[Sci-tech-public] MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History, October 6, 2006

[Margo Collett]

MIT Seminar on Environmental
and Agricultural History


“The Moon’s Vagina and the First Guano 
Lords:  Fertilizer and Fertility in Premodern Peru”

Gregory T. Cushman
Assistant Professor of International Environmental History
University of Kansas

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.

Friday, October 6, 2006
2:30 to 4:30 pm
Building E51 Room 275

Sponsored by MIT’s History Faculty and the 
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
For more information or to be put on the mailing 
list, please contact Margo Collett at <mailto:mcollet at mit.edu>mcollett at mit.edu
For location visit http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg
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