Home in Santa Ana

June 27, 2013

It's been raining every day since we got to Santa Ana, which means the road is too bad to get to the site. However, there is plenty of lab work to keep us busy. Washing, cataloguing, and photographing ceramics from previous years. I enjoy getting to work with the ceramics in the lab (I may be alone in the world on my love of ceramics though), especially before we go out and dig, so I have an idea of what to expect. But today, finally! we saw the sun. Hopefully it dried out the road enough that we can get into the field tomorrow! --RK

On the Bus

June 23, 2013

Today we made the trip from La Paz to Santa Ana. We took a plane to Trinidad, I think, and then we were going to take a truck for the 6+ hour ride to Santa Ana. Just before we left though a guy in a bus drove up and said he'd take us. So we took his offer and had probably the most comfortable ride of anyone with the project to date. The bus had a horn that sounded somewhat like an ambulance, and the driver used it to scare  quite a few people, it was pretty hilarious. We arrived in Santa Ana earlier than expected and were greeted by our awesome host family.--RK

Experimental Archaeology in the kitchen

Grater plates (or ralladores) are wide flat dishes crossed by deep grooves, sometimes wide and deep enough for your finger. In 2003 I had a conversation with a colleague who works in the Near East, and they opined that a grater made from clay would probably not work as a processor for foods. So later that year in Santa Ana we gave it a try, using two grater plates to turn several kinds of vegetables into pulpy mush: corn, cassava, carrots, beets, and several others. Georgina Bocchietti of the Museo Yacuma (wow! check out their new front page) is grating, I am taking notes, and two of Georgina's grand-nieces and nephews look on. Of course, this doesn't prove that pre-Columbian Mojeños used ralladores for processing cassava (for example), but it does establish that they could have. Soon we hope to answer the question more directly by analyzing the residue left behind on ralladores and other ceramics, to see what kind of foods might have been prepared.

Turismo en Santa Ana del Yacuma

 

This sculpture sits on top of a pedestal on the circumvalación of Santa Ana, on the eastern side of town, as I recall. It depicts the leader of a cattle drive, using a trumpet made from the horn of a cow to rally his cowboys. The photo comes from the municipal government's tourism department, which has a large Spanish language website, with local music, photographs, and information about restaurants, hotels, parks, and pharmacies. Although it can still be challenging to get to there during the wet season, Santa Ana has a lot to offer, especially during the fiesta, which is celebrated on the 26th of July. The town was founded in 1708 as a Jesuit Mission.

Circumvalación

Although it is not a work of art, this photo shows clearly the relationship between Santa Ana del Yacuma and the annual floodwaters. The circumvalación, or dike, is maked by the curving road that runs from the top of the picture down to the left. The boats that have pulled up to the shore are river barges, from the Yacuma River, about a mile away. Depending on the year, these boats can put in at the town itself for several months, transporting cattle and other cargo, as well as passengers. Just off the photograph to the left is some of the highest ground in Santa Ana. The road to the right leads to the Bolivian Navy Base. Despite being a landlocked country, Bolivia has a proud naval tradition, because of it's 19th century history.

Open access satellite imagery

This image, brought to you by Google Earth, and the SPOT satellite, shows a typical scene in eastern Bolivia, but from a few thousand feed in the air. Flowing from the bottom right corner off towards the center of the image is the Iruyañez River. IThe dark green areas are the flooded forests that line the Iruyañez and other small rivers. The grid layout of Santa Ana del Yacuma is in the upper right corner of the image, in the background. A white road runs along the river (on the north side) following the high ground and connecting Santa Ana with a series of ranches and small villages. In the foreground are many more lightly colored lines or rectangles. These are large raised fields, which are several hundred yards long, about 20 yards wide, and perhaps 2 or 3 feet tall. The extent of these agricultural fields illustrates the difference between pre-Columbian times and the present day, when this same land is used much less intensively, as cattle pasturage.

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.