A Lesson in Applied Archaeology
Table of Contents- Part I: Introduction
- Part 2: Recreating Raised Field Agriculture
- Part 3: Implications of the Research
- The Politics of Agriculture
- The Future of Applied Archaeology
- The Downside of Applied Archaeology
- Future Projects
- Spanish Language Version, Alvaro Higueras
Future Projects
What's your new project about?Our current project focuses on prehispanic agriculture the humid tropics of the Bolivian Amazon. The environmental situation is very different from that of the Andean highlands but ancient farmers transformed the seasonally-flooded savannas and forests into productive landscapes using raised fields similar to those of the Lake Titicaca Basin. In addition, they built tens of thousands of linear miles of raised earthen roadways, canals, and dikes. We believe that these large earthworks were used to control water levels over broad areas to enhance crop production. In Baures near the Bolivian-Brazilian border, a certain form of prehispanic earthwork which covers huge areas, what we call the "zig-zag causeway" may have been used for controlling and harvesting the fish and edible snails that inhabit the flooded savannas during the rainy season. This may be one of the largest prehistoric fish farms ever found!
I've been working with my colleagues Kenneth Lee, Oscar Saavedra, and Robert Langstroth to have the area declared a national park or world biosphere preserve in an attempt to protect the environment and the archaeological remains. We hope that the area could be sustainably used to the benefit of the local people, possibly through ecotourism and as a landscape-scale education center for training students.
