Prehispanic Intensive Agricultural Systems in the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia

玻利维亚利亚诺斯德莫霍斯的前西班牙集约农业系统

• 批准号: 9212339
• 负责人: Clark Erickson
• 金额: $ 15.2万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-07-01 至 1995-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9212339&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Prehispanic; Intensive; Agricultural; Systems; Llanos

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Clark Erickson will study prehistoric agricultural systems of the Llanos de Mojos of northeastern Bolivia. This region, part of the vast upper Amazon drainage basin, is one of the largest areas of seasonally inundated grassland savanna in the world, covering some 145,000 square kilometers. During the rainy season of 4-6 months the area is inundated and the alteration of marked wet and dry seasons and the waterlogged and heavy soils have a significant impact on contemporary land use patterns. Past indigenous populations developed a complex system of massive earthworks to solve the problems of water control and agriculture. Dr. Erickson will attempt to reconstruct how this worked. To accomplish this he will conduct a number of activities. Aerial photographs and ground survey will be employed to locate the most extensive and best preserved raised field complexes and canal-causeway networks. Accurate topographic maps will also be made. With this as a basis key agricultural structures will be excavated. Long stratigraphic trenches will be dug perpendicular to raised fields causeways and canals to determine their original profiles, individual building stages, post-depositional erosional history, and chronology of use and abandonment. In situ materials will serve both to date and determine how fields were constructed and used. This research is important for several reasons. It will shed new light on the prehistory of a little known area of the world and produce data of interest to many archaeologists. It will also help to devise subsistence strategies which will be of direct use in many regions. In some tropical areas prehistoric population exceeded its modern counterpart. This most likely is due to the use of appropriate technologies which have since been lost. Dr. Erickson will help to recover them.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，克拉克·埃里克森博士将研究玻利维亚东北部 Llanos de Mojos 的史前农业系统。该地区是广阔的亚马逊流域上游盆地的一部分，是世界上最大的季节性淹没草原稀树草原地区之一，面积约 145,000 平方公里。在4-6个月的雨季，该地区被淹没，明显的干湿季节的变化以及涝渍和重质土壤对当代土地利用格局产生了重大影响。过去的土著居民开发了一套复杂的大型土方工程系统来解决水控制​​和农业问题。埃里克森博士将尝试重建其工作原理。为了实现这一目标，他将开展一系列活动。将利用航空照片和地面勘测来定位最广泛和保存最完好的高地综合体和运河堤道网络。 还将制作精确的地形图。以此为基础，将挖掘重要的农业结构。将垂直于凸起的田野堤道和运河挖掘长地层沟槽，以确定其原始轮廓、各个建筑阶段、沉积后侵蚀历史以及使用和废弃的年代。现场材料将用于迄今为止并决定油田的建造和使用方式。 这项研究很重要，原因有几个。它将为世界上一个鲜为人知的地区的史前史提供新的线索，并产生许多考古学家感兴趣的数据。它还将有助于制定可在许多地区直接使用的生存策略。在一些热带地区，史前人口数量超过了现代人口。这很可能是由于使用了现已丢失的适当技术。埃里克森博士将帮助他们康复。