Monday 20 September 2010

Paper Accepted

My last paper about Pre-Columbian agriculture has been accepted for publication on the Journal of Archaeological Science!!!
In the next days I will give you more details, it should go on-line on Sciencedirect quite soon.
Tomorrow I hope I will be able to leave the Beni for Santa Cruz. They have been burning the pampa for weeks and the air is so smoky that there is not enough visibility for the plains to land on Trinidad airport...
they are so crazy...and stupid!!! Because of the fire hundreds of hectares cultivated with cacao have been lost!!!
Anyway...life goes on...and I will probably take the bus :-(

Friday 10 September 2010

Confluence point - 14ºS 65ºW

http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?visitid=17219

On our way back from San Ramón to Trinidad we – a international and multidisciplinary team of young researchers from the University of Bern (Switzerland) – had the chance to reach one of the many unexplored confluence points within Bolivia.

With this we marked the first confluence point in the Llanos de Moxos, which contains the department of Beni. This is the region where we work reconstructing the landscape evolution. The Llanos de Moxos constitute the southwestern part of the Amazon Basin. The climate is characterized by two marked seasons: the rainy season from October to April, when precipitations can reach 500 mm per month, and the dry season with monthly precipitation of <50

From the main road we entered the Estancia “Curisal”. After getting the permission from the farm manager (“encargado”) we drove a few kilometers throughout the green ocean of “pampa”, only interrupted by some “Totaí” palms. Eventually, we reached the confluence point with our Tractor-like Land Cruiser (Model 2000; 4500cc). This confluence is maybe one of the easiest to reach – at least during the dry season.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

La "gallina" dalle uova extra-large



Uno dei precedenti post, quello che descrive come preparare una frittata Mojeña, ha suscitato una certa curiosità. Che "gallina" fa uova così grandi?
Eccovela: si chiama Rhea americana, nome locale piyù (si pronuncia pigliu) ed è il parente americano dello struzzo.