Moxos in northern Bolivia.

Excavation team taking measurements during excavations [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"These islands are elevated above the surrounding savanna, so they do not flood during the rainy season," said Capriles. "We believe people were using these sites recurrently as seasonal camps, particularly during the long rainy seasons when most of the Llanos de Moxos become flooded."

The team's excavations of the forest islands revealed human skeletons that had been intentionally buried in a manner unlike that of typical hunter gatherers and instead were more akin to the behaviours of complex societies -- characterized by political hierarchy and the production of food. Their results appear in Science Advances.

Samples collected from the excavation site [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"If these were highly mobile hunter gatherers you would not expect for them to bury their dead in specific places; instead, they would leave their dead wherever they died," said Capriles.

Capriles noted that it is rare to find human or even archaeological remains that predate the use of fired pottery in the region.

Collection of sedimentary cores in the forest island San Pablo, in the picture, Dr. Umberto Lombardo [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"The soils tend to be very acidic, which often makes the preservation of organic remains very poor," he said. "Also, organic matter deteriorates quickly in tropical environments and this region completely lacks any type of rock for making stone tools, so even those are not available to study."

According to Umberto Lombardo, earth scientist at the University of Bern, when the researchers first published their discovery of these archaeological sites in 2013, they had to base their conclusions on indirect evidence -- mostly geochemical analyses -- rather than direct evidence such as artifacts.

Human burials exposed and recovered during the archaeological excavations at the forest  island of La Chacra during excavations [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"Because of the lack of direct evidence many archaeologists were skeptical about our findings," said Lombardo. "They did not really believe that those forest islands were early Holocene archaeological sites. The current study provides strong and definitive evidence of the anthropocentric origin of these sites, because the archaeological excavations uncovered early Holocene human burials. These are the definitive proof of the antiquity and origin of these sites."

Capriles noted that the human bones on these forest islands were preserved despite the poor conditions because they were encased within middens -- or trash heaps -- containing abundant fragments of shell, animal bones and other organic remains.

Burial in La Chacra exposed during archaeological excavations [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"These people were foraging apple snails during the wet season and disposing of the shells in large heaps, called middens," said Capriles. "Over time, water dissolved the calcium carbonate from the shells and those carbonates precipitated over the bones, effectively fossilizing them."

Because the human bones were fossilized, the team was unable to date them directly using radiocarbon dating. Instead, they used radiocarbon dating of associated charcoal and shell as a proxy for estimating the time range that the sites were occupied.

Mapping during the archaeological excavations at the site of La Chacra [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]

"The abundant remains of burned earth and wood suggests that the people were using fire, likely to clear land, cook food and keep warm during long rainy days," said Capriles.

According to Capriles, a gap exists between the people his team studied who lived on the forest islands between 10,000 and 4,000 years ago and the rise of complex societies, which began around 2,500 years ago.

View of La Chacra forest island in the Bolivian Llanos de Moxos [Credit: José Capriles/PSU]

"This paper represents the first step in the effort to learn more about the people who inhabited southwestern Amazonia for thousands of years but we know nothing about," said Lombardo.

Capriles added, "Are the people we found direct predecessors of those later, more complex societies? There are still questions to be answered and we hope to do so in future research."

Source: Pennsylvania State University [April 24, 2019]

Anthropologists working on documenting life of 500-year-old Bolivian mummy

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on April 07, 2019 / comment : 0 Anthropology, Bolivia, Forensics, South America

Researchers from Idaho State University, the Idaho Museum of Natural History, Michigan State University, the University of New Hampshire and Pennsylvania State University are working to document and return the remains of a 500-year-old Incan mummy to Bolivia.

Credit: Michigan State University

The mummy is the remains of a young girl, nicknamed Ñusta, meaning “princess” in the Quechua language. It was donated to Michigan State University in 1890 by the U.S. Consul to Chile. Through the 1970s, Ñusta had been on prominent display at the MSU Museum until Lovis and other curators recommended that she be removed from exhibition and curated away from public view.

Ñusta and her burial offerings had originally been placed in a stone tomb called a chullpa near LaPaz, Bolivia. She is presumed to be a capacocha, a ritual child sacrifice, buried among the peaks of the sacred Andes mountains. Most scholars agree that capacocha were meant to appease the gods of the mountains and assure protection and abundant rain for crops to support the Inca people. Though there is contention as to whether chullpa burials are those of sacrificial victims or elites interred in prominent monuments, capacocha were often the children of nobility chosen, because of their purity and innocence, as honored tribute. These children are believed to have traveled across considerable distances and altitudinal changes during their final months of life on the journey to the locations of their sacrifice.

Capacocha children are found with elaborate burial goods including silver and gold figurines, feathers, textiles and jewelry among other high-status artifacts. The means of the sacrifice seems to vary among the capacocha found, but often they would slip into slumber from chewing on coca leaves. This ritual was considered a necessary and important part of the Inca worldview.

In 2016, William Lovis, professor and curator emeritus at MSU, began the process of repatriation, and initiated coordination of collaborative interdisciplinary and interinstitutional documentation of the mummy using minimally invasive and cutting-edge technologies.

Gabriel Wrobel, MSU, is using non-invasive methods to interpret her age-at-death and documenting any existing trauma. Amy Commendador, Manager of the Earl H. Swanson Archaeological Repository at the Idaho Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University, has been using isotopic analyses from hair to reconstruct the diet and migration of Ñusta during her final months of life.

Anthropologists Samantha Blatt, ISU, and Amy Michael, UNH, are analyzing the microscopic structures in the enamel and root of a tooth to reconstruct her health. Dental histology, the study of microscopic tissues, will reveal if Ñusta experienced any acute health stress events in the earliest years of her life.

Along with Blatt and Michael, John Dudgeon, from the ISU Department of Anthropology and Center for Archaeology, Materials and Applied Spectroscopy (CAMAS), will capture the chemical markers of stress mapped within microscopic stress lines in the tooth.

The dental data, coupled with the hair data, will allow for a better rendering of the overall health experience and diet leading up to the sacrifice event. This will help to reconstruct the sociopolitical identity and geographic origins of Ñusta. It is hoped that this collaborative study of the mummy will give researchers a clearer view of the experiences of capacocha and their role in the Inca world.

Source: Idaho State University [April 07, 2019]

Rise of religion pre-dates Incas at Lake Titicaca

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on April 01, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Bolivia, South America

An ancient group of people made ritual offerings to supernatural deities near the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, about 500 years earlier than the Incas, according to an international team of researchers. The team's findings suggest that organized religion emerged much earlier in the region than previously thought.

Findings, such as this bowl, allowed the researchers to reconstruct the structure and significance of repeated state rituals by the Tiwanaku people [Credit: Teddy Seguin]

"People often associate the Island of the Sun with the Incas because it was an important pilgrimage location for them and because they left behind numerous ceremonial buildings and offerings on and around this island," said Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology, Penn State. "Our research shows that the Tiwanaku people, who developed in Lake Titicaca between 500 and 1,100 AD, were the first people to offer items of value to religious deities in the area."

The Incas, Capriles noted, did not arrive in the Lake Titicaca region until around the 15th century AD.

A team lead by Christophe Delaere, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology and research associate at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, conducted underwater archaeological excavations in the Khoa Reef near the Island of the Sun.

The archaeologists used sonar and underwater three-dimensional photogrammetry to scan and map the reef. They used a water-dredge to excavate the sediment and measured and weighed all the archaeological materials they uncovered. Their results appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Systematic underwater archaeological excavations from an underwater ceremonial location near the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia [Credit: Teddy Seguin]

In particular, the team found ritual offerings consisting of ceramic feline incense burners; sacrificed juvenile llamas; and gold, shell and stone ornaments.

"The findings, and especially the ceramic puma-shaped incense burners, are significant because they help us gain a broader understanding of the ritual behavior and religion of the Tiwanaku state -- a society that preceded the Incas by several hundred years," said Delaere.

The puma was an important religious symbol to the Tiwanaku, Delaere added.

Another observation made by the team was that the religious offerings appear to have been made intentionally to be submerged underwater.

The team found ritual offerings consisting of ceramic feline incense burners; sacrificed juvenile llamas; and gold, shell and stone ornaments [Credit: Teddy Seguin]

"The presence of anchors near the offerings suggests that officiating authorities may have deposited the offerings during rituals held from boats," said Capriles.

According to Capriles, the Island of the Sun was likely important to the Tiwanaku people because of its natural beauty, but also because of its location at the center of the Andes Mountains.

"It was a strategic and ritually charged place," said Capriles. "At the Island of the Sun and the Khoa Reef, religious specialists could come together for sacred ceremonies. The ritual offerings they made here demonstrate the transitioning of societies from more local-based religious systems to something that had a more ambitious geopolitical and spiritual appeal."

In turn, he added, this emergence of organized religion likely led to consolidation of the groups of people living around the lake and the emergence of the Tiwanaku state, characterized by political hierarchy.

Source: Pennsylvania State University [April 01, 2019]

Massive Bolivian earthquake reveals mountains 660 kilometers below our feet

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on February 14, 2019 / comment : 0 Bolivia, Earth Science, Geology, Palaeontology

Most schoolchildren learn that the Earth has three (or four) layers: a crust, mantle and core, which is sometimes subdivided into an inner and outer core. That's not wrong, but it does leave out several other layers that scientists have identified within the Earth, including the transition zone within the mantle.

Princeton seismologist Jessica Irving worked with then-graduate student Wenbo Wu and another collaborator to determine  the roughness at the top and bottom of the transition zone, a layer within the mantle, using scattered earthquake waves. They found that the top of the transition zone, a layer located 410 kilometers down, is mostly smooth, but the base of the transition zone, 660 km down, in some places is much rougher than the global surface average. “In other words, stronger topography than the Rocky Mountains or the Appalachians is present at the 660-km boundary,” said Wu. Note: This graphic is not to scale .[Credit: Kyle McKernan/Princeton University]

In a study published in Science, Princeton geophysicists Jessica Irving and Wenbo Wu, in collaboration with Sidao Ni from the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics in China, used data from an enormous earthquake in Bolivia to find mountains and other topography on the base of the transition zone, a layer 660 kilometers (410 miles) straight down that separates the upper and lower mantle. (Lacking a formal name for this layer, the researchers simply call it "the 660-km boundary.")

To peer deep into the Earth, scientists use the most powerful waves on the planet, which are generated by massive earthquakes. "You want a big, deep earthquake to get the whole planet to shake," said Irving, an assistant professor of geosciences.

Big earthquakes are vastly more powerful than small ones -- energy increases 30-fold with every step up the Richter scale -- and deep earthquakes, "instead of frittering away their energy in the crust, can get the whole mantle going," Irving said. She gets her best data from earthquakes that are magnitude 7.0 or higher, she said, as the shockwaves they send out in all directions can travel through the core to the other side of the planet -- and back again. For this study, the key data came from waves picked up after a magnitude 8.2 earthquake -- the second-largest deep earthquake ever recorded -- that shook Bolivia in 1994.

"Earthquakes this big don't come along very often," she said. "We're lucky now that we have so many more seismometers than we did even 20 years ago. Seismology is a different field than it was 20 years ago, between instruments and computational resources."

Seismologists and data scientists use powerful computers, including Princeton's Tiger supercomputer cluster, to simulate the complicated behavior of scattering waves in the deep Earth.

The technology depends on a fundamental property of waves: their ability to bend and bounce. Just as light waves can bounce (reflect) off a mirror or bend (refract) when passing through a prism, earthquake waves travel straight through homogenous rocks but reflect or refract when they encounter any boundary or roughness.

"We know that almost all objects have surface roughness and therefore scatter light," said Wu, the lead author on the new paper, who just completed his geosciences Ph.D. and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology. "That's why we can see these objects -- the scattering waves carry the information about the surface's roughness. In this study, we investigated scattered seismic waves traveling inside the Earth to constrain the roughness of the Earth's 660-km boundary."

The researchers were surprised by just how rough that boundary is -- rougher than the surface layer that we all live on. "In other words, stronger topography than the Rocky Mountains or the Appalachians is present at the 660-km boundary," said Wu. Their statistical model didn't allow for precise height determinations, but there's a chance that these mountains are bigger than anything on the surface of the Earth. The roughness wasn't equally distributed, either; just as the crust's surface has smooth ocean floors and massive mountains, the 660-km boundary has rough areas and smooth patches. The researchers also examined a layer 410 kilometers (255 miles) down, at the top of the mid-mantle "transition zone," and they did not find similar roughness.

"They find that Earth's deep layers are just as complicated as what we observe at the surface," said seismologist Christine Houser, an assistant professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who was not involved in this research. "To find 2-mile (1-3 km) elevation changes on a boundary that is over 400 miles (660 km) deep using waves that travel through the entire Earth and back is an inspiring feat. ... Their findings suggest that as earthquakes occur and seismic instruments become more sophisticated and expand into new areas, we will continue to detect new small-scale signals which reveal new properties of Earth's layers."

The presence of roughness on the 660-km boundary has significant implications for understanding how our planet formed and continues to function. That layer divides the mantle, which makes up about 84 percent of the Earth's volume, into its upper and lower sections. For years, geoscientists have debated just how important that boundary is. In particular, they have investigated how heat travels through the mantle -- whether hot rocks are carried smoothly from the core-mantle boundary (almost 2,000 miles down) all the way up to the top of the mantle, or whether that transfer is interrupted at this layer. Some geochemical and mineralogical evidence suggests that the upper and lower mantle are chemically different, which supports the idea that the two sections don't mix thermally or physically. Other observations suggest no chemical difference between the upper and lower mantle, leading some to argue for what's called a "well-mixed mantle," with both the upper and lower mantle participating in the same heat-transfer cycle.

"Our findings provide insight into this question," said Wu. Their data suggests that both groups might be partially right. The smoother areas of the 660-km boundary could result from more thorough vertical mixing, while the rougher, mountainous areas may have formed where the upper and lower mantle don't mix as well.

In addition, the roughness the researchers found, which existed at large, moderate and small scales, could theoretically be caused by heat anomalies or chemical heterogeneities. But because of how heat in transported within the mantle, Wu explained, any small-scale thermal anomaly would be smoothed out within a few million years. That leaves only chemical differences to explain the small-scale roughness they found.

What could cause significant chemical differences? The introduction of rocks that used to belong to the crust, now resting quietly in the mantle. Scientists have long debated the fate of the slabs of sea floor that get pushed into the mantle at subduction zones, the collisions happening found all around the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere around the world. Wu and Irving suggest that remnants of these slabs may now be just above or just below the 660-km boundary.

"It's easy to assume, given we can only detect seismic waves traveling through the Earth in its current state, that seismologists can't help understand how Earth's interior has changed over the past 4.5 billion years," said Irving. "What's exciting about these results is that they give us new information to understand the fate of ancient tectonic plates which have descended into the mantle, and where ancient mantle material might still reside."

She added: "Seismology is most exciting when it lets us better understand our planet's interior in both space and time."

Source: Princeton University [February 14, 2019]