Browsing by Author "Gayo, Eugenia"

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    Formative Period in Tarapaca (3000-1000 BP): Archeology, nature and culture in the Pampa del Tamarugal, Atacama Desert, northern Chile
    (CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2020) Uribe, Mauricio; Angelo, Dante; Capriles, Jose; Castro, Victoria; Eugenia de Porras, Maria; Garcia, Magdalena; Gayo, Eugenia; Gonzalez, Josefina; Jose Herrera, Maria; Izaurieta, Roberto; Maldonado, Antonio; Mandakovic, Valentina; Mcrostie, Virginia; Razeto, Jorge; Santana, Francisca; Santoro, Calogero; Valenzuela, Jimena; Vidal, Alejandra
    In this article, we illustrate the relationships that human societies established with their environment during the Formative period in the Pampa del Tamarugal (3000-1000 BP), Atacama Desert, Chile. We employed a theoretical-methodological perspective that emphasizes the explanatory potential of ecofacts. By mediating between humans and environment, this perspective provides a better understanding of how these societies constructed nature and culture. The purpose is to show that this process was part of a long history of rationalization of the desert, its resources, and the lived experience of the Formative communities that occupied that landscape. Therefore, we propose that this human intervention in Pampa del Tamarugal can be understood not only as an ecological and economic change but also a "cosmological" one.
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    Landscape Engineering Impacts the Long-Term Stability of Agricultural Populations
    (2021) Freeman, Jacob; Anderies, John M.; Beckman, Noelle G.; Robinson, Erick; Baggio, Jacopo A.; Bird, Darcy; Nicholson, Christopher; Finley, Judson Byrd; Capriles, Jose M.; Gil, Adolfo F.; Byers, David; Gayo, Eugenia; Latorre, Claudio
    Explaining the stability of human populations provides knowledge for understanding the resilience of human societies to environmental change. Here, we use archaeological radiocarbon records to evaluate a hypothesis drawn from resilience thinking that may explain the stability of human populations: Faced with long-term increases in population density, greater variability in the production of food leads to less stable populations, while lower variability leads to more stable populations. However, increased population stability may come with the cost of larger collapses in response to rare, large-scale environmental perturbations. Our results partially support this hypothesis. Agricultural societies that relied on extensive landscape engineering to intensify production and tightly control variability in the production of food experienced the most stability. Contrary to the hypothesis, these societies also experienced the least severe population declines. We propose that the interrelationship between landscape engineering and increased political-economic complexity reduces the magnitude of population collapses in a region.
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    The long memory of the land: Pre-colonial origins of Mapuche mobilization in Chile
    (2023) Alberti, Carla; Luna, Juan Pablo; Toro-Maureira, Sergio; Gayo, Eugenia
    We aim to explain the long-term territorial patterns of conflict across Mapuche communities in southern Chile. The Mapuche indigenous people have resisted external invasions by colonial settlers and the Chilean state for about five centuries. However, not all Mapuche communities have mobilized for their demands. While conflict between communities and external invaders has been a historical constant in certain areas, in others, Mapuche communities have remained largely passive. We explain subnational patterns of Mapuche mobilization by identifying path-dependent sequences -that range between conflictive and passive- that trace back to the social complexity of pre-colonial societies. Specifically, we claim that communities with stronger pre-colonial indigenous organization had a higher capacity to resist colonialism. Conversely, communities with weaker levels of organization had less capacity to mobilize to fend off colonialism. As a result, path-dependent sequences emerged, which persisted throughout the post-colonial period and explain the differing levels of conflict -or its absence- across Mapuche communities.