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Resilience and Climate Instability at the Beginning of the Middle Horizon (550–800 A.D.): An Analysis of Violent Trauma in Huaca 20 (Peruvian Central Coast)
No full textThis article presents a study of the relationship between violence and climate stress in the Lima culture, a pre-Hispanic society of the Peruvian central coast, which developed approximately between 200 and 800 A.D. Different investigations have shown that around 550–750 A.D., the Peruvian coast experienced strong El Niño events that created environmental and social stress scenarios for coastal pre-Hispanic societies. Our data show that although evidence supports the presence of at least one powerful El Niño event on the central coast around 600 A.D., this episode of climatic stress related to extensive flood deposits seems to have not had a direct effect on the levels of interpersonal and intergroup violence recorded at Lima culture sites during this period. The prevalence of cranial trauma seems to have decreased during this time compared with the previous phase (from 50% to 25% in males and from 40% to 15.7% in females). The pattern and lethality of the lesions suggest that they were primarily produced in nonlethal face-to-face encounters, although some individuals could have also been victims of raiding. However, even though interpersonal/intergroup violence did not rise during this period of climatic stress, more complicated and ritualized manifestations of violence arose instead. Further comparisons of these findings with other Andean regions showed that coastal pre-Hispanic societies reacted in different ways to these challenging climate events. Through cooperation and an effective social, political, and economic reorganization, the Limas coped with a challenging period.
Este artículo presenta un estudio sobre la relación entre violencia y estrés climático en la cultura Lima, una sociedad prehispánica de la costa central del Perú, la cual se desarrolló aproximadamente entre 200-800 AD. Diversas investigaciones han mostrado que alrededor de 550-750 AD la costa peruana experimentó fuertes eventos de El Niño que causaron escenarios de estrés social y ambiental para las sociedades prehispánicas costeras. Nuestros datos muestran que, aunque la evidencia apoya la presencia de al menos un evento de El Niño muy severo alrededor de 600 AD, este episodio relacionado con extensos depósitos aluviales no tuvo un efecto directo en los niveles de violencia interpersonal registrados en sitios de la cultura Lima durante este periodo. La prevalencia de trauma craneal parece haber decrecido durante este tiempo en comparación con periodos previos (de 50% a 25% en individuos masculinos y de 40% a 15.7% en femeninos). El patrón de letalidad de las lesiones sugiere que estas fueron producidas principalmente en encuentros no letales cara a cara, aunque algunos individuos pudieron ser víctimas de incursiones. Sin embargo, aun cuando la violencia interpersonal no aumentó durante este periodo de estrés climático, sí aumentaron las manifestaciones más ritualizadas y complejas de violencia. Comparaciones adicionales de estos hallazgos con otras regiones andinas muestra que las sociedades costeras prehispánicas reaccionaron de diferentes formas a estos desafiantes eventos climáticos. Aparentemente, los lima pudieron superar este difícil periodo por medio de la cooperación y una efectiva reorganización social, política y económica
Embodied Places: Theorizing Locality, Identity, and Isotopes in the Ancient Andes
No full textBioarchaeologists routinely use isotopic data to classify the geographic origin of skeletal individuals as “local” or “nonlocal” using statistical criteria or comparative baselines. Yet, these analyses and resulting interpretations rarely consider how people in the past may have conceived of their relationships to different places. Using a case study from the late pre-Hispanic Colca Valley, Peru (A.D. 1300–1450), this article demonstrates how Andean concepts of locality and identity, attested to historically and ethnographically, can be leveraged in the interpretation of isotopic variation. The study centers on an elite burial group comprising individuals with and without cranial modification, a practice that was tied to place of origin, among other aspects of identity, in this region of the Andes. Drawing on published carbon and oxygen isotope data and presenting new data on strontium and lead isotope ratios in 36 dental enamel samples, we show that both modified and unmodified individuals largely fall within projected “local” ranges. However, modified individuals exhibit greater variability in strontium and lead isotope ratios, pointing to diverse mobility patterns in childhood. We argue that a model of “multilocality” involving dispersed residence across distinct ecological zones best fits the cultural context and the data. Head shaping, rather than simply indexing an identity tied to one region or ecological zone, may have cultivated specific relationships to different places. Our findings caution against isotopic approaches that circumscribe what it means to be “local.”
Los bioarqueólogos usan rutinariamente datos isotópicos para clasificar el origen geográfico de individuos óseos como “locales” o “no locales” según criterios estadísticos o bases de referencia. Sin embargo, estos análisis y las interpretaciones que resultan de ellos casi nunca consideran cómo las personas del pasado pudieron haber concebido sus relaciones con diferentes lugares. Por medio de un estudio de caso de la época prehispánica tardía en el valle de Colca, Perú (1300–1450 d. C.), este articulo muestra cómo se puede hacer uso de concepciones andinas de la localidad y la identidad, documentados histórica y etnográficamente, para la interpretación de la variación isotópica. Este estudio se centra en un contexto funerario de élite compuesto de individuos con y sin evidencia de modificación craneal—práctica cultural que se relaciona en esta región de los Andes al lugar de origen, entre otros aspectos de la identidad. Al utilizar datos ya publicados sobre los isótopos de carbono y oxígeno y presentar nuevos datos sobre las proporciones de isótopos de estroncio y plomo procedentes de treinta seis muestras de esmalte dental, mostramos que tanto los individuos modificados y aquellos sin modificación caen dentro de los rangos “locales” proyectados para la región. A pesar de esto, los individuos modificados presentan una mayor variabilidad en las proporciones de isótopos de estroncio y plomo, lo que apunta a patrones diversos de movilidad en la infancia. Sostenemos que un modelo de “multilocalidad,” el cual implica residencia dispersa a través de distintas zonas ecológicas, es más adecuado para los datos y el contexto cultural. En lugarde simplemente indicar una identidad ligada a una sola región o zona ecológica, la modificación de la cabeza puede haber cultivado relaciones especificas con diferentes lugares. Nuestros resultados constituyen una advertencia contra el uso de métodos isotópicos que restrinjan lo que significa ser “local.
Notice by Rae Armantrout
No full textRae Armantrout. Notice. Wesleyan University Press, 2024. Paperback, 40 pages. $7.95. ISBN: 9780819501011
“A Western Outpost of the Punjab”: Forging Landscapes of Belonging in Bhira Backhaus’s Under the Lemon Trees
No full textBy forcefully inserting itself within the landscape and history of California, “near the confluence of the Feather and Sacramento rivers” in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Bhira Backhaus’s Under the Lemon Trees (2009) moves beyond the common tropes of Asian American fictions in which memory is invoked primarily in terms of nostalgia or loss, to emplace itself within the very specific geographical locale and physical landscape of the small town of Oak Grove in northern California (48). The text adopts an emphatically regional frame as a strategic move to stake a claim to inclusion within the body politic of the nation through filiations to the land that have been forged by living in close proximity with it—working the soil, learning its many qualities, and becoming conversant with seasonal rhythms. In doing so, Under the Lemon Trees gestures to more-than-human kinship structures and a sense of place that transcends institutional taxonomies of “citizen” and “immigrant” alike
Speaking with a Forked Tongue: A Rebuttal of Amit Chaudhuri on Indian Anglophone Literature
No full textCommentary:
Speaking with a Forked Tongue: A Rebuttal of Amit Chaudhuri on Indian Anglophone Literature
 
Milestones and Stumbling Blocks: Collecting, Disseminating and Discussing African Women's Writing in Four Recently Published Texts
No full textBook Review Essa
Francophone Literature in Global Contexts: The Challenge of Going Beyond the Postcolonial
No full textBook Review Essa
Writing Colonial Spaces
No full textNicoletta Brazzelli. Lands of Desire and Loss: British Colonial and Postcolonial Spaces. Bern: Peter Lang, 2012.
Joseph Diémé. De La Plantation Coloniale Aux Banlieues: La Negritude Dans Le Discours Postcolonial Francophone. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2012.
Rashmi Varma. The Postcolonial City and Its Subjects: London, Nairobi, Bombay. New York: Routledge, 2012
The Novelist and the Philosophers: Three Recent Books on J.M. Coetzee
No full textDominic Head. The Cambridge Introduction to J.M. Coetzee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Anton Leist and Peter Singer. J.M. Coetzee and Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives on Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
Stephen Mulhall. The Wounded Animal: J.M. Coetzee and the Difficulty of Reality in Literature and Philosophy. Princeton University Press, 2009.