Coastal People Research Articles

The peoples of the coast of Ecuador accommodate the Inca state

This paper evaluates ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence regarding the alleged Inca conquest of coastal Ecuador, discusses Inca state strategies, and explores the nature of the indigenous polities of the region in the period C.E. 1470–1532. Benzoni's interview with Cacique Colonchi around 1550 and the presence of an Inca-style aryballus in a tomb in the Colonchi Valley are suggestive of the ability of coastal peoples to resist and accommodate aggressors. To improve our understanding of this historical period, archaeologists must focus more research on the late prehistoric settlements of the western lowlands of Ecuador.

Stable Isotopic Evidence of Ancient Maya Diet at Caledonia, Cayo District, Belize

AbstractThe skeletal remains of 18 individuals interred at the ancient Maya site of Caledonia (100 to 1000 C.E.), located in the Cayo District of Belize, w ere sampled for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis in order to reconstruct their diet. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in 18 bone collagen samples and stable carbon isotope ratios in bioapatite from 15 bone and 6 tooth enamel samples were assessed. Small sample sizes precluded the assessment of dietary variation with respect to age, sex, social status or time period among the Caledonia Maya. However, the sampled individuals consumed a varied diet consisting of maize, supplemented with some C3 plants, terrestrial herbivores and/or lower order freshwater resources such as snails and molluscs and possibly maize‐fed animals. This dietary variability with an emphasis on maize is unsurprising given the biological diversity surrounding the site and the known importance of this crop to the ancient Maya. As expected, the isotopic values from Caledonia are similar to those from nearby sites from similar time periods. However, four individuals exhibit a marine dietary signature, possibly indicating inland trade of marine resources from coastal sites, or the migration of coastal people to Caledonia. This study demonstrates the validity of sampling small, fragmented collections from minor Maya centres in order to gain valuable insight into ancient Maya dietary practices. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Building Global Social Capital through Social Science and Liberal Arts Education in the New Media Age: A Comprehensive Approach to Mitigate World Disasters

Liberal Arts education has a strong emphasis on the utilization of human and social capital in addressing people's needs and identifying credible solutions both locally and globally. Similarly, social science education provides applied learning through community organization approach. For example, a case study of Bangladesh mentioned in the world press is an extremely successful community based model for disaster prone regions of the world. This article explores disaster preparedness by incorporating social capital theory in higher education combined with new media for applied practice experience in times of disasters. Throughout history, the coastal people of Bangladesh have contended with natural disasters of epic scale. The results have ranged from heavy losses of human lives and cattle, to property damage worth billions of dollars. In 1966, the International Federation of Red Cross and the Swedish Red Cross Society helped by implementing a pilot scheme for Cyclone Preparedness Program (CPP) in the disaster prone areas of Bangladesh to strengthen the capacity of the coastal people through sustained training activities. This article is based on CPP to understand the context and process that helps to reduce damages as a result of natural disasters in coastal Bangladesh. The article highlights how CPP of Bangladesh Red Cross society developed its social capital to respond effectively saving lives and properties before, during, and after natural disaster. This article educates the reader about how to integrate disaster perspectives in developing courses for their social science and liberal arts curricula, and link it with social networking websites through new media to build social capital, exploring further opportunities to strengthen disaster mitigation and preparedness.

Coastal People Activity on Mangrove Forest Rehabilitation in Mahakam Estuary

Present condition shows that balance and environmental sustainability of mangrove forests in Mahakam Estuary (Delta Mahakam) area has changed which can result negative effect on people activity of coastal communities. Destruction of mangrove forest is caused by intervention and rapid population growth, especially in coastal areas, which result land use change and excessive utilization of natural resources. This condition can lead to degradation of mangrove forest. In order to rehabilitate mangrove forest, active participation from coastal community is needed. In this regard, this research was carried out in order to assess the perception and participation as well as strategies that can be implemented to improve community participation on mangrove forest rehabilitation. The research was conducted in five villages (Saliki, Salo Palai, Muara Badak Ulu, Muara Badak Ilir and Tanjung Limau), Formulation strategies was carried out using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) method through Focus Group Discussion which combined with Analytical Hierarchy Process to determine the priority of alternative strategies and policies on mangrove forest rehabilitation. The analysis shows that social factor which influences community’s participation towards the rehabilitation of coastal mangrove forest is perception variable. Strategy which is expected to improve community participation in mangrove rehabilitation activities is carried out by optimizing the strength factor and take advantage from the opportunities (Strengths Opportunities Quadrant Strategy). Based on formulated strategies, it can be obtained four priority alternatives which can be implemented to improve coastal community participation, i.e.: 1) Development of rural participatory for mangrove nursery; 2) Generates positive perception on the strengthening coastal communities about the advantage and functions of mangrove forests; 3) control upon re-vegetation and restoration of coastal areas resources which suffer from degradation and deforestation; and 4) Accelerate the establishment of Guidance Unit Team and Technical Guidance Unit of Mangrove Forest.

‘Singwaya was a mere small station’: Islamization and ethnic primacy in Digo oral traditions of origin and migration

The oral tradition about Singwaya as a place of origin and the subsequent migration from there is a frequent topic in discussions of the ethnic orientation of the coastal people of Kenya. As these people have undergone social change over time, their oral traditions concerning Singwaya have similarly seen changes and shifts. This article aims at interpreting how the dynamic realities of social transition undergone by the Digo of the south coast of Kenya are articulated in their oral traditions of origin and migration. The analysis centres on the effects of Islamization and the claims of ethnic primacy observed in the present versions of Digo oral traditions. While the vast majority of the Digo have become Muslims, their socio-economic and political status has been marginalized in post-independence Kenya. Their experiences and sentiments in the shifting conditions of the coastal society have been reflected in their oral traditions.

Challenges for marine spatial planning in the context of multiple sea uses, policy arenas and actors based on experiences from the German North Sea

Today, increasing use intensity and establishment of new sea uses such as offshore wind farming can be observed in coastal and marine waters. This development also increases the pressure on coastal and marine ecosystems. The exclusive economic zone of the German North Sea can serve as an example for this development, in particular illustrating the need to combine multiple uses and societal demands within a given sea area. In order to deal with the resulting conflicts and cumulative impacts, new planning tools and integrated approaches to planning and management are developing. While the sea becomes a contested but at the same time politically recognised area, also conflicts rooted in different perceptions, values and attitudes of coastal people can be observed. In order to deal with the current challenges in marine areas, marine spatial planning and similar tools for integrated planning need to be developed in the form of communication processes, which link diverse sets of information and span a dialogue between groups of society and across spatial scales including the transnational dimension.

The dynamics of poverty–environment linkages in the coastal zone of Ghana

With a high dependence on natural resources and increasing environmental degradation as a result of climatic and non-climatic factors, poverty remains a critical socioeconomic issue in the coastal zone of Ghana. Coastal poverty is closely related to the nature and complexity of coastal ecosystems and often varies from poverty in other areas. This paper contends that adequately responding to the environmental and socioeconomic issues in the coastal zone requires assisting the poor cope with changes on the coast. In doing this it is important to appreciate how poverty is defined especially by the resource users themselves as well as the nature of the poverty–environment interactions. With women being highly dependent on coastal natural resources this paper draws on the experiences of 304 women from two communities to investigate coastal people's perception of poverty. It presents empirical evidence of poverty–environment linkages and examines implications of these linkages for the effective management of Ghana's coastal natural resources. The results show that respondents describe poverty through diversity of measures rather than solely as an absence of money. In addition their livelihood patterns revolve around the availability of some coastal natural resources. Since there is no national policy for the management of the coastal natural resources the paper concludes by recommending the development of a comprehensive Integrated Coastal Zone Management plan that incorporates the priorities and needs of local resource users, alleviates poverty whilst increasing awareness of resource users of more appropriate mechanisms for managing coastal resources.

Orientation Systems of the North Pacific Rim by Michael Fortescue (review)

Reviewed by: Orientation Systems of the North Pacific Rim by Michael Fortescue Edward Vajda Orientation Systems of the North Pacific Rim. Michael Fortescue. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2011. Pp. 138. $43.00 (paper). This pioneering study compares directional vocabulary across the genealogically and typologically diverse indigenous languages of northeastern Asia and northwestern North America. Its scope extends considerably beyond the northern half of the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” taking in also the Arctic on both sides of the Bering Strait as well as languages farther inland that show historical or typological connections to the orientation systems of coastal peoples. The North American side covers inland territory occupied by Athabaskan peoples in addition to the maritime zone from the Bering Strait south to Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula. The Asian side includes East Siberia’s interior reindeer-breeding groups, as well as the coastal areas from the Bering Strait to Sakhalin and Hokkaido. The book also discusses directionals used thousands of miles inland along the Yenisei River by the Ket people, as this system, too, shows clear parallels of semantic organization with North Pacific languages. Orientation systems across this vast region pivot upon the expression of core spatial dimensions relative to bodies of water through the use of adverbials that Leer, in describing Na-Dene languages (1989), called “directionals.” The same term would be felicitous for all of the morphologically diverse systems on the North Pacific Rim, as these words often form tight semantic interrelationships that interact with the grammar in ways specific to this lexical category. Fortescue identifies five basic geographic types of orientation systems (p. 12) that underlie the use of directionals in the region under consideration. The three most widespread are coastal, riverine, and inland nomadic, followed by the “archipelagoan” system of Aleut and the large-island system of Haida. Semantic idiosyncrasies in the use of directionals in these different geographic settings demonstrate historical shifts from one type to another, thus helping to trace prehistoric population movements. For example, Fortescue, following Leer (1989), demonstrates that a riverine system was clearly adapted to the seacoast in the case of the Alaskan Athabaskan language Dena’ina and its Na-Dene relative Eyak. He also shows how certain Alaskan Eskimoan groups reoriented an originally coastal system toward inland rivers. Directionals often show distinct patterns of polysemy, and much of the book is devoted to exploring the possible origins of certain recurring conflations of meaning. The meanings of ‘toward the water’ and ‘downhill’ are typically opposed to ‘away from the water’ and ‘uphill’ or ‘into the forest’. More noteworthy is that a number of languages conflate ‘toward open space’ or ‘toward/onto the fire’ with ‘toward/out onto the water’, and conflate ‘uphill’, ‘away from open space’ with ‘back from/off of the fire’. At least some aspects of this fire-water conflation occurs in Na-Dene languages of Alaska, in Nivkh on the Amur and Sakhalin Island, and also in Ket and two geographically contiguous languages, Selkup and Eastern Khanty; see Pevnov and Urmančieva (2010) for a convincing argument that this unusual polysemy in directional terms (though not the actual morphological forms themselves) most likely spread originally from Yeniseian to the adjacent Uralic languages. Fortescue proposes the idea that this conflation between water and fire might have derived from the fact that in ancient semisubterranean dwellings found along the Amur and in parts of the North Pacific Rim, entrances were configured to conserve heat so [End Page 194] that one needed to descend into them; going downward and going toward the fire thus were indeed logically connected (pp. 102–7). Another plausible explanation, suggested by Enrico for Haida (1985:401–2), is that both fire and water equally served as conduit to the other world, so that the fire-water conflation of directionals might have its origin in cosmological concepts. While neither of these ingenious suggestions can be fully proven, Fortescue’s hypothesis would seem to explain best why the notions of downhill and uphill are involved in this polysemy; his suggestion of the Amur as the ancient source of both semisubterranean dwellings (as evident from archaeology) and of the fire-water conflation also gives a possible starting point...

The Ethnic Composition of Jerusalem’s Population in the Byzantine Period (312-638 CE)

The article deals with the various ethnic components in the urban texture of Byzantine Jerusalem, from Constantine to the 7th century. Pilgrims from all parts of the world converged on the Holy City, and some of them took permanent residence there; many others stayed for long periods, and even when they left, their place was taken up by fellow-countrymen. Thus communities were formed, held together by a common origin, a common language, a common cultural or social background. Most prominent among them were Latins and other Westerners, Greeks from the Aegean and coastal Asia, Cappadocians and other peoples of central Anatolia, Armenians and Georgians. Syrians, visitors from the Sassanian Empire and from Ethiopia were numerous. Jews and perhaps Samaritans also lived in the city, if not during the entire period, then at least for part of it.

<em>Social Peace and the</em> Ngondo <em>Traditional Festival of the Duala of Cameroon</em>

This paper examines the ngondo festival of the Duala of Cameroon and its contribution to social cohesion, solidarity, and peace. It traces the link between tradition, ritual, and peaceful coexistence within the province of Duala. It argues that in spite of the fact that the festival was established in the heyday of decolonization and stigmatized over the years as a “ divisive and destructive tribal” assemblage, it has considerably united the Dualas and related coastal peoples, thereby inhibiting violent conflict when it simmered during elections. The findings of the study suggest that the annual ngondo, through its messages of peace and development from aquatic spirits, have accomplished some degree of stability in the nation’s body politic.

Super Cyclone SIDR 2007: Climate Change Adaptation Mechanisms for Coastal Communities in Bangladesh

Cyclone SIDR hit the coastal districts of Bangladesh on November 15, 2007 in the evening when it started crossing the country from northern Bay of Bengal with high tidal surges and strong winds of up to 260 km/hr. This study has been undertaken to assess the severity of the damage caused by SIDR, and identify causes of such cyclonic storms in recent years in order to suggest possible adaptive measures for the coastal people to cope with such situations in the future. The study reveals that both natural and human induced factors are responsible for such devastating catastrophes. The study suggests a number climate change adaptation andmitigation options that can be taken to reduce the severity of damages caused by cyclones in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. These include: developing an early warning system; constructing adequate cyclone shelters and tree plantations in the remote coastal areas; constructing structured and fortified houses and livestock shelters; livelihood diversification; and building awareness in the community regarding the impacts of changing climatic conditions in the coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Tourism in Regions of Natural Resource Decline: A Newfoundland Case Study

Tourism is increasingly touted as a development opportunity for coastal areas affected by natural resource decline, but can the investment in tourism ever replace the full human ecological value of a natural resource-based industry, including its impacts on a region's culture, economy, and environment? This ethnographic study examines the impact of the 1992 cod moratorium on Newfoundland's coastal communities, and particularly the emerging role of heritage tourism in community revitalization. Interviews with stakeholders and first-hand observations at tourism destinations show that marine heritage tourism, in particular, can play an important role in the future of coastal areas and people, though it will never replace an exhausted natural resource.

Uncommon Cooking Technologies at Two Prehistoric Sites in South-Central Texas

Excavations at two similar but separate prehistoric campsites in south-central Texas have yielded evidence of atypical cooking technologies wherein small, ill-formed clay balls were used in lieu of the more ubiquitous heated rocks. Both sites are on toe-slopes and floodplains of tributaries to the Atascosa River where they were well placed to exploit both floodplain and tributary stream resources. In addition to a predictable complement of fire-cracked rock, midden deposits, lithic debris, and stone tools, both sites contain large quantities of burned clay balls, a cruder form of the type so common at Poverty Point and comparable to the fired clay objects from sites in the Gulf Coastal zone. Radiocarbon dates from firecracked rock features, soil humates, and the clay balls themselves place overall occupations of these sites in the Middle Archaic to Late Prehistoric periods in the local chronology (3400 to 570 B.P.). The sequence of dates suggests that burned clay cooking and burned rock cooking were employed at different times, either by different people or for different resources. Ethnographic and archeological models describe the seasonal rounds of coastal people that may explain the overlap of traditional cooking methods in the inland contact zone.

Prehistoric and historic networks on the Atacama Desert coast (northern Chile)

Comparing the records of fishing communities made in the sixteenth to twentieth centuries to the archaeological evidence of the sixth millennium BP, the authors propose a sophisticated prehistoric network for the coastal people of northern Chile. Residential seashore settlements link both along the coast to temporary production sites for fish, and inland to oasis-based providers of products from the uplands and salt flats. Sharing values and kinsfolk, the coastal communities must have travelled extensively in boats which, like their modern counterparts, made use of floats of inflated sealskin.

Out of sight but no longer out of mind: A climate of change for marine conservation in Madagascar

With over 5,500 km of coastline spanning more than 14 degrees of latitude, Madagascar boasts a diversity of marine and coastal habitats that is unrivalled in the Indian Ocean. These ecosystems are of paramount importance to national food security, as well as the livelihoods and culture of coastal people. Yet Madagascar’s fragile marine resources are facing unprecedented threats from climate change, habitat destruction and overfishing. Development of an ecologically robust national marine protected area network presents the only viable means of safeguarding the resilience of remaining healthy ecosystems. But in the current post - crisis context, characterised by a lack of fully functional national environmental governance institutions, severe funding gaps and pervasive coastal poverty, conventional centralised approaches to marine protected area planning and management are unable to respond effectively to the scale and immediacy of the challenge. Given these constraints, the ongoing expansion of local coastal governance efforts will be key to promoting socially viable adaptive management strategies. Encouragingly, the recent rapid growth and scaling - up of locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) in Madagascar is unsurpassed throughout east Africa and the Indian Ocean region, with communities pioneering new and innovative approaches to fisheries management and livelihood diversification. The durability of such local conservation efforts, however, will depend on their capacity to demonstrate the economic as well as biodiversity benefits of sustainable marine resource management. This challenge necessitates placing a renewed focus on proving, quantifying and communicating the utilitarian benefits of marine biodiversity. Making this business case will be a fundamental prerequisite to stemming the tide of marine environmental degradation in Madagascar, and tackling the twin tragedies of coastal poverty and the marine commons.

Immunomodulatory Effects of Supplementation with Extracts from the Marine Brown Alga Eisenia bicyclis on Macrophages

A large number of edible seaweeds are consumed by the coastal peoples of Asia. Some of them are used in traditional remedies in many parts of the world. In this study we investigated effects of supplementation with ethyl acetate extracts of the brown alga Eisenia bicyclis (EBE) on rat macrophage to evaluate the possibilities as immune-modulators. Twelve male SD rats were divided into two groups and the treatments were as follows: A, no Eisenia bicyclis extract (EBE) intake and distilled water ; B, oral supplemented with EBE 200 mg/kg. After 5 weeks of supplementation, rats were sacrificed to assess the effect on peritoneal macrophage functions. We showed no increasing effects on tumoricidal activity, phagocytic activity and NO production in macrophages in EBE supplementation group. However, EBE supplementation suppressed NO-iNOS production and p65 translocation into the nucleus in LPS-stimulated macrophages. Overall, these results suggest that the supplementation of EBE might have an anti-inflammatory effects on NO-iNOS production in macrophages throughout the inhibition of NF-<TEX>${\kappa}B$</TEX> activation.

Younger Dryas environments and human adaptations on the West Coast of the United States and Baja California

On the Pacific Coast of the United States and Baja California, the Younger Dryas was one component of dynamic Late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental changes. Changing climate, sea level rise, and shifting shorelines created ecological challenges for ancient coastal peoples and daunting challenges for archaeologists searching for early coastal sites. This paper reviews the evidence for ecological change in this ‘West Coast’ region, including shoreline changes that may have submerged or destroyed archaeological sites from this time period. Examining the regional record of human occupation dating to the Younger Dryas, well-dated coastal sites are limited to California’s Northern Channel Islands and Isla Cedros off Baja California. A small number of fluted points found in coastal areas may also date to the Younger Dryas, but their context and chronology is not well defined. Review of the implications of these two data sets considers whether the early but discontinuous Younger Dryas archaeological record from the West Coast might result from a migration of maritime peoples from Northeast Asia into the Americas.

The tides: masculinity and climate change in coastal Papua New Guinea

.. In the wake of severe coastal erosion in 2007, views about rising sea-levels and climate change took on urgency among the Murik, a coastal people in Papua New Guinea. A theoretical question is raised by their discourse: how to conceptualize the relationship among multiple understandings of this event that would not silence local voices? Bakhtin’s concepts of chronotopes and dialogue, referring to contested images of man in space and time, are used for this purpose. It is argued that, in this culture of climate change, chronotopes of modernity and global risk interrogated chronotopes of ancestral masculinity and doubt. Murik ethnography is adduced and analysed in support of this argument. In the literature about climate change, it has become a truism to rue the inequality of it all. Rather than the culpable, wealthy economies of the global North, populations who had nothing to do with producing it – people living in politically marginal, small island states and along coasts in the global South – are paying and will pay its price. 1 As a long-term fieldworker in coastal Papua New Guinea, my agenda here is partly motivated by this kind of ethical, if not eschatological, anxiety. However much climate change reduces one’s alterity in, as well as from, the space and time of the other, I remain fixed on that part of the emerging tragedy which Malinowskian relativism advocates: to grasp what it means to the people living on far shores such as these (Crate & Nutall 2009: 12). 2 A methodological problem then arises. If climate change has cultural dimensions, development of a conceptual strategy for thinking about how to fit together semantically, ontologically, or ideologically discrepant views of its constituent science may be of use. My solution to this latter issue derives from a self-evident inference, or at least one that becomes self-evident once stated. Climate change discourse makes claims about the consequences of industrial capitalism on processes of various kinds in nature. These claims may be more broadly viewed as representations of the effects of human agency on space and in time. In other words, this discourse may be seen as assertions about the decaying position of ‘man’ 3 in nature and society. In order to be able to discriminate multiple claims about this decay, I return to the idea of chronotope that I borrowed from Bakhtin (1981) as part of another project (Lipset 2004; 2007).

Bodies That Matter: Performing White Possession on the Beach

Beaches remain important places within indigenous coastal peoples’ territories, although the silence about our ownership is deafening.1 The coastline of the Australian continent was frequented for centuries by mariners and traders from Asia with whom some indigenous groups established trade and familial relations.2 The first verified contact by Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon was in March 1606; he chartered the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. Throughout the next two centuries, British explorers primarily undertook the charting of the Australian coastline. Since 1788, British colonists and their descendants have colonized the coastline of this continent and are responsible for building the majority of Australia’s capital cities near the sea. In 2010, it is where the largest proportion of the Australian population resided on the most prized real estate in the country. Living near the sea ensures that the beach continues to be a place of multiple encounters for residents and visitors. The beach marks the border between land and sea, between one nation and another, a place that stands as the common ground upon which collective national ownership, memory, and identity are on public

Metabolic diversity and bioactivity screening of mangrove plants: a review

Mangrove forests are salt tolerant plants confined to the coastal areas and occupy only 5% of the total forest areas of the world. These are the most hostile environment with fluctuating tidal and saline regime and a limited plant species can survive under such condition. Nevertheless, these plants are most valuable resources and provide economic and ecological benefits to the coastal people. Several mangrove species have been used in traditional medicine or have few applications as insecticide and pesticide. Mangroves are biochemically unique, producing wide array of natural products with unique bioactivity. They possess active metabolites with some novel chemical structures which belong to diverse chemical classes such as alkaloids, phenol, steroids, terpenoids, tannins, etc. The present review examines recent investigations on the biological activities of extracts and phytochemicals identified from mangroves and their associates as antimicrobial, antiviral, antioxidant, anticancer and many other properties like antiproliferative, insecticidal, antimalarial, antifeedant, central nervous system depressant and anti-plasmodial etc. The present article also emphasizes and creates an awareness of potential mangroves and their associates as a source of novel medicines, agrochemicals and source of many biologically active compounds.