Browsing by Autor "Pablo Cruz"

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Calling for a reappraisal of the impact of quinoa expansion on agricultural sustainability in the Andean highlands
(University of Tarapacá, 2014) Thierry Winkel; Ricardo Álvarez-Flores; Daniel Bertero; Pablo Cruz; Carmen Del Castillo; Richard Joffre; Santiago Peredo Parada; Luís Sáez Tonacca
The debate on the environmental and social sustentainability of quinoa in its area of major world production (southern highlands of Bolivia) revived with the acceptance by the United Nations of the Bolivian proposal to declare in 2013 as the Year of the Quinoa. Public debate focused on local impacts of quinoa expansion in the Southern highlands of Bolivia, denouncing several negative impacts of quinoa culture such as land degradation, socioeconomic disrupts and biodiversity loss. However, the global or at least the international implications of the expanding quinoa market were less debated and often in caricature, varying between culpability and ingenuity among consumers, while Andean producers were described as trapped by poverty or short sighted greed. If researchers are to make a relevant contribution to the debate on the impact of quinoa expansion on the social and environmental sustainability of the Andean agriculture, is it necessary to re-evaluate present knowledge and ignorance about local Andean production systems integrated with links at the global scales, taking into account local- global interactions. In the present paper are revisited some major ill- founded assertions commonly expressed in this debate and three lines of arguments are used to support the need for a more cautious and ethical approach to quinoa related issues.
Evidence of moist niches in the Bolivian Andes during the mid-Holocene arid period
(SAGE Publishing, 2013) Marie‐Pierre Ledru; Vincent Jomelli; Laurent Brémond; Teresa Ortuño; Pablo Cruz; Ilham Bentaleb; Florence Sylvestre; Adèle Kuentz; Stephan Beck; Céline Martin
To examine the climate of the mid-Holocene and early human settings in the Andes when the Altiplano was recording the most arid phase of the Holocene, we analyzed plant-related proxies (pollen, phytoliths, diatoms, stable isotopes) from a sediment core sampled at high elevation in the Eastern Cordillera of Bolivia. Our study was carried out in the wetland of Tiquimani (16°12′06.8″S; 68°3′51.5″W; 3760 m), on a well-known pathway between Amazonia and Altiplano. The 7000-year old record shows a two-step mid-Holocene with a dry climate between 6800 and 5800, followed by a wetter period that lasted until 3200 cal. yr BP. In the Central Andes of Bolivia, a widespread aridity was observed on the Altiplano during the mid-Holocene. However, here, we show that moisture was maintained locally by convective activity from the Amazon lowlands. During the arid interval between 5000 and 4000 yr BP, these niches of moisture produced specific grasslands that may have enabled the survival of an archaic culture of hunter–gatherers on the Puna. This development occurred 2000 years before expansion of quinoa cultivation on the Puna.
Las minas de Oruro en el cruce de la historia y la arqueología
(2017) Pablo Cruz; Florian Téreygeol; Nina Küng; Soledad Fernández; Claudia Rivera Casanovas
Recientes investigaciones llevadas a cabo en la localidad minera de Oruro permitieron confirmar las informaciones brindadas por las fuentes documentales coloniales acerca de la existencia de numerosas explotaciones mineras trabajadas con anterioridad al arribo de los españoles. Asimismo, en proximidad de las antiguas minas prehispánicas se registraron los testimonios de 11 estructuras de combustión metalúrgicas, en su mayoría del tipo wayra o wayrachina. La antigüedad prehispánica y colonial temprana del asiento minero de Oruro se confirma por el registro de varios sitios de habitación ubicados en proximidad de las minas con fragmentos cerámicos de tradiciones Tiwanaku, estilos típicos del período Intermedio Tardío, probablemente Soras o Carangas y sus variantes tardías e inka. A la luz de los nuevos datos arqueológicos, articulados con las informaciones proporcionadas por las fuentes documentales, en particular el informe de Felipe de Godoy (1607), trataremos aquí sobre la producción de plata en este asiento minero en tiempos prehispánicos y primeros momentos de la Colonia, centrándonos tanto en aspectos tecnológicos como sociales.
The Escaramayu Complex: A Prehispanic Metallurgical Establishment in the South Andean Altiplano (Escara, Potosi, Bolivia), Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries AD
(Cambridge University Press, 2022) Pablo Cruz; Heather Lechtman; Claudia Rivera-Casanovas
Abstract Archaeological research carried out in the altiplano locale of Escaramayu (in the community of Escara, Potosí, Bolivia), revealed a prehispanic metallurgical establishment (ninth to fifteenth centuries AD) for the extractive processing of copper ores and, to a lesser extent, lead-silver ore exploited at the nearby Pulacayo mine. The number and variety of metallurgical equipment identified in this establishment for smelting metallic ore and for refining the metal indicate a deep level of technological experience and experimentation among the resident Escaramayu metalworkers during the Middle Horizon (MH) and Late Intermediate periods (LIP). In Escaramayu we find the first known antecedents of Andean wind furnaces ( wayras ) and a model of a prehispanic reverberatory furnace that was widely used in the southern Andean altiplano during the colonial period.