The Aymara: Strategies in Human Adaptation to a Rigorous Environment (Studies in Human Biology, 2)

South America's Andean highlands have seen the rise and decline of several impressive, indigenous civilizations. Separated somewhat in time and place, each developed its distinctive socio-cultural accouterments but all shared a need to adjust to the individual, societal and environmental limitations imposed by life at high altitude. Partial oxygen pressure, temperature and humidity fall systematically as altitude rises, but there are other changes as well. Darwin, Forbes, von Humboldt, von Tschudi and other naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who weaved their way through South America commented repeatedly on the tolerance or apparent indifference of the indigenes to the rigors of life at altitudes above 3000 meters but its impact upon lowlanders. Von Tschudi (1847), for example, observed 'in the cordillera the effect of the diminished atmospheric pressure on the human frame shows itself in intolerable symptoms of weariness and an extreme difficulty of breathing . . . . The first symptoms are usually felt at the elevation of 12,600 feet (3800 m) above the sea. These symptoms are vertigo, dimness of sight and hearing, pains in the head and nausea . . . . Inhabitants of the coast and Europeans, who for the first time visit the lofty regions of the cordillera, are usually attacked with this disorder. ' But von Tschudi's description of acute mountain sickness was hardly the first; his Spanish predecessors had known and commented upon it too. Flora And Fauna / Angel E. Spotorno And Alberto Veloso -- Trace Metals / William J. Schull [and Others] -- The Aymará / Francisco Rothhammer -- Paleopathology / Marvin J. Allison -- Nutritional Characteristics Of The Aymará Of Northern Chile / Sara A. Barton [and Others] -- The Chilean Aymará And Their Reproductive Patterns / William J. Schull, Robert E. Ferrell And Sara A. Barton -- Ecologic Determinants Of The Health Of Aymará Children / Judith Mcfarlane -- Disease And Disability Among The Aymará / Biffret Díaz [and Others] -- Heterozygosity And Physical Growth In An Andean Population / William H. Mueller, Patricia Soto-heim And Victoria Schull -- Hearing And Hypoxia Among The Aymará / Julia K. Bailey And Betsy Weidman -- Altitude And Cardiopulmonary Relationships / William H. Weidman, Sara A. Barton And Vivian Lunny Lenart -- Oral Characteristics Of The Aymará / Hernán Palomino -- Intratribal Genetic Differentiation As Assessed Through Electrophoresis / Francisco Rothhammer, Ranajit Chakraborty And Robert E. Ferrell -- Ethnogenesis And Affinities To Other South American Aboriginal Populations / Francisco Rothhammer. Edited By William J. Schull And Francisco Rothhammer ; With Collaborating Editor, Sara A. Barton. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 219-242) And Index. Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction: The Place and the Study....Pages 1-18 Flora and Fauna....Pages 19-32 Trace Metals....Pages 33-44 The Aymara: An Outline of their Pre and Post-Columbian History....Pages 45-48 Paleopathology....Pages 49-61 Nutritional Characteristics of the Aymara of Northern Chile....Pages 63-74 The Chilean Aymara and their Reproductive Patterns....Pages 75-86 Ecologic Determinants of the Health of Aymara Children....Pages 87-100 Disease and Disability Among the Aymara....Pages 101-131 Heterozygosity and Physical Growth in an Andean Population....Pages 133-142 Hearing and Hypoxia Among the Aymara....Pages 143-165 Altitude and Cardiopulmonary Relationships....Pages 167-181 Oral Characteristics of the Aymara....Pages 183-191 Intratribal Genetic Differentiation as Assessed through Electrophoresis....Pages 193-201 Ethnogenesis and Affinities to other South American Aboriginal Populations....Pages 203-210 Epilogue....Pages 211-217 Back Matter....Pages 219-261 Northern Chile is a land of contrasts - verdant coastal valleys and soaring, perpetually snow-capped mountains separated by the formidable, rainless expanse of the Atacama desert.