The Lamont Earth Science Colloquium presents:
Human Responses to El Niño on the Peruvian Coast: An Archaeological Perspective
with Dr. Daniel Sandweiss, Professor of Anthropology and Quaternary and Climate Studies, Cooperating Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences and Global Policy, The University of Maine.
El Niño/Southern Oscillation is a recurrent climatic phenomenon centered in the Pacific Basin. The coast of Peru is squarely within the impact zone for several flavors of ENSO. Humans have lived in this area for over 12,000 years and have been subject to ENSO impacts. Here, I discuss what happens in the region during different flavors of ENSO and what we know about how pre-contact people there responded to these events. Though long viewed as an unmitigated disaster, the Eastern Pacific El Niño (and the more recently identified Coastal El Niño) offer opportunities as well as adversity, and archaeologists have increasingly focused on indigenous inhabitants’ coping strategies. This may explain why the long-term demography of coastal Peru indicates overall growth trends and increasing socio-political complexity even across times of more frequent El Niño events.
Host: Dr. Kristina Douglass, Associate Professor of Climate, Columbia Climate School.
The Earth Science Colloquium Series, sponsored by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia University Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), provides a lively forum for discussing a wide variety of topics within the Earth sciences and related fields. Colloquia are attended by the full range of scientific and technical staff at LDEO. Colloquium attendance is required of all pre-orals DEES graduate students. The Colloquium Series supports the Lamont Seminar Diversity Initiative.
