麻豆淫院

Satellite images have revealed an ancient system of elaborate, funnel-shaped mega traps likely built by hunters and pastoralists to catch prey in the high altitudes of northern Chile.

New research on the Andean landscape and the people who lived there has identified 76 stone "chacus," often stretching hundreds of meters in length, that would have been used to capture vicu帽a, a wild relative of the alpaca.

Similar structures have been found in other arid regions of the world, including the Middle East, but this is the first time such a concentration has been discovered in the area, and it raises the possibility that they pre-date those known to have been used by the Inkas.

The study has also found evidence of settlements and outposts in the area known as the Western Valleys, establishing a high probability that it was home to foragers many centuries after it was believed people had adopted more settled agricultural social systems.

"There has long been a discrepancy between what archaeological and ethnohistorical records have told us about life in the Western Valleys of northern Chile during the colonial period," states Dr. Adri谩n Oyaneder from the University of Exeter.

"On the one hand, archaeological research has pointed to a gradual decline in hunting and gathering from 2,000 B.C. onwards with the introduction of domesticated plants and animals. But, historical sources, such as Spanish tax records from the 16th to the 19th centuries, refer to 'Uru' or 'Uro,' which was a generic term for foraging populations who were of little economic interest to the colonizers."

Using publicly available satellite data, Dr. Oyaneder examined a 4,600 square-kilometer area of the Camarones River Basin, focusing on upland areas that had hitherto remained little studied. Over four months, he identified a huge number of new sites of archaeological interest. His results are in the journal Antiquity.

Among the sites were 76 chacus, with the great majority being V-shaped traps formed by two "antennae" built from dry-stone walls, around 1.5 meters in height and on average 150 meters in length. These funneled down to an enclosure of around 95 square meters, which would have been dug or established to a depth of around two meters, sufficient to trap any animals driven into it by the hunters.

All the chacus were located on steep slopes, pointing downhill, with some employing natural topographical features to create one of the antennae. They were also at an altitude within the usual range of the vicu帽a.

"My reaction when I saw the first chacu was to double and even triple check it," says Dr. Oyaneder. "Initially, I thought it was a bit of a unique occurrence, but as I progressed with my survey, I realized that they were everywhere in the highlands and in a quantity never previously recorded in the Andes.

"And then when I began to read papers and books around the subject, particularly by Th茅r猫se Bouysse-Cassagne and Olivia Harris, there was reference to the choquela, specialized vicu帽a hunting groups, and words referring specifically to chacu hunting people and chacu hunters."

Dr. Oyaneder identified almost 800 small-scale settlements, ranging from single buildings of no more than 1 square meter to groups of nine or more structures. These were plotted using GIS and grouped into likely clusters linked to nearby chacus and other settlements, all within a 5 km distance. Images were captured by automated flight at an average height of 60 meters above the surface and they were processed with .

"The picture that emerges is of a landscape occupied by a range of human groups from at least 6000 B.C. to the 18th century," Dr. Oyaneder concludes. "These groups moved strategically across the highlands, tethered primarily to hunting resources, particularly vicu帽a.

"The evidence indicates overlapping lifeways, combining hunting-gathering with agropastoral practices, and a network of short-term seasonal settlements and outposts to help people move across rugged and difficult terrain."