Instituto de la Ciencia y Tecnología en América Latina (ICTAL) - Tag - MesoAmericaPortal dedicado a la ciencia, el desarrollo, y los derechos humanos... 2024-03-18T13:03:04-04:00urn:md5:c3c53f2c54ac152a71614d9b9f660d3dDotclearCiencia y saberes tradicionales: brecha aún por superar saberes ancestralesurn:md5:27bf928a2d814bfbc26a4e6c17e7b4052023-07-23T21:59:00-04:002023-07-23T21:59:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroDerechos HumanosMesoAmerica <p><br />
Fuente: SciDev</p>
<p>Capturar peces con flechas no es fácil. Ya lo sabían los indígenas de la Amazonia hace cientos de años, y por eso buscaron facilitar la tarea: envenenaban a los peces con una sustancia que obtenían de plantas y luego los asaban a las brasas para eliminar el veneno y comerlos, práctica que sigue vigente. Mucho después, en 1859, esa sustancia fue aislada por un botánico francés y tomó el nombre de rotenona, pero fue recién este año que la ciencia comprendió el mecanismo molecular por el cual el calor neutraliza el veneno.</p>
<p>Este descubrimiento publicado en Nature comprueba, una vez más, que detrás de muchos saberes tradicionales hay un sustento científico aún por descubrir.</p>
<p> “(Estos saberes) responden a otras formas de conocimiento y a una profunda cosmogonía andino-amazónica que es necesario fortalecer con diversas formas de pensar y entender”.<br />
Andrés Alencastre, especialista peruano en gestión territorial, agua y desarrollo comunal en cuencas</p>
<p> </p>
<p><br />
Cont'd.</p>
<p>LINK:<br />
<a href="https://www.scidev.net/america-latina/news/ciencia-y-saberes-tradicionales-brecha-aun-por-superar/">https://www.scidev.net/america-latina/news/ciencia-y-saberes-tradicionales-brecha-aun-por-superar/</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>El hallazgo en Perú de una momia en medio de un monumental basurerourn:md5:98927f2685c89f6120eea69eba8b6e372023-06-20T09:58:00-04:002023-06-20T09:58:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroCulturaMesoAmericaPeru <p><br />
Fuente: BBC</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Un grupo de arqueólogos en Perú ha encontrado una momia que se cree que tiene alrededor de 3.000 años, mientras escavaban en un basurero en la capital del país, Lima.</p>
<p>Los estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, que están ayudando con la excavación, hallaron primero su cabello y su cráneo.</p>
<p>El arqueólogo Miguel Aguilar señaló que habían retirado ocho toneladas de basura del lugar antes de comenzar la cuidadosa búsqueda de los restos históricos.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cont'd.</p>
<p>LINK:<br />
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-65929309">https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-65929309</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Estrés por calor ocupacional, un peligro que recorre Centroaméricaurn:md5:ed9d5e5f3e5c9b6a680caa14b708c4b82023-06-17T09:23:00-04:002023-06-17T09:23:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroAmérica LatinaMedicinaMesoAmerica <p><br />
Estrés por calor ocupacional, un peligro que recorre Centroamérica<br />
Fuente: SciDev</p>
<p><br />
[BOGOTÁ] En la década de 1990 surgieron reportes y noticias sobre una enfermedad renal crónica desconocida que estaba cobrando la vida de trabajadores jóvenes tanto en Centroamérica como en Sri Lanka. Una vez se manifestaba la enfermedad, conocida hoy como Nefropatía Mesoamericana, la mayoría de ellos fallecían en los cinco años siguientes dejando atrás más pobreza y familias sin sustento económico.</p>
<p>Tres décadas después el acertijo epidemiológico no se ha podido resolver por completo y se estima que cerca de 30.000 personas fallecen por esta causa cada año, la mayoría hombres en edad productiva.</p>
<p>Sin embargo, un grupo internacional de investigadores que han unido esfuerzos acaban de completar un estudio masivo en el que midieron el estrés térmico y la sobrecarga metabólica a la que están sometidos trabajadores de varias industrias. Esta última variable hace referencia a la demanda excesiva de energía que experimenta el organismo mientras realiza una actividad.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cont'd.</p>
<p>LINK:<br />
<a href="https://www.scidev.net/america-latina/news/estres-por-calor-ocupacional-un-peligro-que-recorre-centroamerica/">https://www.scidev.net/america-latina/news/estres-por-calor-ocupacional-un-peligro-que-recorre-centroamerica/</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spainurn:md5:0131ae4ba33f57a789090795926455542020-02-20T20:30:00-04:002020-02-20T20:30:00-04:00cguajonLibrosCulturaMesoAmericaMexico <p><br />by David Carballo<br /><br /><br />Mexico of five centuries ago was witness to one of the most momentous encounters between human societies, when a group of Spaniards led by Hernando Cortés joined forces with tens of thousands of Mesoamerican allies to topple the mighty Aztec empire. It served as a template for the forging of much of Latin America and began the globalized world we inhabit today. This violent encounter and the new colonial order it created, a New Spain, was millennia in the making, with independent cultural developments on both sides of the Atlantic and their fateful entanglement during the pivotal Aztec-Spanish war of 1519-1521. Collision of Worlds provides a deep history of this encounter with an archaeological lens-one that considers depth in the richly layered cultures of Mexico and Spain, like the depths that archaeologists reveal through excavation to chart early layers of human history. It offers a unique perspective on the encounter through its temporal depth and focus on the physical world of places and things, their similarities and differences in trans-Atlantic perspective, and their interweaving in an encounter characterized by conquest and colonialism, but also active agency and resilience on the part of Native peoples.<br /><br />Table of Contents<br /><br />Preface<br /><br />Figures<br /><br />Tables<br /><br />1. Mexico, Spain, and their Deep Histories of Place<br /><br />2. Cultural Evolution in Mesoamerica<br /><br />3. Cultural Evolution in Iberia<br /><br />4. Mexico and Spain on the Eve of Encounter<br /><br />5. The Spanish Invasion of Mesoamerica<br /><br />6. The Spanish-Mexica War<br /><br />7. Forging New Spain<br /><br />Bibliography<br /><br />David Carballo is a specialist in Mesoamerican archaeology, focusing particularly on the prehispanic civilizations of central Mexico. He serves as Director of the Archaeology Program at Boston University.<br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/collision-of-worlds-9780190864354?cc=us&lang=en&#">https://global.oup.com/academic/product/collision-of-worlds-9780190864354?cc=us&lang=en&#</a><br /><br /><br /></p>Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the Cityurn:md5:7dfd5d0f069fadd1fd54f22c7ae965ae2019-12-16T08:24:00-04:002019-12-16T08:24:00-04:00cguajonLibrosCulturaMesoAmericaMexico <p><br />by David M. Carballo (Editor), Kenneth G. Hirth (Editor), Barbara Arroyo (Editor)<br />Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (2020)<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.ictal.org/public/noticias/2019/teotihuacan.jpg" title="teotihuacan.jpg, Dec 2019"><img src="https://www.ictal.org/public/noticias/2019/.teotihuacan_m.jpg" alt="teotihuacan.jpg, Dec 2019" style="float: left; margin: 0 1em 1em 0;" /></a>Teotihuacan was a city of major importance in the Americas between 1 and 550 CE. As one of only two cities in the New World with a population over one hundred thousand, it developed a network of influence that stretched across Mesoamerica. The size of its urban core, the scale of its monumental architecture, and its singular apartment compounds made Teotihuacan unique among Mesoamerica’s urban state societies.<br /><br />Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the City brings together specialists in art and archaeology to develop a synthetic overview of the urban, political, economic, and religious organization of a key power in Classic-period Mesoamerica. The book provides the first comparative discussion of Teotihuacan’s foreign policy with respect to the Central Mexican Highlands, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and the Maya Lowlands and Highlands. Contributors debate whether Teotihuacan’s interactions were hegemonic, diplomatic, stylistic, or a combination of these or other social processes. The authors draw on recent investigations and discoveries to update models of Teotihuacan’s history, in the process covering various questions about the nature of Teotihuacan’s commercial relations, its political structure, its military relationships with outlying areas, the prestige of the city, and the worldview it espoused through both monumental architecture and portable media.<br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Teotihuacan-Dumbarton-Pre-Columbian-Symposia-Colloquia/dp/0884024679/ref=sr_1_3?fst=as%3Aoff&keywords=science+history+latin+america&qid=1576498407&rnid=1000&s=books&sr=1-3">https://www.amazon.com/Teotihuacan-Dumbarton-Pre-Columbian-Symposia-Colloquia/dp/0884024679/ref=sr_1_3?fst=as%3Aoff&keywords=science+history+latin+america&qid=1576498407&rnid=1000&s=books&sr=1-3</a><br /><br /></p>Machu Picchu was built over major fault zones. Now, researchers think they know whyurn:md5:66b1e2bcb6cf344d6c31a704bb1e6ba32019-10-01T08:43:00-04:002019-10-01T08:43:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroCulturaMesoAmericaPeru <p><br />Source: Science Magazine<br /><br /><br />Archaeologists and architects alike have long wondered why 15th century Incans built the grand citadel of Machu Picchu where they did, high in the remote Andes atop a narrow ridge in what is now Peru. One simple answer, researchers now suggest, is that that’s where building materials for the site—large amounts of already fractured rock—were readily available.<br /><br />Both satellite images and recent field work reveal that the ground beneath Machu Picchu is crisscrossed with fault zones of various sizes, some of which control the orientation of river valleys in the region by providing weak zones that are more easily eroded by flowing water. Because some of these faults run from northeast to southwest and others trend from northwest to southeast, they collectively create an X where they intersect beneath the site, researchers reported this week at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Phoenix.<br /><br />When earthquakes along these fault zones cause rocks to shift, they generate prodigious quantities of fractured rock (large stones in foreground). But these fault zones also channel meltwater from ice and snow and rainwater, thus enabling residents to more effectively collect it. They also help drain it away during intense thunderstorms, preventing short-term damage and aiding long-term preservation of the site.<br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/machu-picchu-was-built-over-major-fault-zones-now-researchers-think-they-know-why">https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/machu-picchu-was-built-over-major-fault-zones-now-researchers-think-they-know-why</a><br /><br /><br /></p>How the people of the Andes evolved to live in high altitudesurn:md5:5f3a7a37199e53dd40b741bd5cbb4afd2018-11-13T07:27:00-04:002018-11-16T11:01:11-04:00cguajonGenéticaBiologiaMesoAmericaPeru <p><br />Source: Science Magazine<br /><br /><br /><br />Scarce oxygen, cold temperatures, and intense ultraviolet radiation make the Andes a tough place to live. How did humans adapt to such heights? A new study of ancient and modern DNA suggests in some South American highlanders, the answer includes changes to their heart muscles. The same study found that ancient highlanders adapted to digest starch more easily as they came to rely on potatoes for food, and that they most likely split from their lowland brethren some 8750 years ago. But those conclusions have been questioned by scientists who say the comparison population is simply too distant to reveal anything specific about highland life.<br /><br />To find out how ancient Andeans adapted to living at more than 2500 meters, John Lindo, a population geneticist at Emory University in Atlanta, sequenced seven genomes from people who lived near Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian Andes from 6800 years ago to about 1800 years ago. The team then compared those genomes to genetic data from two modern populations: the high-living Aymara of Bolivia, and the Huilliche-Pehuenche, who live on the lowland coast of southern Chile.<br /><br />Another high-dwelling folk—the people of the Tibetan plateau—have genetic variations that reduce hemoglobin levels in their blood and make their bodies extremely efficient at using oxygen. So Lindo and his colleagues scanned the ancient South American genomes for signs of similar adaptations. They didn’t find what they were looking for, but they did see signs of selection on a gene called DST, related to cardiovascular health and heart muscle development, they report today in Science Advances. That, says Mark Aldenderfer, an archaeologist at the University of California (UC), Merced, and a co-author of the new study, “suggests a very different process by which ancient Andean people adapted to high elevation life.”<br /><br />An even stronger sign of natural selection turned up in genes related to starch digestion. Because the starchy potato was domesticated in the Andes and quickly became a dietary staple, such an adaptation makes sense, Lindo says. By measuring the number of random genetic differences that accumulated steadily over time between the highland and lowland populations, Lindo’s team estimates the genetic split between those peoples likely happened about 8750 years ago, a date that fits with archaeological data.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/how-people-andes-evolved-live-high-altitudes">http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/how-people-andes-evolved-live-high-altitudes</a><br /></p>Modern chocolate shaped like Maya glyphs, the written language they used to communicateurn:md5:ba2fae03f0c65d39e262728c8346ff6d2018-07-02T07:31:00-04:002018-07-02T07:31:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroBiologiaCulturaEconomíaMesoAmerica <p><br />Source: Science Magazine<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Your Hershey bar may have been worth its weight in gold in Mayan times. A new study reveals that chocolate became its own form of money at the height of Mayan opulence—and that the loss of this delicacy may have played a role in the downfall of the famed civilization.<br /><br />The study is on the right track, says David Freidel, an anthropologist and Maya expert at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who was not involved with the work. Chocolate “is a very prestigious food,” he says, “and it [was] almost certainly a currency.”<br /><br />The ancient Maya never used coins as money. Instead, like many early civilizations, they were thought to mostly barter, trading items such as tobacco, maize, and clothing. Spanish colonial accounts from the 16th century indicate that the Europeans even used cacao beans—the basis for chocolate—to pay workers, but it was unclear whether the substance was a prominent currency before their arrival.<br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/maya-civilization-used-chocolate-money">http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/maya-civilization-used-chocolate-money</a><br /><br /></p>South America’s Inca civilization was better at skull surgery than Civil War doctorsurn:md5:8e41cc87353c3abbca1d2c61819dd4b32018-06-18T08:23:00-04:002018-06-18T08:23:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroMedicinaMesoAmericaPeru <p><br />Source: Science Magazine<br /><br /><br /><br />Cranial surgery without modern anesthesia and antibiotics may sound like a death sentence. But trepanation—the act of drilling, cutting, or scraping a hole in the skull for medical reasons—was practiced for thousands of years from ancient Greece to pre-Columbian Peru. Not every patient survived. But many did, including more than 100 subjects of the Inca Empire. A new study of their skulls and hundreds of others from pre-Columbian Peru suggests the success rates of premodern surgeons there was shockingly high: up to 80% during the Inca era, compared with just 50% during the American Civil War some 400 years later.<br /><br />Trepanation likely started as a treatment for head wounds, says David Kushner, a neurologist at the University of Miami in Florida. After a traumatic injury, such surgery would have cleaned up skull fractures and relieved pressure on the brain, which commonly swells and accumulates fluid after a blow to the head. But not all trepanned skulls show signs of head injuries, so it’s possible the surgery was also used to treat conditions that left no skeletal trace, such as chronic headaches or mental illnesses. Trepanned skulls have been found all over the world, but Peru, with its dry climate and excellent preservation conditions, boasts hundreds of them.<br /><br />For the new study, Kushner teamed up with John Verano, a bioarchaeologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Anne Titelbaum, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Arizona in Phoenix, to systematically study trepanation’s success rate across different cultures and time periods. The team examined 59 skulls from Peru’s southern coast dated to between 400 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E, 421 from Peru’s central highlands dated from 1000 C.E. to 1400 C.E., and 160 from the highlands around Cusco, capital of the Inca Empire, from the early 1400s C.E. to the mid-1500s C.E. If the bone around the surgical hole showed no signs of healing, the researchers knew the patient died either during or very shortly after the surgery. Smooth bone around the opening showed that the patient had survived for months or years after the procedure.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/south-america-s-inca-civilization-was-better-skull-surgery-civil-war-doctors">http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/south-america-s-inca-civilization-was-better-skull-surgery-civil-war-doctors</a><br /><br /><br /></p>Aymaras tejen dispositivos para el corazón en Boliviaurn:md5:801a7fe5c1daece5173960257c4df1a72018-04-02T08:05:00-04:002018-04-02T08:05:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroBoliviaMedicinaMesoAmerica <p><br />Fuente: SciDev<br /><br /> <br />[LA PAZ] La combinación de ciencia y habilidades ancestrales en Bolivia está permitiendo elaborar dispositivos únicos y apropiados para rehabilitar a niños que nacen con defectos congénitos cardíacos de alto riesgo, debido a la altura.<br /> <br />Un artículo publicado en JAMA Network este mes describe cómo, combinando conocimientos en medicina y biomedicina con las habilidades de los tejedores andinos, se elaboran materiales ideales, por su elasticidad y “memoria “estructural, para colocarse con un catéter a través de la piel en el corazón, donde se expande a su forma original para tapar hasta el defecto estructural más grande.<br /> <br />Los dispositivos, elaborados con nitinol, una aleación desarrollada por la NASA, duran toda la vida. Su facilidad para desplegarse minimiza el tiempo de los procedimientos, así como la exposición de los niños a la radiación de imágenes.<br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="https://www.scidev.net/america-latina/diseno/noticias/aymaras-tejen-dispositivos-para-el-coraz-n-en-bolivia.html">https://www.scidev.net/america-latina/diseno/noticias/aymaras-tejen-dispositivos-para-el-coraz-n-en-bolivia.html</a></p>Some dogs were royalty, others were dinner in ancient Mayan cultureurn:md5:e6c49516d0b084e45a74e3408fc05cc62018-03-20T04:58:00-04:002018-03-20T04:58:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroCulturaMesoAmericaMexico <p><br />Source: Science Magazine<br /><br /><br /><br />If you were top dog in Mayan Latin America, you might be an honored guest at the king’s feast. But if not, you’d likely end up as the main course of someone else’s. That’s the conclusion of a new chemical analysis of animal bones found in a 3000-year-old Guatemalan city, which provides the earliest picture yet of how the ancient Mayans domesticated animals and treated those in their care.<br /><br />“It’s a well-done study,” says Henry Schwarcz, an anthropologist and professor emeritus who researches paleodiets at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, though he notes more work will be needed to confirm the findings. And the study may solve another mystery, he says: how the Mayans produced enough protein to feed the thousands who thronged their cities.<br /><br />Between 1000 B.C.E. and 950 C.E., as many as 10,000 people lived in the important Mayan city of Seibal, located in today’s Guatemalan lowlands. Such big urban centers require lots of food, and the Mayans hunted deer, peccaries, and tapirs. But archaeologists have uncovered precious little evidence that the civilization practiced widespread animal domestication, which might have been needed to sustain such a big population, says Ashley Sharpe, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/some-dogs-were-royalty-others-were-dinner-ancient-mayan-culture">http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/some-dogs-were-royalty-others-were-dinner-ancient-mayan-culture</a><br /><br /></p>Stupid Truck Driver Drove Right Over the Nazca Linesurn:md5:a0cfefb634f27f318cad828abb4a07882018-02-02T07:01:00-04:002018-02-02T07:01:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroCulturaMesoAmericaPeru <p><br />Source: Gizmodo<br /><br /><br />There’s a 2,000-year-old archaeological mystery preserved in Southern Peru: enormous images carved into the desert by unknown ancient artists. The beautiful Nazca Lines depict birds, monkeys, and humans, and some of the creations span up to 1,200 feet. And a man just drove over them with his truck.<br /><br />CNN reports:<br /><br />Jainer Jesus Flores Vigo, 40, was arrested after he allegedly ignored warning signage and drove over UNESCO World Heritage site, the ministry said.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cont'd.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="https://gizmodo.com/stupid-truck-driver-drove-right-over-the-nazca-lines-1822625634">https://gizmodo.com/stupid-truck-driver-drove-right-over-the-nazca-lines-1822625634</a><br /><br /></p>Face of the woman who ruled Peru 1,700 Years ago revealedurn:md5:d55fa31ec967ed1ce607b9a204bdf67c2017-07-07T06:13:00-04:002017-07-07T06:13:00-04:00cguajonNoticieroCulturaMesoAmericaPeru <p><br />Source: MercoPress<br /><br /><br /><br />The face of the Lady of Cao, considered to be a queen who ruled northern Peru 1,700 years ago, was revealed on Tuesday thanks to 3D technology developed by private companies, as was a replica of her mummified body, appearing just as it was found in 2005 at the El Brujo archaeological complex.<br /><br /> The Lady of Cao, who died at about age 25 after giving birth, was a woman with an oval countenance, a brown complexion and long black hair in two braids, according to the reproduction and the research work done by FARO Technologies, 3D Systems, Grupo Abstract and ARQ 3D.<br /><br />The queen who held political and religious power in the Chicama River Valley had a diadem of gold on her head and wore a large V-shaped crown with the image of a puma in the center and a necklace with large beads, each bearing the same feline face.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cont’d.<br /><br />LINK:<br /><a href="http://en.mercopress.com/2017/07/07/face-of-the-woman-who-ruled-peru-1-700-years-ago-revealed">http://en.mercopress.com/2017/07/07/face-of-the-woman-who-ruled-peru-1-700-years-ago-revealed</a><br /><br /></p>2016, McDonough, Nahua intellectuals in postconquest Mexicourn:md5:e95a529bbc669eff9a6ed5fc17b14b972017-04-17T20:12:00-04:002017-04-17T20:34:01-04:00cguajonLibrosColonialCulturaMesoAmericaMexicoNuevos libros <p><br />The learned ones : Nahua intellectuals in postconquest Mexico<br />Author: Kelly S McDonough<br />Publisher: Tucson, Arizona : The University of Arizona Press, 2016.</p>1urn:md5:2d5f58975e6243d7ca40998ba1ae6e892015-04-04T18:14:00-04:002015-04-04T20:01:56-04:00Rodrigo FernosICTAL 2002-2008América CentralCaribeIberiaMesoAmericaPuerto RicoSur-America <p>1</p>