Society for American Archaeology Review Author(s): Monica Barnes Review by: Monica Barnes Source: Latin American Antiquity, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 85-86 Published by: Society for American Archaeology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/971602 Accessed: 27-07-2015 18:14 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected].
Society for American Archaeology is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Latin American Antiquity.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 216.73.244.41 on Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:14:38 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
-
-
S Edited by John R. Topic
Obrashidraulicasen Americacolonial. Compiled by EL CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS HISTORICOSDE OBRASPUBLICASY URBANISMO (CEHOPU).Ministeriode ObrasPublicas,Transportes,y MedioAmbiente(Espana),Madrid,1993. 360 pp., 270 illustrations, most in color, references, notes, catalog of the exhibit, 24 pp. separada:E1aguaen el mundo antiguo.Priceunknown (cloth). Reviewedby Monica Barnes,CornellUniversity. Spain is an arid land. In many of its regions only sparsehuman populationscan be supportedwithout sophisticatedwaterdeployment.Nevertheless, in ancientand medieval times Iberiawas not only habitable, but a region of great economic value, thanks to its position at the forefrontof Mediterraneantechnology.Evidencecan be seen scattered about the Spanishcountrysidewhere Roman, Islamic, and medieval Christian canals, bridges, dams, aqueducts,filtrationgalleries,and mills survive.
Accustomedto irrigation,potable urbanwater, and water power, SpaniardsappreciatedNative American irrigationtechniques. Sunken agriculturalfieldsin desertPeruwerea realityconsidered as marvelousas the fantasiesin novels of chivalry. While they often preserved, and sometimes usurped indigenous water delivery systems, hispanic engineershad much to add. Their superior knowledgeof mechanicsenabledthem to raisewater by means of the syphon, the noria,and the pump. An understandingof gearing meant that waterflow could be harnessedto power industrial processes such as forging, grinding, sawing, and paperproduction.Analogousnative processesrequiredmuch more handlabor.Masteryofthe arch greatly facilitated tunnel construction and the building of high aqueducts. Iberians began rearrangingAmerican regimes almost upon their arrival. In 1493 King Fernandoorderedthat a canal builderbe sent to the New World(p. 34). In 1511
undergrounddrains, supportedby brick arcades, were constructedfor Santo Domingo. Nevertheless,archaeologistsworkingin the hispanic New World, especially in South America, are seldom awareof the extent and sophistication of colonial Spanish water management.Rather, Iberians are often seen as poor farmers, craftsworkers,and urbanplanners,capableof destroyingindigenoussystems,but not of conserving,augmenting, or replacing them. Fortunately,water control was a matter of paramountlegal importance to Iberianand Africansettlers.Drawingon the extensive corpusof Roman, Islamic, and medieval Christianlaw and experience,they maintained good recordsof their wateruse, and much of this documentation has survived. Although sometimes difficult to date, physical remains of Spanish waterworkscan still be found on the groundin both North and South America. Preciselybecauseit is hardto make culturaland temporalassignmentsfor many such remains,archaeologistsworking in relevant areas must understandthe possibilitiespresentedby Spanishengineering. The book under review should help enormously. Much Spanish technical knowledge was presentedgraphicallyand can still be studied directly,throughprimarysources. Obrashidraulicasen Americacolonialis the catalog of an exhibition on the theme held in 1993 in Madrid'sCentroCulturalde la Villa. The book includes 12 scholarly essays that range in time from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century and cover the New World from Mexico to Chile. These are, for the most part, useful summaries, althoughup-to-date referencesare conspicuously lackingin several cases. Vega Cardenas'sdiscussion of Peru'snorthcoasthas no citationlaterthan 1983 and institutionalaffiliationsare equally out of date. Severalcontributions(by BartolomeBennassar,by Alain Musset, and by RobertoMoreno de los Arcos) focus on the drainageof the Valley of Mexico. As is well known, sophisticatedindigenous exploitation of the valley's lacustrine environments was made largely impossible by the
85
This content downloaded from 216.73.244.41 on Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:14:38 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
86
LATIN AMERICANANTIOUITY
[Vol. 6, No. 1, 1995]
Spaniards'refusalto maintain Mexico City as an is the Archivo Generaldel Peru,which houses the "AmericanVenice."Here the Prehispanicand co- recordsof Lima'scolonialwatercourt,the Juzgado lonial water regimes probably differ more pro- de Aguas. Admittedly, the majority of its docufoundly from one another than anywhereelse in ments are not especiallyphotogenic.On the other the Spanish New World, with the exception of hand, what is includedin the exhibitionand book Potosi. Otheressays explore colonial wateruse in can greatlyextend an Americanist'sknowledgeof Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, archives and their contents. I would never have Potosi, Mendoza, and Chile. thoughtto searchthe Bibliotecade Catalunafor a The unique strengthof Obrashidraulicaslies in hand-drawnplan of the water regime of Trujillo its many illustrations,most clear enough so that in Peru. Obras hidraulicasis an essential introintegralwritten commentary can be read. High- duction to primary sources on Spanish colonial lights include late-sixteenth-century schematic watermanagementand should be studiedby both plansof Mexicantowns andregions(pp.220-229). archaeologistsand historians. These employ interestingcombinationsof central Mexican and European illustrative techniques. Eighteenth-centurystudies of the chromaticscale Acha-2 y los origenesdel poblamientohumanoen by TadeusHaenke,housedin the Archiveof Mad- Arica. IVAN MUNOZ OVALLE,BERNARDO rid's Botanical Garden, representa step toward ARRIAZA TORRES,and ARTHUR AUFDERscientificcolorillustrationancestralto the Munsell HEIDE,editors. Universidadde Tarapaca,Chile, 1993. 169 pp., 36 figures,12 tables, glossary,bibscaleso oftenemployedby archaeologists(pp.23S liography. Availableby exchangeor donation(pa231). Until the late seventeenthcentury,engineers per). had the difficulttask of designingwithoutcalculus. Seventeenth-centurywater managementmanuals usually begin with instructionon general mathe- Reviewedby KarenWise, Natural History Musematical concepts, sometimes incorrectly ex- um of Los Angeles County. plained.Althoughit was understoodsince Roman times that water volume is a combined function The ArchaicPeriod on the south-centralAndean of velocity, time, and the size of the pipe through coast is a complex and fascinatingera notable for which it flows, only the latter two factors were the developmentof earlycoastal settlements,speconsideredin colonial Americanwaterapportion- cializedfishingtechnology,and the elaboratemorment. An interesting,and typical guide for regu- tuary treatmentof the Chinchorrotradition.Unlating water is a chart of Seville's officialpipe di- fortunately,the different features of the archaeameters, based upon the sizes of common coins ologyofthe ArchaicPeriodin this regionarerarely (pp. 214-215). There are also photographsof sur- studied together,and few comprehensivereports viving engineeringprojects,both in Spain and in exist for the importantsites dating to this period. the New World, and many irrigationdiagrams, This volume is an attempt to bring together the archaeologyand physical anthropologyof Achamaps, and plans. In spite of this wealth of detail, Obras hidrau- 2, and to discussthis importantsite in the context licas has importantlacunae.The New Worldpres- of the regional archaeologyof the coast and the ence of systems known as qanats, viajesde agua, highlands. The editors of the volume are an arpuquios, or filtrationgalleries is denied (p. 240). chaeologist (Munoz), a physical anthropologist These However, by Independencedozens of qanat-type (Arriaza),and a pathologist(AuEderheide). waterworksfunctionedin Mexico,Peru,and Chile, researchers,and the contributing authors, have and many, most notably at Tehuacan,Nazca, and provideda wealth of new data and previouslyunPica, still work. Plans of the drainageof the Basin publishedinformationabout this and other early of Mexico make it clear that an identical tech- sites, as well as Spanishlanguageversionsof some nology of sloping tunnels, ventilated by vertical data presentedelsewhere. Acha-2 is one of the earliestvillage sites known shafts,was employed there (pp. 59-63, 292-299), as it was in the drainageand ventilation of mines from the Andeancoast. The site was excavatedin 1980, and describedin a 1982 report(Munoz and (pp. 302-305). Certaingaps might be attributedto the fact that Chacama,DocumentosdeTrabajo2:3-96,1982). important depositories of colonial water records Additional work was conducted in 1988 and in were not tapped for the exhibition. One exclusion 1990. The site containsthe remainsof 11 circular
This content downloaded from 216.73.244.41 on Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:14:38 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
