. The ... biennial report. Field Museum of Natural History. 10. and development of political systems that culminated in the long reign of Tiwanaku, and its decline before the rise of the Inca about 1450 With teams of and Peruvian students, he has so far uncovered 450 new archae- ological sites that reveal evidence of six different cultures. There is some hope that the amazingly productive terraced agriculture can be reintroduced by the current residents of the area, the Aymara Indians.*** The Love of El Nino, and the Fear of Goats It hardly ever rains in the coastal deserts of Peru a
. The ... biennial report. Field Museum of Natural History. 10. and development of political systems that culminated in the long reign of Tiwanaku, and its decline before the rise of the Inca about 1450 With teams of and Peruvian students, he has so far uncovered 450 new archae- ological sites that reveal evidence of six different cultures. There is some hope that the amazingly productive terraced agriculture can be reintroduced by the current residents of the area, the Aymara Indians.*** The Love of El Nino, and the Fear of Goats It hardly ever rains in the coastal deserts of Peru and Chile. Life is sustained there by seasonal fogs from which plants condense moisture. Even a few species of bromeliads endure the spare environment, like their neighbors, by condensing moisture on their leaves and roots, while their numerous relatives in wetter climates collect water in specialized leaf bases that form a tank. These tanks provide aquatic environ- ments capable of sustaining other organisms such as small frogs, snails, or insects. But Field Museum botanist Michael O. Dillon, on a collecting trip in the Chilean Atacama Desert, found some bromeliads over three feet tall growing on a steep cliff about a thousand feet above sea level. The site was inaccessible; Dillon had to use a rope lasso to bring one down — and was surprised to receive a small shower when the plant was uprooted! It proved to be a previously undescribed species that had managed to retain a functioning tank in the desert. All individuals in the area contained substantial amounts of water, some as much as a pint, even though there had been no rain lor more than a year. In the desert, that much water makes a tempting target for any herbivore. Dillon has concluded that the plant is most closely related not to nearby species but to bromeliads of the genus Tillandsia that grow in tropical savannas and cloud forests from. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may
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