Evidence of Prehistoric Irrigation in Northern Ecuador

Abstract

Field evidence for the existence of irrigation at a late pre-Inca site in northern Ecuador is examined. The implications of irrigation agriculture are examined with respect to the probable level of socio-political complexity. It is concluded that the pre-Inca societies of northern Ecuador were more stable and more clearly stratified than had been suspected previously. They were, therefore, an attractive addition to the Inca Empire which was unwilling or unable to conquer the jungle tribes only a few kilometers from its capital.     

Multi-Ethnic Settlement and Interregional Exchange in Pimampiro,Ecuador

Abstract

This paper reports on recent archaeological investigations at the sites of Shanshipampa and La Mesa in the Pimampiro district of northern Ecuador, a zone rich in archaeological resources about which relatively little is known. Within the context of Andean archaeology, this region is particularly significant insofar as it is described in early historic accounts as an important center of interregional trade. The role of trade in the shaping of ethnic identity and the evolution of complex societies has received relatively little attention in Andean scholarship. The present study expands our understanding of the modes, content, and significance of interregional interaction in the Andes by directing attention to the evidence for long-distance trade, trans-zonal connections, and multi-ethnic settlement in the northern highlands.     

A Sydney and Melbourne comparison of intra-urban differentials in unemployment rates

This article reports on multiple regression analyses of unemployment rates in the local government areas of Sydney and Melbourne which show that the spatial inequalities in unemployment risks may be greater in Sydney than in Melbourne. It explores the reasons for the difference and their implications for future trends in spatial inequalities.     

Changes in unemployment differentials in Sydney, 1947–76

This paper describes the historical development of spatial patterns of male and female unemployment rates within Sydney at each census year from 1947 to 1976, with two objectives: firstly to review the predictions of traditional urban theory that unemployment will be high in inner city areas because of the workforce characteristics of the residents; secondly, to assess the impact of the decentralisation of firms.     

Race,state and nation in early twentieth century Ecuador*

ABSTRACT. This article aims to explore the ways in which the tensions involved in nation‐building and state consolidation during the half‐century following the Liberal Revolution of 1895 in Ecuador were refracted through the locus of race and the manipulation of racial ideologies. It centres the state as the primary motor of nation‐building and racialisation, arguing that nation‐building and state formation in Ecuador operated in close conjunction, and that race was central to each. Through case studies of citizenship, education and the integration of territory and resources, it explores how state discourse and policy shaped the racial boundaries of national inclusion, and how these were negotiated and contested by subalterns at the level of the state.     

Obsidian provenance studies in Colombia and Ecuador: obsidian sources revisited

The field occurrences, elemental compositions and formation ages of Colombian and Ecuadorian obsidians are revisited. It is shown that the regional sources of this raw material are linked to two major volcanic structures: the Chacana and the Paletara calderas, localised on the eastern cordillera of Ecuador and on the central Andean cordillera of south Colombia respectively. Seventy-two samples were analysed by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and/or particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE). The same 10 types of elemental compositions were identified independently from ICP and PIXE. Four of these types were previously unknown. The formation ages of these obsidians previously determined by fission tracks dating are in the range 0.17–1.58 Ma at Chacana and 3.46–4.27 Ma at Paletara. Most Colombian and Ecuadorian pre-Hispanic artefacts present elemental compositions compatible with a Chacana- or Paletara-derived origin of the raw material. However, some of them present fission track ages discordant with the present-day known obsidian occurrences, which implies that the regional source inventory is not yet exhaustive.     

Requiem for the Net Migrant

Despite recent research that has demonstrated the clear superiority of a multiregional perspective in measuring and projecting the dynamics of internal migration flows, many scholars continue to adopt the uniregional perspective that is forced to focus on net migrants, a nonexistent category of individuals. Net migration models are misspecified because the rates that they use confound changing migration propensities with changing population stocks. Moreover, they obscure regularities in age profiles of migration and thereby further misspecify the spatial dynamics generating observed settlement patterns. Thus, the use of the net migration rate as the dependent variable in explanatory models of migration can produce a misspecification of the fundamental relationships that are the subject of inquiry. This paper considers deficiencies of the net migration concept and illustrates them with numerical examples.     

Requiem for the Fixed-Transition-Probability Migrant

In a recent paper titled “Requiem for the Net Migrant” Andrei Rogers persuasively argues for the use of a multiregional perspective rather than a uniregional one in measuring and projecting the dynamics of internal migration. In particular, he highlights the deficiencies of using net migration rates in population projections, giving illustrations of the very large differences that can occur if constant net migration rates are assumed versus fixed interregional transition probabilities. Net migration rates are conceptually unsound because their denominators are not true “at-risk” populations. Fixed interregional transition probabilities, however, are inconsistent with a sound behavioral representation of migration system dynamics. Whereas such stationary Markov models posit a role for shifting origin region populations, they do not embed the assumptions intrinsic to gravity or opportunity model concepts about the role of changing destination region populations. This paper explores alternative, more behaviorally pleasing interregional models that posit a role for shifting destination populations in altering the attractiveness of migration alternatives. Density-dampened, destination-population-weighted transition probability structures are explored. The importance of modeling intraregional migration separately from nonmovement is stressed.     

Constructions of Filipina Migrant Entertainers

While international labor migration from South and South-east Asia has received a considerable amount of attention in academic circles, a feminist discourse is largely ignored. This ignorance is reflected in a dearth of materials on women labor migrants, as well as explicit considerations of gender. Discussions of Filipina migrant entertainers commonly emphasize poverty as the primary determinant of their movement. Evidence does suggest that unemployment in the Philippines has contributed to their search for overseas employment. However, this discourse has kept hidden other institutionalized forms of oppression that continuously and simultaneously affect Filipina migrant entertainers. In particular, the concrete realities of their gender, race, and nationality have been replaced by a reductionist overemphasis on economic factors. Through an examination of government and private institutions engaged in the recruitment, deployment, regulation, and protection of overseas contract workers, I identify and deconstruct four controlling images of Filipina migrant entertainers: the Other; the prostitute; the willing victim; and the heroine. I argue that these reflect the observer's intention, objectives, and motives in addressing the situation of Filipina migrant entertainers. Specifically, these representations of Filipina migrant entertainers have been socially constructed to rationalize and justify the existing material conditions encountered by the women. This analysis transcends more traditional migration studies that focus predominantly on a single factor- economics-to the exclusion of other interrelated aspects, such as gender, race, and nationality. The discussion addresses the epistemological foundations of how the migration of Filipina entertainers is contextualized.     

Cost,price, and revenue differentials in electricity supply: Queensland and Australia

Queenslanders consume relatively less but pay more for electricity than most Australians, a penalty surprising in a State with the nation's largest sources of energy. An explanation lies in the industry's relative youth and dynamic performance, strong post-war capitalisation, inherent monopoly organisation and the issue of product differentiation expressed in peak/off-peak pricing. Such matters pose particular problems in the Queensland market which is numerically small and areally dispersed. Examination of production and distribution economics reveals that Queensland fuel is presently not cheap and that some of the penalty derives from the strong capitalisation which the system is undergoing. Further pressures lie in the lack of scale economies and in financial policies of supply authorities such as spatial price equalisation. Many factors bear on future prices and predictions are difficult. Nevertheless Queensland's energy advantages should ensure that unless major change transforms the economic environment the price of electricity relative to that in other States falls during the next two decades.     

Trade and Social Complexity in Coastal Ecuador from Formative Times to European Contact

Abstract

The trajectories of social development in southern Manabí, Ecuador are reconstructed from the Formative period to European contact to clarify the role played by trade connections. The results of a systematic full-coverage survey suggest that increased interaction between southern Manabí societies and northern Peruvian states could have been an important factor behind the increase in social complexity in the study region beginning ca. A.D. 750. Unlike many models of social development, the archaeological data indicate that this was not an activity undertaken primarily by elite groups, but rather by the general population, which took advantage of the direct economic benefits of trade, particularly of Spondylus shell items.     

Provisioning of the Inka army in wartime: obsidian procurement in Pambamarca,Ecuador

Ninety-nine obsidian artifacts from fortified and non-fortified sites in the Pambamarca region of northern Ecuador were analyzed with XRF to examine patterns of procurement of obsidian by soldiers in the Inka army and by the local Cayambes who were resisting Inka conquest. The results show that the Inkas acquired material from several different sources, a pattern consistent with provisioning by subject peoples in partial fulfillment of labor obligations. The Cayambes also acquired material from multiple sources, although they may not have directly procured material from all of the sources because the external boundary of Inka territory bisected the region of obsidian sources. That frontier may have prevented the Inkas from accessing one source, Callejones, from which the Cayambes acquired some of their obsidian. In addition, the Inkas were acquiring some obsidian from the Yanaurco-Quiscatola source, which had been previously abandoned around AD 1000.     

Gendered Nations: Nostalgia,development and territory in Ecuador {1}

Drawing upon original substantive research, the paper argues for a consideration and analysis of the imagined geographies of gendered nations. Drawing upon Anne McClintock's work on temporality, the article proposes that a gendered spatiality underlies discourses of nationhood. Focusing particularly on national press and government reports over recent years in Ecuador, it is suggested that women appear in the national discourses around nostalgia, development and territory. While previous work has frequently noted the ambivalent position of women in the modern project of nationhood, the way in which this ambivalence is structured around place (and also significantly around 'race' and class) has not received as much attention. Geographers and feminists have not been as attuned as they might to the complex gendered imaginative geographies of the nation, and the multiple ways in which the nation constitutes gendered subjectivities.