Convergent Catastrophe and Human Response in the Central Andes
by
Michael E. Moseley
Department of Anthropology, University of Gainesville, Florida

Tectonics and ocean/atmosphere interaction characterize South America’s central Andean Cordillera as exceptionally dynamic and hazardous processes stressing Holocene populations include: volcanic eruptions, M 7> earthquakes, slow earthquakes and tectonic creep, uplift, protracted droughts, severe El Niño events, temperature fluctuations, river down-cutting, water-table subsidence, sand dune incursions, and sea-level fluctuations. Nonetheless, archaeological record exhibits substantial cultural continuity indicative of human resiliency. In part this is because disasters of tectonic and ocean-atmosphere origin generally transpire independently of one another and by striking different places at different times impacted populations can recover during intervening eras of relative stability. Yet, natural hazards also transpire concurrently or in close succession and, as with disease, when a population is struck by one catastrophe and then again by a second or third, survival becomes tenuous. Andean cases of cultural collapse tend to coincide with centenary droughts. Similar to AIDS, these protracted disasters depressed human response capabilities for contending with collateral catastrophes. The goearchaeology of convergent catastrophes and human responses are reviewed in this presentation.

Date received: July 23, 2002