STRI y el Patronato Panama Viejo celebran acuerdo de colaboración
por Sonia Tejada — STRI
El pasado 2 de octubre se celebró la firma de un acuerdo de colaboración entre el Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI) y el Patronato Panama Viejo. Estuvieron presentes el Sr. Ernesto Boyd, Presidente y Representante Legal del Patronato Panamá Viejo y la Sra. Julieta de Arango, Directora del Patronato Panamá Viejo junto con el Dr. Larsen, director de STRI y Linette Dutari, Directora Asociada de STRI.
El objetivo de este acuerdo es la colaboración en temas en común, con el fin de desarrollar una relación de intercambio de conocimientos, experiencias y recursos con miras a mejorar la protección, conservación y manejo científico de los recursos naturales y culturales dentro del Conjunto Monumental de Panamá Viejo, además del desarrollo de programas de investigación científica conjuntos, actividades de intercambio y cooperación en el campo de la formación de recursos humanos, investigación y extensión.
El Patronato Panamá Viejo es una organización sin fines de lucro y de régimen mixto encargada de la conservación, protección y puesta en valor del Sitio Arqueológico e Histórico de Panamá Viejo, declarado Patrimonio Mundial de la Unesco. Estamos conformados por el Club Kiwanis de Panamá -que lo preside-, el Instituto Nacional de Cultura, la Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá, Banistmo y la Fundación RILEMO. Puedes visitarnos en www.panamaviejo.org
El Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales, en ciudad de Panamá, Panamá, es una unidad de la Institución Smithsonian. El Instituto promueve la comprensión de la naturaleza tropical y su importancia para el bienestar de la humanidad, capacita estudiantes para llevar a cabo investigaciones en los trópicos, y fomenta la conservación mediante la concienciación pública sobre la belleza e importancia de los ecosistemas tropicales.
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Saccharum spontaneum — also known as paja canalera or elephant grass, in bloom along the Pan-American Highway. Photo by Eric Jackson.
Ah, Panama’s hay fever season
by Eric Jackson
There are so many allergies, so this reporter’s reaction may not be yours. Back in Michigan, ragweed and goldenrod were the nemeses. Those are not factors here. But elephant grass is.
It’s one of great environmental disasters of isthmian history. In the 50s the stuff was imported to shore up the banks of the Panama Canal’s Culebra Cut. It became a much more widespread invasive weed. It doomed slash-and-burn agriculture, where the old practice was to abandon a patch of soil that was exhausted to the jungle — but now this stuff rather than trees fills the space. Nothing will eat it. Not even, in its native Asia, elephants.
And when it’s in bloom, the pollen brings tears to this reporter’s eyes. Even when on an air conditioned bus driving past it.
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This project called “Street 2010-2013” represents a period of my photography that I did either for my own publications or for The Panama News. At that time the language of my photography was black and white. Please understand that I never clicked the shutter button without respect or empathy for those I photographed.
Este proyecto, llamado “Street 2010-2013” representa un periodo de mi fotografía que hice para mis propias publicaciones o The Panama News. En ese momento el idioma de mi fotografía era en blanco y negro. Por favor, comprenda que nunca he pulsado el botón del obturador sin respeto ni empatía por aquellos que fotografié.
A walk on the beach of Panama City.
A pool party in the city of Colon on the Atlantic side of Panama.
Mineria = Muerte — Mining equals death. A labor union protest, suspected plain clothed detective on the right.
A child in a restaurant serving a wholesale vegetable facility.
Home is where the heart is. Colon, Panama.
The girls from the parade. Chorrera, Panama.
Two on one out.
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While Americans watched the Senate, House Republicans passed an extra $3 trillion tax cut for rich people and corporations.
Under cover of Kavanaugh, Republicans passed huge tax cuts for the wealthy
by Frank Clemente
While Americans were transfixed by Senate hearings over Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults, House Republicans quietly passed another enormous tax handout for the wealthiest Americans.
Round one of this giveaway cost $2 trillion. Round two is even bigger — it would explode the deficit by more than $3 trillion. And once again, it’s largely a giveaway to the wealthiest Americans — and could mean devastating service cuts for ordinary people.
President Trump claimed the first tax plan would be “rocket fuel” for the economy, but there’s no evidence it’s done anything to improve the economic wellbeing of working families.
The centerpiece of the first plan was a massive tax cut for corporations. The corporate tax rate was reduced by 40 percent, plus a $400 billion tax break for multinational corporations on their trillions in accumulated offshore profits.
So it’s not surprising corporate profits leaped by over 16 percent in the second quarter of this year compared to the same three months last year — the best showing in six years. Meanwhile corporate tax payments are on schedule to come in $120 billion lower than in 2017.
But corporations aren’t sharing their winnings.
Trump guaranteed working families a $4,000 raise if corporate taxes were cut. Yet average real wages have been stagnant for the past year. Only 4 percent of American workers have gotten any kind of payout related to the corporate tax cuts, and most of those have been one-time bonuses, not permanent raises.
There’s no sign tax cuts have spurred hiring. Job growth under President Trump is merely a continuation of six years of job growth under President Obama — and Obama created more jobs in his last 19 months than Trump has in his first 19 months. Cutting business taxes was supposed to cause an explosion of investment. Yet business investment has increased at a slower rate this year than at several periods during the Obama recovery.
Instead of investing in workers or equipment, companies are mostly buying back their own stock, a maneuver that artificially inflates the share price and rewards CEOs and wealthy investors. Corporations have announced $733 billion worth of stock buybacks since the Trump-GOP tax law was enacted — 103 times more than the $7 billion workers have gotten in bonuses and raises.
For the money McDonald’s spent on stock buybacks, it could’ve given every one of its 2 million employees that $4,000 raise President Trump promised them. But they didn’t. The economic miracle envisaged by the tax plan’s backers hasn’t materialized. But the dire consequences predicted by the plan’s opponents certainly have. To cover the deficits created by their own tax cuts, Republicans want to cut trillions of dollars from essential public services.
Despite promising never to touch Medicare or Medicaid, President Trump is seeking $1.3 trillion in cuts to those programs and to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The House GOP wants to cut a total of $5 trillion, including $2 trillion from health care. Trump and House Republicans would also slash funding for students in school and college, among many other service cuts.
Round two of the Trump-GOP tax cuts would only repeat the same destructive pattern: huge handouts to the rich, huge deficits, and huge service cuts for working families. The big difference is that the budget hole created would be much deeper this time, making the resulting cuts to services that much more severe.
No wonder they did it while Americans were distracted.
The sane policy would be to repeal the existing tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and use the money raised to strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and other essential services the American people rely on.
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US and Chinese warships playing chicken in the South China Sea. US Navy photo.
The weakest link in the war between China and the United States
by Marco A. Gandásegui hijo, translated by Jordan & Joan Remple Bishop (ALAI)
The aggressive reaction of the United States against Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic has to do with the trade war declared by Washington against China. In addition, it has to do with the North American superpower’s interest in destabilizing Latin American governments. President Donald Trump unilaterally increased the tariffs on Chinese products that enter the US market. This measure was rejected by China, the big US industrialists and the rest of the world. Next year, US consumers will feel the impact in their pockets.
The United States also feeds into a territorial conflict with Beijing over the South China sea. Since the English involvement in this area of intense regional trade in the XIX Century and the US victory in the Second World War (1945), the Chinese have been forbidden to control these waters. In the XXI Century, Beijing now wants to recover its sovereignty over its own sea. Building up the offensive, the United States has imposed sanctions on the Equipment Development Department company (EDD) — responsible for the Chinese Army’s weapons and equipment — and on its director, Li Shangfu, for having purchased armaments from the Russian state firm, Rosoboronexport, the greatest arms exporter, that had already been sanctioned by Washington.
These points make up the context in which the United States revealed their threatening communiqué that causes concern in the Latin American region.
The United States accuses “the countries of the region” of seeking “relations with unknown partners” that use “methods that lack a positive record” and exhibit a “disturbing tendency.” The Washington pronouncement adds that “many of these transactions lack transparency.” In spite of the communiqué’s ambiguity and lack of transparency, it is clear that the United States wants to create anxiety in the region because of its relations with China
The United States claims the right to “prevent and combat corruption” in Latin America. The actions that Washington can undertake “are essential for having strong and functional democracies in the whole American continent.” The communiqué originated from the US Embassy in El Salvador. I am not aware of the reason why it was not sent from the Department of State in Washington. Nevertheless, it is a clear addition to the Monroe Doctrine promulgated 200 years ago.
In their interventionist strategy, the United States emphasize the ‘fight against corruption.’ It is not by chance that they managed to indict Lulu in Brazil through unfounded accusations of corruption. The same thing is happening with former leaders in Argentina and Ecuador. They are trying to do the same with the current governments in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. All of these, at certain moments, have questioned the arbitrary policies of the United States. The response has been rapid and emphatic from Washington.
This is a clear message to the governing political parties of the three Central American and Caribbean countries. Especially the FMLN, which has maintained a very difficult equilibrium between its social policies and its relations with the United States, over two administrations. With a clear electoral majority in El Salvador, the guerrilla army has its hands tied by Washington. The Chinese connection could give the most reactionary interests in the United States the chance to initiate a destabilizing campaign similar to that promoted in Nicaragua.
In the case of Panama, President Varela replied that the decision of Trump to summon their diplomats for consultation is related to “internal issues of the United States government,” and that Panama respects and is convinced that relations with China will bring many benefits to the isthmus and will in no way affect relations with a strategic partner. Varela reminds the US government that relations with China are not intended to affect the special relationship that Panama has with the United States.
The root problem that explains the ‘trade war’ and the aggressive diplomacy of Washington must be found within the United States. Economic stagnation has generated internal policy problems that become phenomena — scarcely understood by many — such as Trump. Social protests with class and racist elements appear ever more frequently and with greater force. These phenomena translate into a crisis of hegemony for the establishment that lost the White House and that wants to avoid the collapse of its project of “globalization.”
China is part of the establishment’s project of “globalization.” It is the driving force of the capitalist world, oiled by those who control global finance. Trump, on the other hand, represents the sector of US capital that wants to concentrate industry in the United States and speaks of “making America great again.” For the resident of the White House, the enemy is China, while Russia is the friend.
It is in this geopolitical game that the weakest links of Latin America have become trapped: Panama, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.
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Rogelio Saltarín. Photo by the Ministerio Publico.
Questions begged, and “irregularity” does not answer them
La Estrella is doing a series of stories that in large part centers on the labors of attorney Rogelio Saltarín, whom President Varela would have made a magistrate on the Supreme Court if the votes can be mustered. Saltarín, working as something like a private consultant for the Ministry of the Presidency, in conjunction with the National Security Council (CSN), investigated corruption during the Martinelli administration. It is reported that he fed the results of that research to Attorney General Kenia Porcell, essentially handing her road maps to her work on a number of cases.
There is no question that this was an unusual way to proceed, but we should ask ourselves, as a nation, whether any of this was improper and if so, what was done wrong and why it was wrong. It’s an important set of questions looking forward, and looking back.
Varela took over a CSN that had been thoroughly corrupted into an appendage of Ricardo Martinelli’s personal hatreds, fears and ambitions. That a laptop left behind at that agency contained surveillance reports on a list of Martinelli’s 150 top people of interest forms the foundation for the criminal case against the ex-president that is now on trial before the Supreme Court.
Those 150 individuals, we reasonably know by several different ways, were a relative few of those caught in the surveillance. We know this because right after losing the 2014 election Martinelli threatened the Cambio Democratico legislators-elect, telling them that he had a dossier on each of them in case they did not follow his instructions — but only a few of these people were on that list of 150. We know this from Kenia Porcell’s complaint that Martinelli intended to blackmail the Supreme Court into dropping charges, which complaint contained references to the electronic surveillance of some 5,000 people. We know this because if all of the emails and phone calls of the 150 people on the list were monitored, all of those with whom these 150 people communicated were also caught in the net. Knowing that, however, doesn’t the government owe it to all of the people whose privacy was violated notification of the known facts? Isn’t the general public owed a more complete description of what went on?
To come into the presidency amidst institutions that have been corrupted in this way more or less imposes a duty to undertake unusual actions that are outside of regular channels to set things right. To be a politician who was and is immersed in this sort of political warfare reasonably does call for some unpublicized independent “opposition research.”
Were people framed on bogus charges for political reasons? Was a massive spy operation merely redirected from one large group of innocent people to another? Did the attorney general get lazy at her job and let a presidential consultant do homework that she should have done on her own? Were public funds spent in improper and unaccountable ways? THOSE would be matters of serious public concern.
But irregular things in the wake of unusual events? In themselves these are no reason for public outrage.
The next administration will have to do some unusual things to see justice done in the Blue Apple and Odebrecht cases, including examinations of the Varela presidency and the mayoral decisions of José Isabel Blandón. Called-for “irregularities” may include defiance of courts and prosecutors if they say that a plea bargain on corruption charges frees a guilty company and its guilty principals and agents from a ban on doing further business with the government.
Let’s not concentrate on what is regular, but on what is proper.
Young Americans: REGISTER and VOTE
The question is not whether your future will be stolen. It has been stolen. The latest extraction from your chances of a prosperous future in an advanced nation was in the form of another $3 trillion tax break for ultra-rich, throwing the US government in a debt spiral for at least a generation — for YOUR generation. Your elders may have had some prosperous years? Not you and most of the people your age. Not unless you act decisively to take back what has been stolen.
Your education, your standard of living, your possibility of old age retirement, the infrastructures of daily life in the USA, the productive activities that are the foundation for your nation’s wealth — those have been taken from you.
You didn’t notice because this ultimate grab was rammed through the House of Representatives while public attention was riveted on a Senate committee trying to jam through the high court nomination of perhaps the most morally unfit presidential appointee ever? It was timed that way.
This is too partisan a rap, you might protest? It has been a process underway for a long time, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. That nobody went to prison for the huge mortgage fraud that caused the 2008 economic crisis was a bipartisan dereliction of duty. The endless wars without exit strategies or even defined war aims all over the planet are all bipartisan follies put on a tab that your generation is expected to pay. But the latest Republican tax bill is the ultimate “take the money and run” play at your expense.
The editor of The Panama News did his undergraduate studies at a university that as the cornerstone of one of its buildings had a monument to a generation faced with as onerous a predicament. A tiny minority of slave owners was holding the nation hostage and when they lost an election tried to destroy the nation. The men of the class of 1861 of what was then Michigan Normal College graduated, then marched en masse to the recruiters’ office and joined the Grand Army of the Republic. Many of them died in just a few minutes at Antietam. Their names were engraved on that cornerstone.
At this point nobody is asking you to lay down your life for a cause, but the threat to America is every bit as grave. What you are called upon to do in this crisis is to REGISTER and VOTE.
In many states the registration deadline is October 9. If you are living in the USA, start the process online or at least get information about it via When We All Vote. If you are an American citizen living abroad — including if you are a dual citizen — go to votefromabroad.org or fvap.gov or overseasvotefoundation.org. Right now.
Bear in mind…
Some third person decides your fate: this is the whole essence of bureaucracy.
Alexandra Kollontai
In the face of an absolutely unprecedented emergency, society has no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us.
Gro Harlem Brundtland
I believe that we are going through a phase of isthmian life in which moral misery has come to its ultimate extremes.
Thelma King
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The editor checks in frequently but does not follow. He follows the editor — also with the stolen spy equipment? The location and current use of that stuff is one of the intriguing and seldom asked rude questions of Panamanian politics.
Martinelli loses his bid to get out of jail to vote
by Eric Jackson
Such a heroic pose — the political prisoner awaiting trial, convicted of nothing, makes a motion before the court that is trying him for permission to get out of jail long enough to go vote in the Cambio Democratico primary. After hearing him out and a short delay to read the pleadings, the law, the constitution and perhaps the early edition of the Sunday funnies, Magistrate Jerónimo Mejía made his ruling. The high court jurist whose term ran out at the end of last December but stays on because the president and legislature can’t agree on a replacement is serving the role of judge in the ex-president’s Supreme Court trial on eavesdropping and theft of surveillance equipment charges. It has been months of delays and frivolous motions from Ricardo Martinelli’s phalanx of lawyers.
Mejía didn’t take all that long to rule — MOTION DENIED.
So, the totalitarian Varela regime stamping out what’s left of democratic rights in Panama? That’s the way that Martinelli would play it, even if in his entire public life except while on the bench and nominally nonpartisan, Mejía has been in the PRD. But the magistrate’s decision was infinitely simpler than any political balance or judicial intrigue. It came right out of what passes for Panama’s constitution:
Article 143. The Electoral Tribunal shall have, in addition to those conferred by law, the following attributes which it shall exclusively exercise…
3. Regulate the Electoral Law, interpret it and apply it, and take cognizance of the disputes that originate in its application.
So Mejía said that he could not grant Martinelli’s motion because only the Electoral Tribunal would have jurisdiction to do that. Martinelli’s lawyers knew that, Martinelli knew that and most of the nation’s news editors knew that. Non-story, except in those media under Martinelli’s control.
We have a version of the Civil Code family of legal systems here, modified by bribery and other changes. It’s not a system that relies much on precedents like the Anglo-American Common Law systems famously do. But there is plenty of precedent for prison inmates voting in Panama. Ordinarily but not always a part of a prison sentence is a suspension of political rights that runs concurrently with the incarceration time. But most of Panama’s prisoners are, like Martinelli, awaiting trial and not yet convicted of anything. Voting stations in the nation’s prison system, or various absentee voting schemes for inmates, have their modern precedents here. The Cambio Democratico party could have gone to the Electoral Tribunal to set something like this up for their members awaiting trial in El Renacer Penitentiary. It might have been the occasion for jokes and unflattering commentary, but it could have been done.
But then, democracy is not a high priority in the September 30 partial primaries. Theoretically it’s for all offices except president (the party nominated Rómulo Roux for president in August). However, the party leadership decided to either give incumbents their nominations for re-election without possibility of a primary challenge, or held back offices to be later awarded by the bosses, perhaps as part of negotiations with other parties. There are 840 deputy, mayor and representante posts to be disputed next May, and Cambio Democratico has shielded 392 of these from primary contests. The fix is in for control, there are fewer goodies to be passed out to those who sell their votes and as polls opened in the morning few voters showed up. Ricky Martinelli wasn’t there for any of the short lines.
The former president is one of the candidates, for a seat in the legislature. His running mate for legislator (he’s also thinking of running as an independent for mayor of Panama City), former Panama City mayor and Panama province governor Mayín Correa, did, after her habitual Sunday purchase of a lottery ticket, make her grand entry at an uncrowded voting precinct at Colegio José Remón Cantera. In the morning’s edition of La Prensa she promised to stock any payroll to which she had access with relatives, as she had done as mayor. Also that morning on TVN, she advocated electronic surveillance of political adversaries. At age 82, she appears not to have overcome her addiction to the abuse of power.
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In rare move, ACLU to oppose Kavanaugh for Supreme Court
by the American Civil Liberties Union
New York, September 29 — In the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sworn testimony of sexual abuse at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh, the American Civil Liberties Union has announced its opposition to his nomination to the US Supreme Court.
As a matter of organizational policy, the ACLU does not support or oppose candidates for political or judicial office. In this instance, the national board held an extraordinary meeting, and has chosen to make an exception to that policy.
“The ACLU’s board of directors, deeply concerned by the allegations raised in recent weeks, has made a rare exception to its longstanding policy and voted to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” said Susan Herman, president of the ACLU.
The ACLU’s national board of directors passed a resolution stating:
“The ACLU opposes the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. There are credible allegations that Judge Kavanaugh has engaged in serious misconduct that have not been adequately investigated by the Senate. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s credible testimony, subsequent allegations of sexual misconduct, the inadequate investigation, and Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony at the hearing lead us to doubt Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
“This is not a decision taken lightly. We cannot remain silent under these extraordinary circumstances about a lifetime appointment to the highest court of the land. The standard for such an appointment should be high, and the burden is on the nominee. That burden is not met as long as there are unresolved questions regarding the credible allegations of sexual assault.”
“As a nonpartisan organization, the ACLU does not oppose Judge Kavanaugh based on predictions about how he would vote as a Justice. We oppose him in light of the credible allegations of sexual assault against him,” concluded Herman.
Under its current policy, the ACLU does not take formal positions on judicial nominations. This is the fourth instance in the organization’s 98-year history that the ACLU’s national board of directors has voted to oppose a nominee to the US Supreme Court. Most recently, the organization did not endorse or oppose the nomination of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch.
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
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Nicole Smith-Guzmán trabajando en el laboratorio. Foto por STRI.
Una publicación, con frecuencia citada, menciona que un sitio arqueológico precolombino en Panamá mostraba signos de violencia extrema. Una nueva revisión de la evidencia sugiere fuertemente que la interpretación es incorrecta.
Las cuentas de violencia en el Panamá precolombino son exagerados
por Sonia Tejada – STRI
Enterrados vivos. Masacrados. Decapitados. Despedazados. Mutilados. Asesinados. El arqueólogo Samuel K. Lothrop no se ofuscó al describir lo que pensó había sucedido a los 220 cuerpos que su expedición desenterró en el sitio de Playa Venado en Panamá en 1951. El único problema es que Lothrop probablemente se equivocó. Una nueva evaluación de los restos del sitio por parte de los arqueólogos del Smithsonian no reveló signos de trauma al momento de la muerte o cerca de esta. El sitio del entierro probablemente cuenta una historia más matizada culturalmente.
Una revisión “largamente esperada” del sitio en Playa Venado, que data del 500 al 900 dC y está ubicado cerca de la entrada del Pacífico al Canal de Panamá, no encontró evidencia de muerte ritual, comentó Nicole E. Smith-Guzmán, becaria de postdoctorado en el Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI). Las interpretaciones erróneas de Lothrop probablemente se deben a la era de la “arqueología romántica”, las metodologías subdesarrolladas para los estudios funerarios y las interpretaciones literales de los relatos de los españoles sobre los pueblos indígenas después del contacto europeo.
“Ahora nos damos cuenta de que muchos de estos cronistas españoles estaban motivados a mostrar a las poblaciones indígenas que encontraron como ‘incivilizadas’ y necesitadas de conquista”, comentó Smith-Guzmán, agregando que muchas versiones de sacrificio y canibalismo no han sido confirmadas por los registros arqueológicos. “Más que un ejemplo de muerte violenta y deposición descuidada, Playa Venado presenta un ejemplo de cómo las sociedades precolombinas en el área istmo-colombiana mostraron respeto y cuidado por sus familiares después de su muerte”.
El artículo, escrito en coautoría por el arqueólogo de STRI, Richard Cooke, fue publicado en Latin American Antiquity.
Pero el artículo de Lothrop de 1954, “Suicidio, sacrificio y mutilaciones en entierros de Playa Venado, Panamá”, dejó su huella en los anales de la arqueología panameña. Se ha citado más de 35 veces como evidencia de violencia, canibalismo o decapitación como trofeos. Algunos autores han utilizado el artículo para sugerir que Playa Venado es un sitio de enterramiento masivo o una manifestación de conflicto.
En defensa de Lothrop, arqueólogo del Museo Peabody de Arqueología y Enthnología de la Universidad de Harvard, la bioarqueología (el estudio de restos humanos desde contextos arqueológicos), no existía como subdisciplina hasta dos décadas después de que su trabajo en Playa Venado concluyera. Los practicantes del presente también se benefician de los métodos desarrollados en los años ochenta y noventa.
La cuidadosa documentación de Lothrop y la preservación de los restos hicieron posible la reevaluación. Los restos de más de 70 individuos de Playa Venado se encuentran en el Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del Smithsonian, enviados allí por Lothrop para una evaluación osteológica.
Tras el examen, Smith-Guzmán encontró heridas que mostraban signos de curación mucho antes de que las personas murieran, incluyendo golpes en la cabeza y un dedo dislocado. Varios de los huesos rotos y restos desarticulados descubiertos por Lothrop probablemente se explican por procesos normales de descomposición y entierro secundario de los restos, que se cree tenían una práctica común de veneración de ancestros en el Panamá precolombino.
La evidencia sugiere que los restos de ciertas personas fueron preservados por largos períodos de tiempo antes de ser enterrados en contextos rituales. “En Playa Venado, vemos mucha evidencia de adultos enterrados al lado de urnas que contienen restos de niños, enterramientos múltiples incluyendo un entierro primario y uno secundario, y perturbación de tumbas previamente hechas para sepultar otro individuo por asociación”, comentó Smith-Guzmán.
“El posicionamiento uniforme del entierro y la ausencia de trauma perimortem (alrededor del momento de la muerte) están en contradicción con la interpretación de Lothrop de muerte violenta en el sitio”, comentó Smith-Guzmán, quien también utilizó evidencia de otros sitios arqueológicos en Panamá sobre ritos funerarios como parte de la investigación. “Hay bajas tasas de trauma en general, y las bocas abiertas de los esqueletos que Lothrop notó se explican más fácilmente por la relajación muscular normal después de la muerte y la descomposición”.
La reevaluación de Smith-Guzmán y Cooke de los entierros de Playa Venado sugiere que las ideas sobre la violencia generalizada en el Panamá precolombino deben ser reconsideradas. La investigación es parte de un nuevo análisis mayor e interdisciplinario del sitio que será publicado por el Museo Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.
Uno de los dos casos de golpes en el cráneo curados, encontrado en las excavaciones de Playa Venado. La mayoría de las pruebas de violencia fueron interpretadas por el arqueólogo de Harvard, Samuel Lothrop, basándose en el posicionamiento del cuerpo en las tumbas en el sitio. La becaria posdoctoral del Smithsonian, Nicole Smith-Guzmán, no encontró ejemplos de traumas que ocurrieran cerca del momento de la muerte entre los esqueletos de la colección. Foto por Nicole Smith-Guzmán, STRI.
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If you are an American living abroad, you stand by her by ordering your ballot and voting. Get started online at votefromabroad.org OR fvap.gov OR overseasvotefoundation.org. Christine Blasey Ford testifies. US Senate Judiciary Committee pool photo.
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