Join us for a Laboratory of Archaeology Talk with Dr. Lauren Pratt (UCLA)
Co-sponsored by UBC Latin American Studies
Eyebrow of the Jungle: Adaptation and Subsistence in Peru’s Tropical Montane Cloud Forests, 5,500-1,000 cal BP
When and Where
February 27, 10AM – 11AM
Borden Research Room, MOA, 6393 NW Marine Drive
Abstract:
The Peruvian eastern Andes, set between the lowland Amazon rainforest and the Andean highlands, have long been recognized as an important region for highland-lowland exchange and interaction, including the transmission of domesticated plants and animals. However, little direct evidence of early human foragers and the introduction of food production has been reported. In fact, the record of early groups in these tropical montane cloud forest environments is so scarce that some experts believe this landscape was too marginal to support substantial pre- and proto-agricultural populations. This presentation will present new evidence for foraging and food production in the eastern Andes between 5,500 and 1,000 years ago, and discuss potential explanatory models for how human adapted to and modified this supposedly “marginal” environment.
About Lauren Pratt
Dr. Pratt is a postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. She received her doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan in August 2024, with a dissertation titled “Human Ecology of the Early Prehistory of the Eastern Andes, Peru.” She employs a variety of approaches to investigate interactions between humans and their environment in the Peruvian eastern Andes, seeking to better understand the role this critically under-studied region has played in the transmission of people, goods, and ideas between the Andean highlands and the Amazon rainforest.
