Wide Urban World

Michael Smith is an archaeologist at the Arizona State University School of Human Evolution and Social Change. He has been blogging for a long time, which is a bit of an inspiration. His Wide Urban World blog has a lot of great material, including this post about the connection between the archaeological study of raised field farming in the Titicaca Basin (both Peru and Bolivia) and the possibility of farming that way today. That post highlights the work of Clark Erickson, which has come up before on this blog. The archaeological study of cities might at first seem like a bit of a reach for the Amazon, or for the study of intensive agriculture, but many scholars have focused on links between the "urban" and the "rural," in societies around the world.

A horse called "Relámpago"

Here is a valiant old horse, "Relámpago," who served as my field vehicle from the fall of 1996 through 1997. His name (which means "lightning") was a bit of a joke, because he was a very slow, even tempered horse, just right for someone like me who obviously had no idea how to ride. We rode both to survey agricultural fields and forest islands, and also to get back and forth between Santa Ana and our study area, a trip of about 12 hours on horseback. In the background, the different colors of grass indicate the outlines of pre-Columbian agricultural fields. The slight rise (in this case about a foot or two) causes some grasses to grow more readily on the higher, drier ground. The small lumps that can be seen on the ground both to the left in the foreground and on fields in the background are anthills and termite mounds. The colors in the photo are a bit off because a long time passed between when the film was exposed and when it was developed. 

About the photograph

The photograph at the top of the page was taken on June 30, 2008, at 4:12 in the afternoon, while crossing the Quinato swamp, near Santa Ana del Yacuma, Bolivia. After a day of motorcycle travel and conversation with the residents of Miraflores, a small community on the edge of the wetland, my colleague Jaime Bocchietti and I headed back to where our motorcycle was parked. We still had at least a one hour ride to get back to town after getting back on the motorcycle, so I certainly had one eye on my watch to make sure that we would arrive before dark. The swamp holds water year-round, even through the dry season, which is very pronounced in Eastern Bolivia. The “shores” of the well defined swamp are lined with islands of forest, as well as drier grasslands. The forests are full of ceramics and earthworks, indicating that they were occupied in pre-Columbian times, and the grasslands are marked by raised fields, the remains of intensive agriculture.