7 research outputs found
Naming a phantom – the quest to find the identity of Ulluchu, an unidentified ceremonial plant of the Moche culture in Northern Peru
The botanical identification of Ulluchu, an iconic fruit frequently depicted in the art of the pre-Columbian Moche culture that flourished from A.D. 100–800 on the Peruvian north coast, has eluded scientists since its documentation in ceramics in the 1930s. Moche fine-line drawings of Ulluchu normally depict seed-pods or seeds floating in the air in sacrificial scenes, associated with runners and messengers or intoxicated priests. It is a grooved, comma-shaped fruit with an enlarged calyx found mainly in fine-line scenes painted on Moche ceramics. The term first appeared without linguistic explanation in the work of pioneer Moche scholar Rafael Larco Hoyle, and the identification of the plant was seen as the largest remaining challenge in current archaebotany at the Peruvian North coast. The name Ulluchu seems to have been coined by Larco. According to his description, the name originated in the Virú River valley, and is supposedly of Mochica origin. However, there is no linguistic evidence that such a term indeed existed in the Mochica or Yunga language
Shadows of the colonial past – diverging plant use in Northern Peru and Southern Ecuador
This paper examines the traditional use of medicinal plants in Northern Peru and Southern Ecuador, with special focus on the Departments of Piura, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Cajamarca, and San Martin, and in Loja province, with special focus on the development since the early colonial period. Northern Peru represents the locus of the old Central Andean "Health Axis." The roots of traditional healing practices in this region go as far back as the Cupisnique culture early in the first millennium BC
The 1877–1878 El Niño episode: associated impacts in South America
ArtÃculo de publicación ISIAt times when attention on climate issues is strongly focused on the
assessment of potential impacts of future climate change due to the intensification of
the planetary greenhouse effect, it is perhaps pertinent to look back and explore the
consequences of past climate variability. In this article we examine a large disruption
in global climate that occurred during 1877–1878, when human influence was negligible.
The mechanisms explaining this global disturbance are not well established, but
there is considerable evidence that the major El Niño episode that started by the end
of 1876 and peaked during the 1877–1878 boreal winter contributed significantly to it.
The associated regional climate anomalies were extremely destructive, particularly
in the Northern Hemisphere, where starvation due to intense droughts in Asia,
South-East Asia and Africa took the lives of more than 20 million people. In
South America regional precipitation anomalies were typical of El Niño events, with
rainfall deficit and droughts in the northern portion of the continent as well as in
northeast Brazil and the highlands of the central Andes (Altiplano). In contrast,
anomalously intense rainfall and flooding episodes were reported for the coastal areas of southern Ecuador and Northern Perú, as well as along the extratropicalWest
coast of the continent (central Chile, 30◦ S–40◦ S), and in the Paraná basin in the
southeast region. By far the most devastating impacts in terms of suffering and loss
of life occurred in the semiarid region of northeast Brazil where several hundreds
of thousands of people died from starvation and diseases during the drought that
started in 1877.This research was sponsored in Chile by
Conicyt research grants Fondecyt Nâ—¦ 1000445 and Nâ—¦ 1040326, and ACT-19