Cordillera of the Andes (original) (raw)

ANDES 217-

11. “(with Mark Turner) “Andes”, Mark Thurner and Juan Pimentel, eds. New World Objects of Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities (University of London Press, 2021) 217-224, 2021

The notion that ecological diversity or plenitude depended upon altitude rather than latitude was first articulated in print not by Humboldt but by Hispanic natural historians who lived in the Andes in the 16th century. These natural historians combined classical Aristotelian concepts with observations and existingAndean knowledge and practices of verticality that had long operated on a grand scale under the umbrella of the Inca state. Fully two centuries before Humboldt’s expedition, South America was seen to be a providential space of natural wonder, a microcosmos endowed with all the climates of the world, and thus capable of giving birth to and nurturing any divine, natural or human being. This microcosmic tradition was the result of the early colonial meeting of Andean and Mediterranean concepts and experiences of clime and universal space.

BOOK: Rethinking the Andes-Amazonia Divide

Rethinking the Andes-Amazonia Divide, 2020

Nowhere on Earth is there an ecological transformation so swift and so extreme as between the snow-line of the high Andes and the tropical rainforest of Amazonia. The different disciplines that research the human past in South America have long tended to treat these two great subzones of the continent as self-contained enough to be taken independently of each other. Objections have repeatedly been raised, however, to warn against imagining too sharp a divide between the people and societies of the Andes and Amazonia, when there are also clear indications of significant connections and transitions between them. Rethinking the Andes–Amazonia Divide brings together archaeologists, linguists, geneticists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians and historians to explore both correlations and contrasts in how the various disciplines see the relationship between the Andes and Amazonia, from deepest prehistory up to the European colonial period. The volume emerges from an innovative programme of conferences and symposia conceived explicitly to foster awareness, discussion and co-operation across the divides between disciplines. Underway since 2008, this programme has already yielded major publications on the Andean past, including History and Language in the Andes (2011) and Archaeology and Language in the Andes (2012).

Cartography of the Cordillera Real Bolivia by aero-photogrametrical restitution

Existing maps of the Bolivian Cordillera Real are fully insufficient for glaciological studies: small scale (1/50000), low level of detail … As part of a study of the Little Ice Age in the Andes four maps of the Cordillera Real were processed from aerial photography of the IGM (Bolivian Military Geographical Institute) recorded at several dates during the second half of the 20th Century. The four mapped places with an 1/10.000 scale are : Cerro Huayna Potosi (6088 masl), Cerro Condoriri (5648 masl), Cerro Charquini (5392 masl) and Ichu Kota upper valley. On top of the study of glacier recession, the maps can also be used for a tourist issue as these mountains are the goal of many expeditions.