How Did Civilizations in the Andes Deal with Environmental Upheaval? Interview with Professor Jason Nesbitt

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The harsh, unforgiving conditions of the Andes and the nearby Pacific coastline make it one of the best places in the world to study the relationship between people and their environment. Professor Jason Nesbitt is an expert on the archaeology of the Andes and has extensively worked on how ancient people in the region organized themselves to deal with El Nino events and other climatic disasters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everybody from Wondery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History, actually the
0:13.5	100th episode of our prehistory season.
0:16.1	I'm Patrick Weimant, thanks for joining me.
0:18.9	At first glance, the Andes Mountains and the Dry Shorelines at the Pacific nearby don't
0:23.0	look like the most obvious place for some of the oldest complex societies in the world
0:26.8	to emerge.
0:27.8	Yet, more than 5,000 years ago, that's exactly what happened.
0:31.3	And over the succeeding millennia, the Andes have been home to a wide variety of sophisticated
0:35.4	cultures and states.
0:37.1	We're most familiar with the Inca Empire, but that was only the latest of a long sequence
0:40.9	dating back thousands of years.
0:43.6	Today's guest is going to help us get a handle on the beginnings of this sequence, especially
0:47.0	what are known as the initial period and the early horizon.
0:50.4	Jason Desbitt is an associate professor of anthropology at Tulane University, and he is
0:54.4	a specialist on the archaeology of the Andes in these periods.
0:58.0	His work covers a variety of topics, including the emergence of complex societies, stable isotope
1:02.7	analysis, and the interactions between people, culture, and their environments.
1:07.3	It's really cool stuff, and the implications will make you think hard about the present
1:10.6	as well as the past.
1:12.3	Professor Desbitt, thank you so much for joining me today.
1:15.2	Thank you, Patrick.
1:16.2	It's great to be here.
	...

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