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Northern Peru (northern + peru)
Selected AbstractsShamanism and San Pedro through Time: Some Notes on the Archaeology, History, and Continued Use of an Entheogen in Northern PeruANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2010BONNIE GLASS-COFFIN ABSTRACT This paper discusses archaeological, historical, and contemporary ethnographic evidence for the use of the San Pedro cactus in northern Peru as a vehicle for traveling between worlds and for imparting the "vista" (magical sight) necessary for shamanic healers to divine the cause of their patients' ailments. Using iconographic, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence for the uninterrupted use of this sacred plant as a means of access to the Divine and as a tool for healing, it describes the relationship between San Pedro, ancestor worship, water/fertility cults and also the common symbolic associations between San Pedro and wind-spirits. It closes by suggesting that the more than 2000 year time-depth of using this plant as a means for accessing the realms of Spirit and as a tool for healing should serve to challenge the unfortunate tendency in the contemporary United States to consider this plant as a "recreational drug." [source] Edaphic niche differentiation among Polybotrya ferns in western Amazonia: implications for coexistence and speciationECOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006Hanna TuomistoArticle first published online: 22 FEB 200 To study the degree of edaphic specialization in Amazonian plants, the distribution patterns of seven species of Polybotrya ferns were studied in 109 sites in a climatically uniform area of northwestern Amazonia (Colombia, Ecuador and northern Peru). The two most abundant species of Polybotrya were found in about two-thirds of the sites with almost 7000 individuals each, the rarest species occurred in just one site with 40 individuals. Each of the seven species appeared to have a unique realised niche, when niche dimensions were defined by gradients in soil texture, soil cation content, and inundation. The species also differed in how broadly or narrowly they were distributed along each gradient. Some species were practically never found in the same sites, whereas others co-occurred with a high frequency, in spite of showing clearly different abundance patterns among sites. A single site only contains a small part of the edaphic variation present in the landscape, and a small proportion of any species' niche space, so broad-scale studies are needed to adequately describe and compare species' niches and to assess to what degree niche differences promote species coexistence. The distribution patterns in Polybotrya are consistent with, but do not prove, that ecological speciation may have been important in the radiation of the genus. If such a pattern is found to be common in other Amazonian plants, this would indicate that each evolutionary lineage has adapted to the available habitats largely independently of the others. [source] Climatic signals in growth and its relation to ENSO events of two Prosopis species following a latitudinal gradient in South AmericaGLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, Issue 5 2006BERNAT C. LÓPEZ Abstract Semiarid environments throughout the world have lost a major part of their woody vegetation and biodiversity due to the effects of wood cutting, cattle grazing and subsistence agriculture. The resulting state is typically used for cattle production, but the productivity of these systems is often very low, and erosion of the unprotected soil is a common problem. Such dry-land degradation is of great international concern, not only because the resulting state is hardly productive but also because it paves the way to desertification. The natural distribution of the genus Prosopis includes arid and semiarid zones of the Americas, Africa and Asia, but the majority of the Prosopis species are, however, native to the Americas. In order to assess a likely gradient in the response of tree species to precipitation, temperature and their connection to El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO) events, two Prosopis species were chosen along a latitudinal gradient in Latin America, from northern Peru to central Chile: Prosopis pallida from a semi-arid land in northern and southern Peru and P. chilensis from a semiarid land in central Chile. Growth rings of each species were crossdated at each sampling site using classical dendrochronological techniques. Chronologies were related with instrumental climatic records in each site, as well as with SOI and N34 series. Cross-correlation, spectral and wavelet analysis techniques were used to assess the relation of growth with precipitation and temperature. Despite the long distance among sites, the two Prosopis species presented similar responses. Thus, the two species' growth is positively correlated to precipitation, while with temperature it is not. In northern Peru, precipitation and growth of P. pallida present a similar cyclic pattern, with a period of around 3 years. On the other hand, P. pallida in southern Peru, and P. chilensis also present this cyclic pattern, but also another one with lower frequency, coinciding with the pattern of precipitation. Both cycles are within the range of the ENSO band. [source] University of San Diego palynological investigation of the Dos Cabezas giantsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 5 2003P. S. Geyer Abstract Beginning in 1999, coprolite soil samples were collected from the skeletal remains of Moche giants excavated at the archaeological site of Dos Cabezas, northern Peru. In 2000, a pilot palynological study was undertaken to ascertain if pollen was recoverable from them. The results of this study encouraged us to form a student team to continue the laboratory research. It was also decided to sample as many of the excavated skeletal remains from the giants' tombs as possible. Following the 2001 field season a palynological study was performed on the three individuals (one adult giant and two children) recovered from Tomb 3 in 1999. Pollen was extracted and analysed. The combined results of this archaeobotanical study are significant and in one instance have led us into insights into the possible causes of death of these three contemporaneous internments. This report represents only the preliminary results of this ongoing research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Dry spots and wet spots in the Andean hotspotJOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 8 2007Timothy J. Killeen Abstract Aim, To explain the relationship between topography, prevailing winds and precipitation in order to identify regions with contrasting precipitation regimes and then compare floristic similarity among regions in the context of climate change. Location, Eastern slope of the tropical Andes, South America. Methods, We used information sources in the public domain to identify the relationship between geology, topography, prevailing wind patterns and precipitation. Areas with contrasting precipitation regimes were identified and compared for their floristic similarity. Results, We identify spatially separate super-humid, humid and relatively dry regions on the eastern slope of the Andes and show how they are formed by the interaction of prevailing winds, diurnally varying atmospheric circulations and the local topography of the Andes. One key aspect related to the formation of these climatically distinct regions is the South American low-level jet (SALLJ), a relatively steady wind gyre that flows pole-ward along the eastern slopes of the Andes and is part of the gyre associated with the Atlantic trade winds that cross the Amazon Basin. The strongest winds of the SALLJ occur near the ,elbow of the Andes' at 18° S. Super-humid regions with mean annual precipitation greater than 3500 mm, are associated with a ,favourable' combination of topography, wind-flow orientation and local air circulation that favours ascent at certain hours of the day. Much drier regions, with mean annual precipitation less than 1500 mm, are associated with ,unfavourable' topographic orientation with respect to the mean winds and areas of reduced cloudiness produced by local breezes that moderate the cloudiness. We show the distribution of satellite-estimated frequency of cloudiness and offer hypotheses to explain the occurrence of these patterns and to explain regions of anomalously low precipitation in Bolivia and northern Peru. Floristic analysis shows that overall similarity among all circumscribed regions of this study is low; however, similarity among super-humid and humid regions is greater when compared with similarity among dry regions. Spatially separate areas with humid and super-humid precipitation regimes show similarity gradients that are correlated with latitude (proximity) and precipitation. Main conclusions, The distribution of precipitation on the eastern slope of the Andes is not simply correlated with latitude, as is often assumed, but is the result of the interplay between wind and topography. Understanding the phenomena responsible for producing the observed precipitation patterns is important for mapping and modelling biodiversity, as well as for interpreting both past and future climate scenarios and the impact of climate change on biodiversity. Super-humid and dry regions have topographic characteristics that contribute to local climatic stability and may represent ancestral refugia for biodiversity; these regions are a conservation priority due to their unique climatic characteristics and the biodiversity associated with those characteristics. [source] Population structure and phylogeography of Solanum pimpinellifolium inferred from a nuclear geneMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 7 2004Ana Lucía Caicedo Abstract Phylogeographical studies are emerging as a powerful tool for understanding the population structure and evolution of wild relatives of crop species. Because of their value as genetic resources, there is great interest in exploring the distribution of variation in wild relatives of cultivated plants. In this study, we use sequence variation from the nuclear gene, fruit vacuolar invertase (Vac), to investigate the population history of Solanum pimpinellifolium. Solanum pimpinellifolium is a close relative of the cultivated tomato and has repeatedly served as a source of valuable traits for crop improvement. We sequenced the second intron of the Vac gene in 129 individuals, representing 16 populations from the northern half of Peru. Patterns of haplotype sharing among populations indicate that there is isolation by distance. However, there is no congruence between the geographical distribution of haplotypes and their genealogical relationships. Levels of outcrossing decrease towards the southernmost populations, as previously observed in an allozyme study. The geographical pattern of Vac variation supports a centre of origin in northern Peru for S. pimpinellifolium and a gradual colonization along the Pacific coast. This implies that inbreeding populations are derived from outcrossing ones and that variation present at the Vac locus predates the spread of S. pimpinellifolium. The expansion of cities and human agricultural activity in the habitat of S. pimpinellifolium currently pose a threat to the species. [source] RESEARCH ARTICLES: Traces of a Lost Language and Number System Discovered on the North Coast of PeruAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2010Jeffrey Quilter ABSTRACT, Sometime in the early 17th century, at Magdalena de Cao, a community of resettled native peoples in the Chicama Valley on the North Coast of Peru, a Spaniard used the back of a letter to jot down the terms for numbers in a local language. Four hundred years later, the authors of this article were able to recover and study this piece of paper. We present information on this otherwise unknown language, on numeracy, and on cultural relations of ethnolinguistic groups in pre- and early-post-Conquest northern Peru. Our investigations have determined that, while several of the Magadalena number terms were likely borrowed from a Quechuan language, the remainder record a decimal number system in an otherwise unknown language. Historical sources of the region mention at least two potential candidate languages, Pescadora and Quingnam; however, because neither is documented beyond its name, a definite connection remains impossible to establish. RESUMEN, En los inicios del siglo diecisiete, en el sitio de Magdalena de Cao, una comunidad de indígenas reducidos en el valle de Chicama en la costa norte del Perú, un español usó el reverso de una carta para anotar las palabras que traducían números en un idioma local. Cuatrocientos años después, la carta fue recuperada y estudiada por los autores de este artículo. Presentamos información acerca de este idioma desconocido, tanto como sobre los conceptos numéricos, y sobre las relaciones culturales de grupos etnolinguísticos en la costa norte del Perú antes y después de la conquista español. Nuestras investigaciones habían determinado que, mientras algunas de las palabras numéricas son probablemente prestadas de un idioma quechua, los demás vienen de un sistema numérico decimal de un idioma hasta ahora desconocido. Las fuentes históricas en la región mencionan al menos dos idiomas como candidatos potenciales, o sea Pescadora y Quingnam, pero como no sabemos sino esos dos nombres, es imposible identificar a que idiomas pertenecieron. [source] Oral health and the postcontact adaptive transition: A contextual reconstruction of diet in Mórrope, PeruAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Haagen D. Klaus Abstract This work explores the effects of European contact on Andean foodways in the Lambayeque Valley Complex, north coast Peru. We test the hypothesis that Spanish colonization negatively impacted indigenous diet. Diachronic relationships of oral health were examined from the dentitions of 203 late-pre-Hispanic and 175 colonial-period Mochica individuals from Mórrope, Lambayeque, to include observations of dental caries, antemortem tooth loss, alveolar inflammation, dental calculus, periodontitis, and dental wear. G -tests and odds ratio analyses across six age classes indicate a range of statistically significant postcontact increases in dental caries, antemortem tooth loss, and dental calculus prevalence. These findings are associated with ethnohistoric contexts that point to colonial-era economic reorganization which restricted access to multiple traditional food sources. We infer that oral health changes reflect creative Mochica cultural adjustments to dietary shortfalls through the consumption of a greater proportion of dietary carbohydrates. Simultaneously, independent skeletal indicators of biological stress suggest that these adjustments bore a cost in increased nutritional stress. Oral health appears to have been systematically worse among colonial women. We rule out an underlying biological cause (female fertility variation) and suggest that the establishment of European gender ideologies and divisions of labor possibly exposed colonial Mochica women to a more cariogenic diet. Overall, dietary change in Mórrope appears shaped by local responses to a convergence of colonial Spanish economic agendas, landscape transformation, and social changes during the postcontact transition in northern Peru. These findings also further the understandings of dietary and biocultural histories of the Western Hemisphere. Am J Phys Anthropol 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Shamanism and San Pedro through Time: Some Notes on the Archaeology, History, and Continued Use of an Entheogen in Northern PeruANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2010BONNIE GLASS-COFFIN ABSTRACT This paper discusses archaeological, historical, and contemporary ethnographic evidence for the use of the San Pedro cactus in northern Peru as a vehicle for traveling between worlds and for imparting the "vista" (magical sight) necessary for shamanic healers to divine the cause of their patients' ailments. Using iconographic, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence for the uninterrupted use of this sacred plant as a means of access to the Divine and as a tool for healing, it describes the relationship between San Pedro, ancestor worship, water/fertility cults and also the common symbolic associations between San Pedro and wind-spirits. It closes by suggesting that the more than 2000 year time-depth of using this plant as a means for accessing the realms of Spirit and as a tool for healing should serve to challenge the unfortunate tendency in the contemporary United States to consider this plant as a "recreational drug." [source] Tree Community Change across 700 km of Lowland Amazonian Forest from the Andean Foothills to BrazilBIOTROPICA, Issue 5 2008Nigel C. A. Pitman ABSTRACT We describe patterns of tree community change along a 700-km transect through terra firme forests of western Amazonia, running from the base of the Andes in Ecuador to the Peru,Brazil border. Our primary question is whether floristic variation at large scales arises from many gradual changes or a few abrupt ones. Data from 54 1-ha tree plots along the transect support the latter model, showing two sharp discontinuities in community structure at the genus level. One is located near the Ecuador,Peru border, where the suite of species that dominates large areas of Ecuadorean forest declines abruptly in importance to the east. This discontinuity is underlain by a subterranean paleoarch and congruent with a change in soil texture. A second discontinuity is associated with the shift from clay to white sand soils near Iquitos. We hypothesize that the first discontinuity is part of an edaphic boundary that runs along the Andean piedmont and causes a transition from tree communities preferring richer, younger soils near the base of the Andes to those preferring poorer, older soils farther east. Because the floristic changes observed at this discontinuity are conserved for large distances to the east and west of it, the discontinuity is potentially key for understanding floristic variation in western Amazonia. The significant floristic turnover at the Ecuador,Peru border suggests that the only large protected area in the region,Ecuador's Yasuní National Park,is not adequate protection for the very diverse tree communities that cover vast areas of northern Peru. RESUMEN Describimos cambios en la comunidad de árboles a lo largo de un transecto de 700 km que atraviesa los bosques de tierra firme de la Amazonía occidental, desde la base de los Andes en Ecuador hasta la frontera Perú-Brasil. Nuestra pregunta principal es si la variación florística a grandes escalas es generada a base de muchos cambios graduales o en unos pocos cambios abruptos. Datos de 54 parcelas de árboles de 1 ha a lo largo del transecto apoyan el segundo modelo, mostrando dos discontinuidades bien definidas en la estructura de la comunidad a nivel de género. Una discontinuidad está localizada cerca de la frontera Ecuador-Perú, donde el grupo de especies que domina grandes áreas de la Amazonía ecuatoriana declina abruptamente en importancia hacia el este. Esta discontinuidad está asociada con un paleoarco subterráneo y es congruente con cambios en la textura del suelo. Una segunda discontinuidad está asociada con un cambio de suelos arcillosos a suelos de arena blanca cerca de Iquitos. Sugerimos que la primera discontinuidad es parte de un limite edáfico que corre a lo largo del piedemonte andino y causa una transición de comunidades de árboles que prefieren suelos más fértiles y jóvenes cerca de los Andes, a aquellos que prefieren suelos más pobres y antiguos hacia el este. Ya que los cambios florísticos observados en esta discontinuidad se conservan por grandes distancias hacia el este y oeste, la discontinuidad es potencialmente clave para entender la variación florística en la Amazonía occidental. El importante recambio florístico en la frontera Ecuador-Perú sugiere que la única gran área protegida en la región,el Parque Nacional Yasuní en Ecuador,no presta protección adecuada a las muy diversas comunidades de árboles en el norte del Perú. [source] Systematics of the Nasa poissoniana group (Loasaceae) from Andean South AmericaBOTANICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 3 2009TILO HENNING The monophyletic Nasa poissoniana group (Loasaceae, subfamily Loasoideae) is revised on the basis of extensive field studies, observations in cultivation and the revision of herbarium specimens. A core of taxa has been considered as closely allied on the basis of morphology in the past, but several additional taxa have been recognized as allied to this group on the basis of molecular data. One species, N. raimondii, formerly placed in the N. stuebeliana group, is now transferred to the N. poissoniana complex as a result of the molecular findings. Nasa poissoniana ssp. glandulifera is described as new to science on the basis of morphologically divergent collections of N. poissoniana from two northern departments of Peru. Numerous new localities, often far from the previously known distribution area, are reported for several species. The N. poissoniana group has its centre of diversity in the inner Andean valleys of southern Peru, quite unlike all other groups of Nasa, with centres of diversity in the Amotape,Huancabamba Zone in northern Peru and southern Ecuador. Descriptions, drawings and a distribution map and key to all taxa are provided, and detailed information on habitat and distribution is given for each species. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 161, 278,301. [source] | |||||||||||||