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Responses to Explosive Volcanic Eruptions by Small to Complex Societies plicable climatic stresses and the disenchantment with extant belief systems may have facilitated that spread. Considerable research needs to be done before this could be considered compellingly demonstrated. Demographic factors, of course, are major components in people making themselves less or more vulnerable to disasters. The single most important element is the spectacular population explosion of recent centuries, so it is not surprising that the tolls in deaths and destruction increase annually. Obviously needed are population control and zoning to restrict habitation in known hazardous areas. Within this study sample there is only one area where population did not increase dramatically to near carrying capacity, and that was the Arenal area. In spite of carefully examining the cultural inventory (artifacts, features, architecture, subsistence, economy, political organization, and pattern of settlement) for any evidence of volcanically induced change, we could find none. And that was not because of a paucity of eruptions. In our archaeological-volcanological research we documented ten large eruptions (VEI 4) in almost 400 years, and the Smithsonian website documents evidence of many other eruptions over a longer time period. Arenal peoples must have generated considerable traditional knowledge about eruptions, societal responses, and reoccupations, in spite of—or more likely because of—their frequency. Are there lessons from the past that could inform us today Native peoples in so many areas of the world, over centuries or millennia, developed architecture that was appropriate to the perceived hazards and experienced disasters. Pole-and-thatch structures or those of bajareque (wattle and daub) withstand strong winds and major earthquakes. Such bajareque structures can be quite sizable and ample, with two stories and easily 2,000 to 3,000 square feet (186–279 m 2 ) in floor area. Even when the stress leads to strain that cannot be withstood and the walls shed the mudding, it causes little harm to inhabitants. However, with modernization, traditional architecture acquires an aura of backwardness, and people shift to unreinforced adobe or cinderblock architecture. Under usual conditions it survives and looks fine, but when it fails under earthquake stress it causes great injury and death. The reintroduction of traditional architecture under the guise of a new label with mystique, such as “Ceren architecture,” can provide protection. Such reintroduction into El Salvador has begun. We cannot encourage more than 6 billion people to revert to hunting and gathering or an Arenal-style sedentism and adaptation so they can maintain mobility in the face of disaster. But with the perspective furnished by archaeology, it appears to me that some of the great tragedies of the human experience in the past millennium are unfettered population explosion, loss of traditional environmental knowledge, and authorities’ irresponsibility. Packing more and more people onto the earth’s surface inevitably increases the tolls of death and destruction when disasters occur, in part by reducing the available options for 59
Payson Sheets successful mitigation. The need for birth control is patently obvious but tragically ignored. Given today’s dense populations, at a minimum land-use planning to decrease residence in known hazardous areas needs to become policy throughout the world, and it needs to be done in concert with family planning so future generations are not squeezed back into those dangerous zones. Dispersed nodes of experience and authority for decision-making need to be created in hierarchically organized societies. Thus when the centralized authority is either incapacitated or unable to assist, local groups can take over in disaster assistance and recovery. Acknowledgments. A robust expression of gratitude is appropriate for my colleagues who met in October 2009 at Eagle Hill, Maine, for a memorable working conference on global human ecodynamics. The discussions and presentations by Jago Cooper, Ben Fitzhugh, Dan Sandweis, Peggy Nelson, and Emily McClung de Tapia were particularly educational and stimulating for me. The conference was organized by Tom McGovern and supported by Anna Kertulla, Arctic Social Science Program, National Science Foundation. Anna’s support is warmly appreciated, and her willingness to work toward publication subvention is heartily acknowledged. The Volcanic Explosivity Indices used here to compare magnitudes of explosive eruptions are from the Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (http://www.volcano.si.edu/). Their compilations are greatly appreciated. Christine Dixon, Jago Cooper, and Ben Fitzhugh kindly gave an earlier version of this chapter a careful reading and provided numerous suggestions to clarify some otherwise rather opaque text. References Alexander, David 1995 A Survey of the Field of Natural Hazards and Disaster Studies. In Geographical Information Systems in Assessing Natural Hazards, ed. Alberto Carrara and Fausto Guzetti. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 1–19. 1997 The Study of Natural Disasters, 1977–1997: Some Reflections on a Changing Field of Knowledge. Disasters 21: 284–304. Black, Kevin 1983 The Zapotitan Valley Archaeological Survey. In Archeology and Volcanism in Central America: The Zapotitan Valley of El Salvador, ed. Payson Sheets. University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 62–97. Blong, R. J. 1982 The Time of Darkness: Local Legends and Volcanic Reality in Papua New Guinea. University of Washington Press, Seattle. 60
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Surviving Sudden Environmental Chan
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© 2012 by the University Press of
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Contents Chapter 5. Collation, Corr
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Thomas H. McGovern Maine, on Octobe
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Thomas H. McGovern as this excellen
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Thomas H. McGovern McGovern, Thomas
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Chapter Abstracts eruptions, earthq
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Chapter Abstracts this is so becaus
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Chapter Abstracts and concomitant f
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Chapter Abstracts Chapter 8 Long-Te
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Surviving Sudden Environmental Chan
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Payson Sheets and Jago Cooper The m
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Payson Sheets and Jago Cooper techn
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Payson Sheets and Jago Cooper The b
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Page 55 and 56: Ben Fitzhugh but reoccupation proce
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Page 131 and 132: Jago Cooper Summary and Future Rese
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Jago Cooper Goudie, Andrew 2006 The
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Jago Cooper Redman, Charles L., and
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Jago Cooper Understanding Hazards,
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Five Collation, Correlation, and Ca
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Collation, Correlation, and Causati
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Emily McClung de Tapia 6.1. Prehisp
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Emily McClung de Tapia the importan
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Emily McClung de Tapia remains, sug
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Emily McClung de Tapia 6.3. Erosion
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Emily McClung de Tapia construction
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Emily McClung de Tapia indigenous p
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6.4. Flooding of the major highway
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Emily McClung de Tapia D. Qin, M. M
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Emily McClung de Tapia Lounejeva-Ba
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Emily McClung de Tapia Rivera-Uria,
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Domination and Resilience in Bronze
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Nelson et al. Mexico (figure 8.1) t
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Nelson et al. 8.2. Images that illu
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Nelson et al. Specifically, we aske
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Nelson et al. its value in making a
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Nelson et al. 8.4). However, an ext
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Nelson et al. floodwater gave way t
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Nelson et al. 8.6. A Classic Mimbre
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Nelson et al. 3. Isolation can cont
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Nelson et al. Folke, Carl 2006 Resi
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Nelson et al. Tiempos Prehispánico
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Nelson et al. Turney, Omar 1929 Pre
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Nine Social Evolution, Hazards, and
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Social Evolution, Hazards, and Resi
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ten Global Environmental Change, Re
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Global Environmental Change, Resili
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Contributors David A. Abbott Arizon
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Contributors Jeffrey Quilter Harvar
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Index Bárdarbunga volcano, 72 Barr
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Index Hazards, 3, 6, 42, 92, 106, 2
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Index Paramushir Island, 25 Pastora
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Index social-ecological structure,
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