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1576 Cocoliztli Epidemic
The Cocoliztli Epidemic or the Great Pestilence was an outbreak of a mysterious illness characterized by high fevers and bleeding which caused millions of deaths in New Spain during the 16th-century. The Aztec people called it ''cocoliztli'', Nahuatl for pestilence. It ravaged the Mexican highlands in epidemic proportions, resulting in the demographic collapse of some Indigenous populations. Based on the death toll, this outbreak is often referred to as the worst epidemic in the history of Mexico. Subsequent outbreaks continued to baffle both Spanish and native doctors, with little consensus among modern researchers on the pathogenesis. However, recent bacterial genomic studies have suggested that Salmonella, specifically a serotype of ''Salmonella enterica'' known as Paratyphi C, was at least partially responsible for this initial outbreak. Others believe ''cocoliztli'' was caused by an indigenous viral hemorrhagic fever, perhaps exacerbated by the worst droughts to affect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It has a territorial extension of , and its population was estimated at 29 million in 2022. The capital and largest urban agglomeration is the city of Caracas. The continental territory is bordered on the north by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Colombia, Brazil on the south, Trinidad and Tobago to the north-east and on the east by Guyana. The Venezuelan government maintains a claim against Guyana to Guayana Esequiba. Venezuela is a federal presidential republic consisting of 23 states, the Capital District and federal dependencies covering Venezuela's offshore islands. Venezuela is among the most urbanized countries in Latin America; the vast majority of Venezuelans live in the cities of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dendroclimatology
Dendroclimatology is the science of determining past climates from trees (primarily properties of the annual tree rings). Tree rings are wider when conditions favor growth, narrower when times are difficult. Other properties of the annual rings, such as maximum latewood density (MXD) have been shown to be better proxies than simple ring width. Using tree rings, scientists have estimated many local climates for hundreds to thousands of years previous. By combining multiple tree-ring studies (sometimes with other climate proxy records), scientists have estimated past regional and global climates. Advantages Tree rings are especially useful as climate proxies in that they can be well-dated via dendrochronology, i.e. matching of the rings from sample to sample. This allows extension backwards in time using deceased tree samples, even using samples from buildings or from archeological digs. Another advantage of tree rings is that they are clearly demarked in annual increments, as op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpacas
The alpaca (''Lama pacos'') is a species of South American camelid mammal. It is similar to, and often confused with, the llama. However, alpacas are often noticeably smaller than llamas. The two animals are closely related and can successfully crossbreed. Both species are believed to have been domesticated from their wild relatives, the vicuña and guanaco. There are two breeds of alpaca: the Suri alpaca and the Huacaya alpaca. Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of Southern Peru, Western Bolivia, Ecuador, and Northern Chile at an altitude of above sea level. Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, they were not bred to be working animals, but were bred specifically for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, similar to sheep's wool. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles, and ponchos, in South America, as well as sweaters, soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Llamas
The llama (; ) (''Lama glama'') is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era. Llamas are social animals and live with others as a herd. Their wool is soft and contains only a small amount of lanolin. Llamas can learn simple tasks after a few repetitions. When using a pack, they can carry about 25 to 30% of their body weight for 8 to 13 km (5–8 miles). The name ''llama'' (in the past also spelled "lama" or "glama") was adopted by European settlers from native Peruvians. The ancestors of llamas are thought to have originated from the Great Plains of North America about 40 million years ago, and subsequently migrated to South America about three million years ago during the Great American Interchange. By the end of the last ice age (10,000–12,000 years ago), camelids were extinct in North America. As of 2007, there were over seven million llamas and alpacas in South America and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals who are raised for consumption, and sometimes used to refer solely to farmed ruminants, such as cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Horses are considered livestock in the United States. The USDA classifies pork, veal, beef, and lamb (mutton) as livestock, and all livestock as red meat. Poultry and fish are not included in the category. The breeding, maintenance, slaughter and general subjugation of livestock, called '' animal husbandry'', is a part of modern agriculture and has been practiced in many cultures since humanity's transition to farming from hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Animal husbandry practices have varied widely across cultures and time periods. It continues to play a major economic and cultural role in numerous communities. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoonosis
A zoonosis (; plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion) that has jumped from a non-human (usually a vertebrate) to a human. Typically, the first infected human transmits the infectious agent to at least one other human, who, in turn, infects others. Major modern diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses. HIV was a zoonotic disease transmitted to humans in the early part of the 20th century, though it has now evolved into a separate human-only disease. Most strains of influenza that infect humans are human diseases, although many strains of bird flu and swine flu are zoonoses; these viruses occasionally recombine with human strains of the flu and can cause pandemics such as the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu. '' Taenia solium'' infection is one of the neglected tropical diseases with public health and veterinary concern i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgin Soil Epidemic
Virgin soil epidemic is a term coined by Alfred Crosby, who defined it as epidemics "in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless." His concept is related to that developed by William McNeill, who connected the development of agriculture and more sedentary life with the emergence of new diseases as microbes moved from domestic animals to humans. Virgin soil epidemics have occurred with European colonization, particularly when European explorers and colonists brought diseases to lands they conquered in the Americas, Australia and Pacific Islands. The concept would later be adopted wholesale by Jared Diamond as a central theme in his popular book '' Guns, Germs and Steel'' as an explanation for successful European expansion. When a population has not had contact with a particular pathogen, individuals in that population have not built up any immunity to that organism an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reducciones
Reductions ( es, reducciones, also called ; , pl. ) were settlements created by Spanish rulers and Roman Catholic missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such reductions were also called ''aldeias''. The Spanish and Portuguese relocated, forcibly in many cases, indigenous inhabitants (''Indians'' or ''Indios'') of their colonies into urban settlements modeled on those in Spain and Portugal. The word "reduction" can be understood wrongly as meaning "to reduce." Rather, the 1611 Spanish dictionary by Sebastián de Covarrubias defines ''reducción'' (reduction) as "to convince, persuade, or to order." The goals of reductions were to concentrate indigenous people into settled communities and to convert the Indians to Christianity and impose European culture. The concentration of the indigenous into towns facilitated the organization and exploitation of their labor. Reductions could be either relig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florentine Codex
The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''The Universal History of the Things of New Spain''). After a translation mistake, it was given the name ''Historia general de las Cosas de Nueva España''. The best-preserved manuscript is commonly referred to as the ''Florentine Codex'', as the codex is held in the Laurentian Library of Florence, Italy. In partnership with Nahua men who were formerly his students at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, Sahagún conducted research, organized evidence, wrote and edited his findings. He worked on this project from 1545 up until his death in 1590. The work consists of 2,400 pages organized into twelve books; more than 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists provide vivid images of this era. It documents the culture, religious cosmolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernardino De Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529. He learned Nahuatl and spent more than 50 years in the study of Aztec beliefs, culture and history. Though he was primarily devoted to his missionary task, his extraordinary work documenting indigenous worldview and culture has earned him the title as “the first anthropologist."Arthur J.O. Anderson, "Sahagún: Career and Character" in Bernardino de Sahagún, ''Florentine Codex: The General History of the Things of New Spain, Introductions and Indices'', Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles Dibble, translators. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1982, p. 40.M. León-Portilla, ''Bernardino de Sahagún: The First Anthropologist'' (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2002), pp. He also contributed to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toribio De Benavente Motolinia
Toribio of Benavente, O.F.M. (1482, Benavente, Spain – 1565, Mexico City, New Spain), also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary who was one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His published writings are a key source for the history and ethnography of the Nahuas of central Mexico in the immediate post-conquest period as well as for the challenges of Christian evangelization. He is probably best known for his attacks on the Dominican defender of the rights of the indigenous peoples, Bartolomé de las Casas, who criticized the Conquest. Though agreeing with Las Casas's criticism of the abuses of the conquistadors, he did not agree with the whole sale condemnation of the Spanish Conquest, as well as his criticisms of the Franciscan practices of baptism en masse of the indigenous people of the new world. Due to these differences he went on to vilify Las Casas. Early life Toribio entered the Franciscan Order at the age of seven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
