The Andes Mountains encompass one of the largest concentrations of volcanoes on Earth. The Incas built shrines on the highest mountains, most notably on active volcanoes, as ceremonial places for offerings and occasionally for human sacrifices. Ancient Andean beliefs shaped responses to their dynamic environment in diverse and unique ways.
By the 1800s, intensive agriculture had seriously depleted soil fertility along the East Coast of the United States. Guano mined from Pacific islands offshore from Peru became a prized imported fertilizer. Competition for that resource led to an 1856 law directing the country to secure access to guano by claiming sovereignty over unclaimed territories.
In the Andes Mountains today, water managers are using both ancient and modern approaches to improve supplies of this vital resource. Novel methods, including those based on Indigenous knowledge, are needed to help meet the challenges of population growth and a warming climate.
My book, "The Monumental Andes—Geology, Geography, and Ancient Cultures of the Peruvian Andes", is hot off the presses! Hooray! It is one I would have liked to read before traveling in Peru. In this blog post, I summarize a dozen of my published posts about Peru, emphasizing my favorite topics of the ancient Andeans’ construction, metalworking, and artistic achievements.
When I first visited the Peruvian Andes, I was astonished to see groves of eucalyptus — native Australian trees — at elevations greater than 10,000 feet (3,048 m). Eucalyptus is the most widely planted non-native tree in coastal California, which has a Mediterranean-type climate like that found in parts of Australia, but why are these trees in the high Andes?
Geoglyphs are large designs typically longer than about 13 feet (4 m) and produced on the ground by arranging rocks or soil. They are distinctive elements of the archaeological record along the Pacific coast of the Americas, from California to Chile. The Nazca lines of Peru are famous geoglyphs of animals and geometric shapes, constructed in the arid deserts of south-central coastal Peru between about 500 BCE and 500 CE.
Safeguarding ancient Egyptian cultural treasures in the 1960s laid the groundwork for the UNESCO World Heritage Site program. These designations provide protections for places having outstanding cultural and natural heritage. Both Egypt and Peru have fabulous archaeological sites with World Heritage designations, and I’ve had the good fortune to see many. I hope to visit World Heritage Sites in many other countries.
Ancient Moche artists created an exceptional level of ceramic art over 1,500 years ago when this culture prospered along the arid north coast of Peru. They produced realistic three-dimensional ceramic forms of people and animals, and they decorated vessels with exquisite fine-line drawings. Several aspects of Moche ceramics recently caught my interest, especially the realistic ceramic animals and the drawings of supernatural creatures.
Many ancient cultures revered red, the color of blood and historically associated with danger, courage, and sacrifice. Thousands of years ago in South America, ancient Andean artists happened upon an extremely vivid red dye: cochineal. The use of cochineal continues today, along with lots of controversy.
In the past century, manufacturing nitrogen fertilizers with ammonia has been explosive (even literally...). Increases in crop production from manufactured fertilizers have benefited tens of millions of people. Unfortunately, this fertilizer produces tremendous waste in an inefficient process that is highly polluting; we could lower global use with alternative methods. Over 500 years ago, the Incas implemented laws to conserve their valuable guano fertilizer.
