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<div align="center"><b><i>MIT Seminar on Environmental <br>
and Agricultural History<br>
<br>
</i></b> <br>
<b><i>“The Moon’s Vagina and the First Guano Lords: Fertilizer and
Fertility in Premodern Peru”<br>
</i></b> <br>
Gregory T. Cushman<br>
Assistant Professor of International Environmental History <br>
University of Kansas<br>
</div>
<b> <br>
This vividly illustrated presentation will investigate the importance of
the marine environment in ancient and early colonial Peru. It will
focus on the religious, ecological, and sociopolitical significance of
guano (marine bird excrement) and contrast this to Peru's modern
relationship with the ocean. It will use archaeological evidence,
iconography, myths, and other ethnohistorical sources including a
16th-century document found underneath 18 feet of guano (pictured) to
interpret the meaning of marine creatures and the El Niño phenomenon to
Peru's coastal indigenous civilizations.<br><br>
<div align="center">Friday, October 6, 2006<br>
2:30 to 4:30 pm<br>
Building E51 Room 275<br>
</b> <br>
Sponsored by MIT’s History Faculty and the Program in Science,
Technology, and Society<br>
For more information or to be put on the mailing list, please contact
Margo Collett at
<a href="mailto:mcollet@mit.edu">mcollett@mit.edu</a><br>
For location visit
<a href="http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg" eudora="autourl"><u>
http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg<br>
</a></u></div>
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