GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Paving a highway across South America is providing lessons on the impact of road construction elsewhere.
That’s what a University of Florida researcher and his international colleagues have determined from analyzing communities along the Amazonian portion of the nearly 4,200-mile Interoceanic Highway, a coast-to-coast road that starts at ports in Brazil and will eventually connect to ones in Peru. (more…)
*Anthropology Helps Us Understand the Past and Allows for a Deeper Understanding of the Future.*
COLUMBIA, Mo. — For more than a century and a half, scientists and tourists have visited massive animal-shaped mounds, such as Serpent Mound in Ohio, created by the indigenous people of North America. But few animal effigy mounds had been found in South America until University of Missouri anthropology professor emeritus Robert Benfer identified numerous earthen animals rising above the coastal plains of Peru, a region already renowned for the Nazca lines, the ruined city of Chan Chan, and other cultural treasures.
“The mounds will draw tourists, one day,” Benfer said. “Some of them are more than 4,000 years old. Compare that to the effigy mounds of North America, which date to between 400 and 1200 AD. The oldest Peruvian mounds were being built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt.” (more…)
Google Sites Reigns as Most-Visited Destination in Region, Facebook Leads in Engagement Accounting for 1 in Every 4 Minutes Spent Online
comScore Presents Complimentary Webinar on the 2012 Latin America Digital Future in Focus
Santiago, Chile, March 21, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its annual report on Latin America’s key digital trends of the past year and what they mean for the year ahead. The 2012 Latin America Digital Future in Focusexamines how the prevailing trends in social media, online video, digital advertising, mobile and search are defining the current marketplace and how they are likely to shape the coming year. The results of the study will be presented via a complimentary, live webinar on Thursday, March 22. For more information and to register, please visit: https://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Events_Webinars/Webinar/2012/Futuro_Digital_-_Latinoamerica_2012(more…)
Fieldwork in Peru’s Andes Mountains is demanding, especially when it involves hauling heavy equipment to remote sites that are accessible only by traversing the region’s rugged terrain.
But the task of collecting insects for the study of vector-borne diseases and other purposes has become a little less onerous since a Yale School of Public Health researcher and colleagues designed a lighter — and perhaps better — trap. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — An international team of scientists that includes two University of Texas at Austin researchers has found that Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park, which sits on top of massive reserves of oil, is in the single most biodiverse region in the Western Hemisphere.
The announcement is part of a final push for the Yasuní-ITT Initiative at the United Nations General Assembly. The initiative proposes that Ecuador receive compensation for half of the revenues the nation would lose by protecting the estimated 846 million barrels of oil that lie beneath the forest. (more…)
*Statue at temple in Peru helps us understand ancient culture, myths*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri archeologist has found a 4,000-year-old statue in Peru that gives new insight into an ancient agricultural society.
Robert Benfer, a professor emeritus of anthropology, said the mud plaster bust – a bust of a figure blowing a trumpet and another mask-like image flanked by foxes – was found at the “Buena Vista” site in the Andes Mountains, about 30 miles north of Lima, Peru. Radiocarbon dating indicates the bust was created around 2,000 B.C, making it the oldest 3-D statue found in the Americas. (more…)
Machu Picchu Temple of the Sun (also named "the watch tower"). The stones of its dry-stone walls built by the Incas can move slightly and resettle without the walls collapsing. Image credit: Fabricio Guzmán. Source: Wikipedia
The UNESCO World Heritage program aims to protect cultural and natural sites considered important to the common heritage of humanity. However, many of these sites are now threatened by excessive tourism, according to Christina Cameron, professor at the Université de Montréal School of Architecture and holder of the Canada Research Chair on Built Heritage.
A case in point is Machu Picchu in Peru. “This site should receive no more than 2,000 visitors per day, but it currently welcomes twice as many,” says Cameron, who sounded the alarm while speaking as a panelist at a celebration commemorating 25 years of Old Québec being such a site.
“The UNESCO World Heritage convention was established in a spirit of solidarity and international cooperation in order to share best practices for conservation,” says Cameron. “It was the post-war era and people were seeking for a way to bring together members of the international community. Tourism was never an objective of the convention. In fact, these sites were meant to be protected from it.” (more…)
*Historical ecology of the Andes indicates desert-like setting on the horizon*
Catastrophic drought is on the near-term horizon for the capital city of Bolivia, according to new research into the historical ecology of the Andes.
If temperatures rise more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius (3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) above those of modern times, parts of Peru and Bolivia will become a desert-like setting.
About the image: Lake Titicaca from space. Its outline may look very different in the future. Image credit: NASA(more…)
