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Long-Term Vulnerability and Resilience
8.3. Map of Mexico, with La Quemada indicated. Map by Will Russell.
addressing vulnerabilities—elements of a portfolio should have a somewhat
uncorrelated performance. The higher the probability that one element (crop,
trading partner, mutual fund) of the portfolio will perform well when another
is performing poorly, the higher the buffering against risk. On the other hand,
it is well-known that in simple feedback systems there are consequences associated
with a given choice of a portfolio aimed at coping with a particular range
of variability; that choice can also reduce the capacity to cope with variability
outside the target range (Anderies et al. 2007). As such, general “rules of
thumb” might not be all that generalizable or transferable between different
“experiments.”
To explore this tradeoff, we analyzed the consequences of diversifying
crops in prehispanic northern Mexico, focusing on conditions in the Malpaso
Valley area around the prehispanic center of La Quemada (figures 8.1, 8.2, 8.3).
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