Prehispanic Earthworks of the Baures Region
of the Bolivian Amazon


Click here for the most recent updates on the fishweirs of the Bolivian Amazon (November 7 Nature aricle)

Prehispanic earthen causeways crossing the savannas of the Bolivian Amazon

Summary, Project Participants, Detailed Introduction, Environment and History of the Baures Region, Archaeological Remains in the Baures Region, Prehispanic Moated Settlements, Causeways and Canals, Methodology, Research Opportunities, Broader Implications and Importance of the Research, Bibliography, Additional Notes,


A Project of
the Instituto Nacional de Arqueologia de Bolivia
Arqueologist Wilma Winkler Verlarde
and
the University of Pennsylvania Museum
Dr. Clark L. Erickson
University of Pennsylvania Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology
33rd and Spruce Streets
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6398
telephone: 215-898-2282


Summary

The environment of the Amazon region of tropical South America was long considered to be of limited potential. It was commonly believed that in the past, as in the present, the social and political organization of indigenous peoples was simple, that populations were nomadic or widely dispersed over the landscape, and that subsistence was based on hunting, gathering, and small scale agriculture. In the 1960s, the discovery of massive raised field systems, causeways, canals, occupation mounds and other earthworks challenged this perspective. The Llanos de Moxos of the eastern lowlands of Bolivia is one region where prehispanic peoples built a vast infrastructure of earthworks, enabling their culture to flourish over several thousand years. A joint international project of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the National Institute of Archaeology of Bolivia has been investigating the precolombian land use strategies of the ancient peoples of the Bolivian Amazon region of Baures for two field seasons. The approach used in this project is that of "landscape archaeology."

The native people of Baures were considered to be the most "civilized" group encountered by the early Jesuit missionaries in the Bolivian Amazon. They lived in numerous large villages protected by moats and palisades and constructed large causeways and canals for transportation between settlements. The earthworks mentioned in the ethnohistorical literature were part of a tradition whose history can only be understood through the archaeological record.

We are investigating a large complex of prehispanic earthworks and associated settlements in this region. The project uses many standard archaeological techniques of survey, mapping, and excavation to locate, describe, and spatially record the earthworks and settlements. Computer mapping techniques and computer analysis of imagery recorded by satellite and low flying aircraft orient the daily work in the field and will serve as the basis for a regional Geographic Information System. The project team includes professional archaeologists and archaeology students from the University of Pennsylvania, the National Institute of Archaeology of Bolivia, Universidad T‚cnica del Beni, and the Universidad Mayor San Andres. The research from this project will also be used to help plan, establish, and manage a national park in the Baures region. This project is a feasibility study for a future large scale multidisciplinary investigation in the region.

Top of Page


Detailed Introduction

The discovery of the massive prehispanic earthworks over broad areas in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia in the early 1960s drastically challenged traditional perspectives regarding cultural development in the Amazonian drainage. A pre-1960s archaeological treatment of the Amazon would typically have stressed the environmental limitations to cultural development; predominance of simple societies (bands and tribes); and subsistence systems based on hunting, gathering, and fishing with some limited agriculture in the form of slash and burn (Meggers 1971; Steward and Faron 1959; Steward 1963). The documentation of the prehispanic raised field agriculture in the Beni region of Bolivia (Denevan 1966) and elsewhere in the humid tropical lowlands of South America (Lathrap 1970; Denevan 1966, 1970, 1983) demonstrated that intensive agriculture was possible and that large, dense populations were supported in these areas.

Our project members have been investigating the precolombian land use strategies of the ancient peoples of the Bolivian Amazon region since 1990 (Erickson 1995). Our recent research has focused on Baures located in the Province of It‚nez, Department of the Beni, in the northeast part of the Bolivia. The project conducted intensive exploratory research on the prehispanic earthworks of Baures with a focus on the moated occupation sites on forest islands and the causeway/canal networks of the savannas during two periods of fieldwork in 1995 (of 25 days and 14 days) and one month of fieldwork in 1996 (Erickson et al. 1995). The project includes archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania, the National Institute of Archaeology of Bolivia, and students from the University of Pennsylvania, Universidad Mayor San Andres (La Paz), and the Universidad T‚cnica del Beni (Trinidad). Collaborating institutions include the University Museum, University of Wisconsin, CORDEBENI, Bolivian Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development, and the regional government of the Department of the Beni and the municipality of Baures.

A "landscape archaeology approach" can be useful for the study of regions and non-occupation site features such as earthworks. The archaeology of landscape focuses on the space between occupation sites, something rarely considered in traditional archaeology (Crumley and Marquardt 1987; Rossignol and Wandsnider 1992; Gleason and Miller 1994). These non-site or off-site cultural features include field walls and boundaries, roads and pathways, markers, alignments, sacred places, places of historical memory, or in the case of the Bolivian Amazon, massive and extensive earthworks (including raised fields, causeways, canals, reservoirs, and mounds). Landscape archaeology attempts to investigate both the environmental and cultural processes involved in the formation of historical landscapes without imposing an environmental determinism. In the Bolivian Amazon the ancient landscape was so dramatically modified that it can be called "anthropogenic" or "human-created" (Denevan 1966, Erickson 1980; Erickson et al. 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995). In other parts of the world the archaeological study of cultural features in the landscape has provided a window into social organization, spatial order, native cosmology, calendrics, settlement systems, land tenure, and other important issues (Scarborough and Isaac 1993; Gleason and Miller 1994). Methodological advances including remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems, Global Positioning Systems, and computer generated topographic mapping have been effectively used in landscape archaeology. These methods are employed in this project.

Top of Page


The Environment and History of the Baures Region

Baures is the name of a region, a district, a town, a language, and a native ethnic group (Baure). The environment is diverse and characterized by a mix of gallery forests along rivers and lakes, forested islands in the savanna grasslands, vast open grasslands (pampa), extensive wetlands, several navigable rivers, and large shallow lakes. There is a marked wet and dry seasonality in the region, with extensive flooding of the flat landscape during 3-5 months of the year. Despite the presence of tropical laterite soils in many locations, the higher forested ground is considered by local informants to be highly productive. Swidden agriculture and gardening is practiced by the local inhabitants. Today much of the savanna near Baures is devoted to cattle ranching.

A number of early accounts of Baures written by the Jesuits (Altamirano 1891; Eder 1888; Anonymous 1743; Equiluz 1884) in the late 15th and 16th Centuries describe the native peoples, their customs, local landscapes, and colonial mission life. Unlike many areas of the Amazon, Baure apparently did not suffer an early demographic collapse. However, after the missionary Cipriano Barace was killed in 1703, the native peoples suffered greatly under Spanish reprisals, which included violent retaliation, warfare and enslavement. After 1708, the missionaries moved dispersed communities into several mission reduction towns, the central ones being Concepci¢n de Baures (the present town of Baures) and San Martin. The area was noted in the documents as being agriculturally rich, especially for the production of cacao and cotton.

The colonial descriptions provided by the Jesuits provide a rich, although incomplete, picture of the Baure culture. The Jesuits considered the Baure to be the most "civilized" of the ethnicities in the Llanos de Moxos region because they wore cotton clothing ("clean and tractable") and lived in large, well organized villages (Altamirano 1891; Eder 1888) . Hereditary chiefs (aramas) held considerable power over their subjects, especially in relation to agricultural production, mobilization of warriors and agricultural labor, and public order. The villages were large by Amazonian standards and were laid out in formal plans which included streets, spacious public plazas, rings of houses, and large central bebederos (communal men's houses). According to the Jesuits, many of these villages were defended through the construction of deep circular "moats" and wooden palisades enclosing the settlements. Settlements were connected by causeways and canals that enabled year round travel . The picture is one of a densely populated region filled with large, well- organized dispersed settlements taking advantage of the local natural resources.

We speculate that the Baure recorded in the ethnohistorical documents are the descendants of the people who constructed the earthworks found within the forested islands, wetlands, and the savannas. Although some of these earthworks were used during the historical period, it is not known if they were actively being constructed and maintained. The majority of these earthworks were probably constructed and used in the proto-historical or prehispanic period. The disruption caused by conquest, depopulation, resettlement, and missionization during the historical period probably caused the abandonment of these earthworks.

Top of Page


Archaeological Remains in the Baures Region

The first reports of the archaeological remains in Baures are from Nordenski”ld (1916, 1918) who mentions the remains of moated village sites and several large causeways and canals. This work was not followed up until Denevan (1966) described several causeways and canals still in use by the inhabitants of Baures and reported on the moated villages of Baures and Magdalena. In the late 1950s, the geologist Lee (1979, 1995; Pinto Parada 1987) discovered the vast remains of networks of causeways, canals, and settlements in the pampas between the Rio San Joaquin and the Rio San Martin (the "Baures Hydraulic Complex"). Lee and Botega made many flights over the region with scholars and journalists to view the earthwork complex, but the remains were never examined by archaeologists on the ground. The only archaeological research done in the Baures region was conducted by Dougherty and Calandra (1984-5) in the town of Baures and along the Rio Negro and the Rio Blanco. They conducted a series of small test excavations to recover pottery in an attempt to develop a chronology for the area.

In 1995, the Agro-Archaeological Project of the Beni (University of Pennsylvania and National Institute of Archaeology) had the opportunity to do a one week exploratory investigation of the region. The project members were invited by the Corporation of the Department of the Beni and the mayor of Baures to begin an investigation of the archaeological resources of the region, develop plans for a regional archaeological museum, and explore the possibility establishing a national eco-tourism park and biological reserve within the "Baures Hydraulic Complex." During this short visit, the Project team conducted archaeological survey and mapping of several moated village sites and other earthworks, photographed archaeological pieces in private collections, and established professional contacts with local institutions for future research. A member of the team (Vranich) conducted two brief exploratory surveys (of 10 and 14 days) into the remote heartland of the causeway complexes (Erickson et al. 1995).

The principal archaeological earthwork features in the Baures Region include various forms of moated occupation sites (probably villages), moated forested islands (larger communities), causeways, canals, and reservoirs. To date, no raised fields have been located here. The total extent of these earthworks in Baures is unknown at the moment but the areal distribution has been estimated to be 12,000 km2 (Lee 1995) although the area of continuous distribution earthworks is probably much smaller (Erickson et al. 1995).

Top of Page


Prehispanic Moated Settlements

In 1995 and 1996, our surveys located and mapped 14 separate moated occupation complexes/sites on forested islands near Baures and Bella Vista. The enclosed areas of sites are estimated to range from 1 ha to 5 ha and up to 3 village sites occur on a single forest islands. The moats are impressive earthworks of up to 4 meters deep and 10 meters wide, sometimes with steep sidewalls, and have diameters of between 150 and 350 meters. A number of sites also have multiple concentric moat rings. The forested island site of Jasiaquiri has a series of linear an curvilinear canals that appear to delineate the isla from the savanna enclosing an area of nearly one square mile and those of Bella Vista are possibly even larger enclosures.

The moats surround what appear to be large circular, oval, and rectangular shaped settlements. Domestic pottery sherds were recovered from disturbed areas at the sites of Santiago and Irovy. Probe core sampling demonstrated that the occupation features are shallow. The moat features do not appear to hold water (or only for short periods of time). Their shape and form indicate that they are defensive or to restrict access to the settlements (also supported by the ethnohistorical documents). Other possible alternative functions include use of the sites as elite residences, cemeteries, ritual spaces, hunting traps, and garden sites. Larger, but similar moated village sites have been reported for the Upper Xing£ region of Brazil (Heckenberger 1996) and other regions of Amazonia (Nordenski”ld 1918).

Causeways and Canals


The most impressive landscape feature in Baures are the dense networks of long causeways and canals that cross the savannas, wetlands and forested islands. A (possibly prehispanic) 15 km long causeway and canal connected the towns of Baures and Guacaraje until the 1930s when it was abandoned. Some segments of old causeways between local settlements and ranches are still used today for communication and transportation during the rainy season. The "Baures Hydraulic Complex" located between the Rio San Joaquin and the Rio San Martin to the east of the town of Baures has the densest concentration of these features. There are thousands of linear kilometers of causeways and canals in this zone. Most are remarkably straight. Many cross over one another and some connect to other causeways. There are a number of cases where 2-4 causeways run parallel to each other. On the ground, these causeways are low structures of 0.25-1.0 m in elevation, 4-6 meters wide and often 2-5 km long. Most are badly eroded and many are covered with trees and bushes, a sharp contrast to the surrounding grass covered savanna. Foot traffic would have used the raised roadways and canoe traffic would have been possible in the adjacent canals. The most basic function of these features would have been for communication and transportation between settlements, rivers, and agricultural fields, but it is possible that some of these had a hydraulic function (Lee 1995, Erickson et al. 1995). The obsession with straightness over long distances, the "overengineering" of the designs and construction, and the sheer number of these features indicates that they may have also had a ritual function, possibly associated with astronomy, calendrics, or specific ceremonies.

Our exploratory research on the Baures earthworks attempts to 1) provide a detailed description of earthwork morphology and patterning, 2) document the geographical extent and distribution of the features, 3) determine the function(s) of the structures, and 4) to date the periods of construction, use and abandonment. Using the spatial distribution of forest island occupation sites and the association of occupation settlements connected by networks of causeway and canals (thus assumed to be contemporaneous), we can examine the prehispanic settlement system of the region. This would be extremely difficult in most humid tropical contexts and the Baures region provides some unique advantages of high archaeological visibility of site and earthworks and the actual physical connections between sites. This will help define the prehispanic demography, socio-political organization, and boundaries of the settlements to be further studied in future research.

Top of Page


Methodology

The investigation of the earthworks of Baures has been conducted using remote sensing techniques (digital processing, enhancement, and interpretation of images), ground survey, surface collections, topographic mapping , post-hole coring transects across sites and earthworks, small scale excavations of features, and the recording of artifacts from private collections in the region.

The Project relies heavily on the use of remote sensing, in particular aerial photography (purchased mapping photography and our own oblique photography taken from small aircraft converted to digital format) and satellite digital imagery (LANDSAT and SIR-C radar) of the region of Baures for documentation and interpretation of prehispanic earthworks. The programs Adobe PhotoShop and IDRISI are used to digitally process, enhance, and layer digital images for detection and mapping of earthworks and other cultural features, and to produce vegetation and landuse classifications. This work is being done in the Department of Anthropology Computer Laboratory and the GIS Laboratory of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Ground truth from the field will provide information to further refine our interpretations and the digital signatures of specific features on the landscape.

The reconnaissance is conducted on foot and canoe and when available, we use small aircraft to photograph areas where fieldwork is being conducted. The prehispanic moated occupation sites only occur on island forests and gallery forests, thus are relatively easy to locate and study. Surface collections are made where subsurface disturbances have exposed archaeological materials (gardens, pathways, house clearings, and river cuts). All major sites are mapped with tape and compass. Many moated sites have been mapped with an EDM Total Station to produce detailed micro-topographic plans. We can produce computer generated contour maps that can be layered with the aerial photographs of the same site. Several sites have been examined using a 5" coring auger to sample soils (to a maximum depth of 1.25m) at 5m intervals along transects across sites (closer intervals are used in moats). If stratified middens are located, we plan to excavate 2 x 2 meter test trenches in them to recover material to date sites and begin chronology building. These strategies should be sufficient to determine site function and provide a means of dating the sites.

Causeways and canals are investigated using the same methodology that we used for the study of raised fields, causeways and canals in central Moxos (Erickson 1995). Causeways are located and defined on aerial photographs. These are verified and mapped on the ground during survey. Earthworks not visible on the images are added to the master maps. Orientations are determined and topographic transects across canals and causeways are drawn for each earthwork. Several areas are being selected for intensive topographic mapping using the EDM. This will be relatively easy because most of these earthworks are located in the open savanna. Calculations can be made to estimate the labor involved in construction.

Top of Page


Research Opportunities

The Project provides a wonderful opportunity for students at the University of Pennsylvania interested in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), computer graphics, landscape architecture, conservation, sustainable development, ecotourism, and the environment. This is a chance to become involved in a important project to investigate long term ancient land use in the Bolivian Amazon and to establish a national park/ecological reserve to protect and manage the archaeological and biological resources of the region might otherwise be destroyed through colonization by ranchers and agriculturalists. The park would provide research opportunities scholars and potential income from eco-tourism for local peoples.

A major goal of the Baures Archaeological Project is the creation of a Geographic Information System of the region of the "Prehispanic Hydraulic Complex of Baures". We are beginning to processing maps and images in the Computer Laboratory of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Pennsylvania. These will be valuable for precisely locating sites, determining the environmental context of a site (vegetation, soils, topography, hydrology), and eventually for establishing a Geographic Information System for the region. Much of the work done thus far has been limited to single layer remote sensing applications (vegetation classification, basic mapping, digital enhancement of images).

The project also has an applied component. The national and local governments have recently discussed plans with international funding agencies to create an "eco- tourism" park and biological reserve in the region of the "Prehispanic Hydraulic Complex of Baures" (Lee 1995). The region was heavily occupied by native peoples before the arrive of the Spanish in the 1600s, but quickly depopulated because of Jesuit policies of centralizing populations in mission towns, slaving, warfare, and introduced diseases from the Old World. The region would be an ideal place to study the processes of at least 500 years of environmental recovery in a tropical context that was totally transformed by the actions of its ancient inhabitants. At the moment, no one lives permanently in the area and it is not used for farming or ranching. There is a strong movement to formally establish the park before colonists move into the area. The archaeological earthworks and sites would be protected, in addition to the fauna and flora of the zone. The plan includes hiring native peoples to serve as park rangers and to establish the necessary infrastructure to conduct research and tourism. Our preliminary study of the area in 1995 and 1996 provides important information to support the effort to establish the park but more detailed inventory of resources and spatial data are necessary.

Research Opportunities for Students Include:

Many of the above projects could be developed as "group projects" involving the collaboration of several students. Many of these projects could be developed into Masters Theses and PhD dissertations for graduate students.

Additional volunteers are needed for the preparation of ancient landscape renderings and computer graphics for research needs and scientific publication of the results of the archaeological project in the Bolivian Amazon. Academic credit can be arranged.

Please see the WWW home page VOLUNTEERS WANTED:ILLUSTRATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES:

Resources Available to the Baures Project:

In addition, we may be able to obtain LANDSAT TM images of the region from the archives at Cornell University and a proposal has been submitted to obtain SPOT imagery of the region. Local and government officials, public and private institutions in Bolivia have offered to aid the project in many ways and have fully supported the idea of continued research in the region. A well-equipped remote sensing and GIS computer laboratory will be established in the regional capital Trinidad during this year and officials have promised help with purchase of imagery necessary to prepare a GIS of the region.

The Computer Laboratory of the Department of Anthropology has a powerful Pentium computer capable of running remote sensing applications, Geographic Information System software, and computer graphics software. The machine has a high resolution monitor, sufficient RAM, and ample harddisk drive space for storage of large digital images and is connected to Penn's ethernet system. The Department owns a flat bed, slide scanner, and several high quality laser printers

Top of Page


Broader Implications and Importance of the Research

This project will provide information on one of the more complex prehispanic societies in Amazonia. The elaborate construction of earthworks consisting of moated villages and vast networks of canals and causeways is unusual in the lowland tropics of South America. Until recently, little archaeological research had been conducted on earthworks in these regions. Big questions are still asked regarding these landscape features such as Who built these structures? When were they constructed, used and abandoned? What purpose did they serve? What sociopolitical organization and demographic system was associated with these works? The region of Baures, Department of the Beni, Bolivia, is an ideal place to begin to address these important issues. The density of large interconnected settlements indicates that these peoples were quite different from the traditional conception of "simple Amazonian societies." Because occupation sites are easily identified and often connected one to another by formal earthworks, it will be possible to establish a site settlement pattern and define which sites are interacting with each other. Even the small exploratory projects have provided insight into the social and political organization of the region.

The project also has an applied component. The national and local governments have recently discussed plans with international funding agencies to create an "eco- tourism" park and biological reserve in the region of the Baures Hydraulic Complex (Lee 1995). At the moment, no one lives permanently in the area and it is not used for farming or ranching. There is a movement to formally establish the park before colonists move into the area. The archaeological resources would be protected, in addition to the fauna and flora of the zone. The plan includes hiring native peoples to serve as park rangers. Our preliminary study of the area in 1995 and 1996 provides important information to support the effort to establish the park (inventory of archaeological resources, maps of vegetation and land use potential, physical boundaries of the park, etc.). The region would be an ideal place to study the processes of at least 500 years of environmental recovery in a tropical context that was totally transformed by the actions of its ancient inhabitants.

Top of Page


Bibliography

Altamirano, Diego Francisco
1891 (ca. 1710). Historia de la mision de Mojos. En Documentos historicos de Bolivia: Historia de la mision de los Mojos. redactado por Manuel V. Ballivian, Imprenta El Comercio, La Paz.

Anonymous
1743 (ca. 1703). Extract of a Spanish Relation containing the Life and Death of Father Cipriano Barace of the Society of Jesus, Founder of the Mission of Mojos in Peru. In Travels of the Jesuits into Various Parts of the World. Lockman, John 2:437- 468 John Noon, London.

Chavez Suarez, Jos‚
1944 Historia de Moxos. Editorial F‚nix, La Paz.

Crumley, Carol and William Marquardt eds.
1987 Regional Dynamics: The Burgundian Landscape in Historical Perspective. Academic Press, San Diego..

Denevan, William M.
1966 The Aboriginal Cultural Geography of the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia. University of California Press, Berkeley.
1970 Aboriginal Drained-Field Cultivation in the Americas. Science 169:647- 654.
1983 Hydraulic Agriculture in the American Tropics: Forms, Measures, and Recent Research. In Maya Subsistence. edited by Kent Flannery, Academic Press, New York, pp. 181-203.

Dougherty, Bernardo y Horacio Calandra
1984-5 Ambiente y arqueolog¡a en el oriente boliviana: La provincia It‚nez del Departamento del Beni. Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropolog¡a. 16 (n.s.):37-61.

Eder, Ferencz Xaver (Francisco Javier)
1888 (1791) Descripcion de la Provincia de los Mojos en el Reino del Peri. Imprenta El Siglo Industrial, La Paz.


Equiluz, Diego de
1884 (1696) Historia de la Mision de Mojos. Imprenta del Universo, Lima.

Erickson, Clark
1980 Sistemas agricolas prehisp nicos en los Llanos de Mojos. America Indigena 40(4):731-756.

Erickson, Clark
1995 Archaeological Methods for the Study of Ancient Landscapes of the Llanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon. In Archaeology in the Lowland American Tropics: Current Analytical Methods and Applications. edited by Peter Stahl, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 66-95.

Erickson, Clark L., Jos‚ Esteves, Wilma Winkler, Marcos Michel
1991 Estudio preliminar de los sistemas agricolas precolombinos en el departamento del Beni, Bolivia. Unpublished document, University of Pennsylvania and the Instituto Nacional de Arqueologia.

Erickson, Clark L., Kay L. Candler, Wilma Winkler, Marcos Michel, John Walker
1993 Informe sobre las investigaciones arqueologicas del Proyecto Agro- Arqueologico del Beni en el 1992. Unpublished document, University of Pennsylvania and the Instituto Nacional de Arqueologia.

Erickson, Clark L., John Walker, Kay Candler, Dante Angelo, Marcos Michel, Wilma Winkler, y John Jacob
1994 Arqueologia de la agricultura de camellones e infraestructura hidr ulica en el Departamento del Beni: Informe Preliminar de las investigaciones del Proyecto Agro- Arqueologico del Beni en 1993. Unpublished document, University of Pennsylvania and the Instituto Nacional de Arqueologia.

Erickson, Clark, Wilma Winkler, Alexei Vranich, John Walker, and Dante Angelo
1995 Informe preliminar sobre investigaciones arqueologicas en Baures, Departamento del Beni, Bolivia. Parte I y Parte II. report submitted to the National Institute of Archaeology and the University Museum.

Steward, Julian and Louis Faron
1959 Native Peoples of South America. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Gleason, Kathryn and Naomi Miller eds.
1994 The Archaeology of Garden and Field. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

Heckenburger, Michael
1996 unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.

Lee, Kenneth
1979 7.000 aos de historia del hombre de Mojos: agricultura en pampas est‚riles: informe preliminar. Universidad Beni, Universidad T‚cnica del Beni, Trinidad, pp. 23-26.

Lathrap, Donald W.
1970 The Upper Amazon. Thames and Hudson, New York.

Lee, Kenneth
1995 Complejo Hidr ulico de las llanuras de Baures (Area a ser protegida), Provincia It‚nez, Departamento del Beni, Republica de Bolivia. Unpublished document presented to CORDEBENI, Trinidad.

Meggers, Betty
1971 Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise. Aldine, Chicago.

Nordenskiild, Erland
1916 Die Anpassung der Indianer an die Verhaltnisse in den Uberschwemmungsgebieten in Sudamerika [La adaptacion de los indios a la situacion de los territorios inundados de Sudam‚rica]. Ymer (Stockholm) 36:138-155.

Nordenskiild, Erland
1918 Palisades and "Noxious Gases" among the South American Indians. Ymer (Stockholm) 38:220-243.

Pinto Parada, Rodolfo
1987 Pueblo de Leyenda. Editorial Tiempo del Beni, Trinidad.

Rossignol, Jacqueline and LuAnn Wandsnider eds.
1992 Space, Time, and Archaeological Landscapes. Plenun Press, New York.

Scarborough, Vernon and Barry Isaacs eds.
1993 Economic Aspects of Water Management in the Prehispanic New World. Research in Economic Anthropology. Supplement 7, JAI Press, pp. 369-426, Greenwich, Conn.

Steward, Julian H. ed
1963 Handbook of South American Indians. Volume 3 The Tropical Forest Tribes. Copper Square Publishers.
Top of Page


Additional Notes

NOTE: additional references to the Bolivian Amazon and the Llanos de Moxos can be on the WWW Site on the Internet at Ancient Raised Field Agriculture: Applied Archaeology in the Bolivian Amazon

The Project team is made up of myself as director, Bolivia project co- investigator archaeologist Wilma Winkler Velarde of the National Institute of Archaeology, anthropologist Dr. Kay Candler, Penn graduate students John Walker and Alexei Vranich, and Bolivian archaeology student Dante Angelo Z.. Most members have participated on the project since 1992 and all have considerable archaeological field experience in this region of Bolivia. The project is dedicated to providing field experience for Bolivian scholars and archaeology students. Other collaborators include Kenneth Lee, Hans Schlink, Ricardo Botega, Freddy Bruckner, Oscar Saavedra, and Dr. Robert Langstroth.

Background texture is fromTexture Land

cerickso@sas.upenn.edu

Ancient causeways and fish weirs in the Prehispanic Hydraulic Complex of Baures, Bolivia

Top of Page




You are the Counter visitor to this page