University of Washington graduate student Anna Cohen mapping a house mound with Trimble technology, Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico, summer 2009

It’s probably fitting that this is the first blog post on the new Legacies of Resilience (LORE-LPB) website as this project is so tech dependent.  LORE-LPB has taken advantage of recent advances in mobile computing to document architectural features faster, and with a higher degree of accuracy, then traditional full coverage archaeological survey.  This allows us to occupy a ‘middle ground between traditional extensive-style survey and more intensive mapping done with a total station.

In a recent poster at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Saint Louis we outlined the methodology that we use, which is based on Trimble hardware and software (TrimbleRecon rugged handheld computers as well as the GeoXH and GeoXT GPS receivers, and Terrasync and Pathfinder office software).  We also got some props from the blogosphere for our use of these new technologies. Curt Hopkins originally hooked me up with much of this gear and I owe him a big thank you!!

The big issue for us now is how do we organize all of this new information?  How can we harness all of these data to address traditional archaeological questions?  And . . . is this going to lead us to new questions?

Chris

Here is an article by Erika Perez Bucio that recently appeared in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma detailing the LORE-LPB 2009 research. A great article and I thank Erika for her time and effort – hopefully we can get her to Michoacán over the summer

Click here for a .pdf

One of the great challenges for the 21st century will be creating solutions to linked social and environmental change. Archaeology is uniquely poised to make a significant contribution to this debate by helping to explain trajectories of socio-ecosystem evolution over long time scales. With National Science Foundation support Dr. Christopher Fisher, and an international team of colleagues will conduct two seasons of multi-disciplinary research in West Central Mexico to explore relationships between climatic fluctuation, landscape change, and the formation of the Prehistoric Tarascan (Purépecha) Empire. At the time of European contact the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB) was the geopolitical core of the Tarascan Empire and has long been recognized as a Mesoamerican core region. Prior to European conquest the LPB contained a large population, centralized settlement system, social stratification, and a highly engineered environment.

Florencia Pezzutti is scheduled to complete her Masters degree in early May, based on the terrace systems of Apúpato.  By the end of the summer we hope to have several manuscripts submitted on this former island and important ritual center.

Here is a recent National Geographic news story about our work on the island.

Ancient Elite Island With Pyramid Found in Mexico

An island for ancient elites has been found in central Mexico, archaeologists say. Among the ruins are a treasury and a small pyramid that may have been used for rituals.

The island, called Apupato, belonged to the powerful Tarascan Empire, which dominated much of western Mexico from A.D. 1400 to 1520, before the European conquest of the region.

“If you would paddle up to the island [during the time], you would see a number of buildings, some temples with smoke coming out of them from rituals, and a small village of specialized people—priests, elites,” Fisher said.

The Purépecha people—named Tarascan by the Spanish—were formidable enemies with their neighbors, the Aztec. From their powerful capital city and religious center Tzintzuntzan, the Tarascans successfully thwarted every attack by the Aztec.

Tarascan people valued such products as honey, cotton, feathers, and salt, and they often expanded into neighboring lands in search of these goods.

Ritual Center

Fisher and colleagues found a square structure with a formal entrance that is believed to have been an imperial treasury.

Adjacent to the treasury is a small pyramid, which has large, open rooms that would have been suitable for ritual activity. Pipe fragments were also found near the treasury.

The pipe discoveries may bear out ritual descriptions on a previously found ancient Spanish scroll.

The scroll shows people smoking pipes and drinking pulque—a drink made of agave, a crucial crop used for alcoholic drinks, such as tequila, and syrup, Fisher said.

The Archaeology of Environmental Change
Socionatural Legacies of Degradation and Resilience
Edited by Christopher T. Fisher; J. Brett Hill; Gary M. Feinman
320 pp. / 6.0 x 9.0 / 2009
Cloth (978-0-8165-2676-5)

Water management, soil conservation, sustainable animal husbandry . . . because such socio-environmental challenges have been faced throughout history, lessons from the past can often inform modern policy. In this book, case studies from a wide range of times and places reveal how archaeology can contribute to a better understanding of humans’ relation to the environment.

The Archaeology of Environmental Change shows that the challenges facing humanity today, in terms of causing and reacting to environmental change, can be better approached through an attempt to understand how societies in the past dealt with similar circumstances. The contributors draw on archaeological research in multiple regions—North America, Mesoamerica, Europe, the Near East, and Africa—from time periods spanning the Holocene, and from environments ranging from tropical forest to desert.

Through such examples as environmental degradation in Transjordan, wildlife management in East Africa, and soil conservation among the ancient Maya, they demonstrate the negative effects humans have had on their environments and how societies in the past dealt with these same problems. All call into question and ultimately refute popular notions of a simple cause-and-effect relationship between people and their environment, and reject the notion of people as either hapless victims of unstoppable forces or inevitable destroyers of natural harmony.

These contributions show that by examining long-term trajectories of socio-natural relationships we can better define concepts such as sustainability, land degradation, and conservation—and that gaining a more accurate and complete understanding of these connections is essential for evaluating current theories and models of environmental degradation and conservation. Their insights demonstrate that to understand the present environment and to manage landscapes for the future, we must consider the historical record of the total sweep of anthropogenic environmental change.

In a recent article for the Spring 2010 issue of American Archaeology, the magazine sponsored by the Archaeological Conservancy, writer Kristen Ohlson (“Stalking the Divine“, “Kabul Beauty School“) interviews several contributors from the book I co-edited with Brett Hill and Gary Feinman, “The Archaeology of Environmental Change: Socionatural Legacies of Degradation and Resilience“.

American Archaeology, Spring 2010. On the news stand now

Charles Redman and Margaret Nelson (Arizona State University) discuss the interaction between climatic variation and the development of the Southwestern Hohokam and Mimbres cultures.  Vernon Scarborough (University of Cincinnati) draws from his research in the Mesoamerican lowlands to explore modern lessons from the Classic period (A.D. 300-900) Maya collapse.  I outline the Lake Pátzcuaro case study emphasizing the value of long-term records and inverse relationship between population density and land degradation.  And Brett Hill (Hendrix College) provides a great quote “The whole point of our book is that environmental degradation is not something that happens to people.”  “It’s a process involving the relationship between people and their environment, and between people and other people”

Ohlson emphasizes many of the key points of our book – the value of long-term records for modern conservation, past lessons for modern policy, the danger of homogeneity, and unintended consequences.  The article closes with a comment from me “I’m trained to look at dead people’s garbage, not talk to live people” Fisher says, “this underscores the point that we need to work with cultural anthropologists and other scientists who are better trained to help us deliver our message.”  And a more nuanced message from Charles Redman “I think archaeologists always know we can’t answer questions all on our own,” says Redman.  “We’re always pulling in other people to help us figure out what we’ve found.  It’s an organizational attitude that’s particularly valuable for these deliberations.”  So, can archaeology save the environment?  Yes, and more.