From ancient Maya cities in Mexico and Central America to the Taj Mahal in India, cultural heritage sites around the world are being drawn into the wave of privatization that has already swept ...through such economic sectors as telecommunications, transportation, and utilities. As nation-states decide they can no longer afford to maintain cultural properties—or find it economically advantageous not to do so in the globalizing economy—private actors are stepping in to excavate, conserve, interpret, and represent archaeological and historical sites. But what are the ramifications when a multinational corporation, or even an indigenous village, owns a piece of national patrimony which holds cultural and perhaps sacred meaning for all the country’s people, as well as for visitors from the rest of the world? In this ambitious book, Lisa Breglia investigates “heritage” as an arena in which a variety of private and public actors compete for the right to benefit, economically and otherwise, from controlling cultural patrimony. She presents ethnographic case studies of two archaeological sites in the Yucatán Peninsula—Chichén Itzá and Chunchucmil and their surrounding modern communities—to demonstrate how indigenous landholders, foreign archaeologists, and the Mexican state use heritage properties to position themselves as legitimate “heirs” and beneficiaries of Mexican national patrimony. Breglia’s research masterfully describes the “monumental ambivalence” that results when local residents, excavation laborers, site managers, and state agencies all enact their claims to cultural patrimony. Her findings make it clear that informal and partial privatizations—which go on quietly and continually—are as real a threat to a nation’s heritage as the prospect of fast-food restaurants and shopping centers in the ruins of a sacred site.
From the dramatization of local legends to the staging of plays by Shakespeare and other canonical playwrights to the exploration of contemporary sociopolitical problems and their effects on women ...and children, Mayan theatre is a flourishing cultural institution in southern Mexico. Part of a larger movement to define Mayan self-identity and reclaim a Mayan cultural heritage, theatre in Mayan languages has both reflected on and contributed to a growing awareness of Mayans as contemporary cultural and political players in Mexico and on the world’s stage. In this book, Tamara Underiner draws on fieldwork with theatre groups in Chiapas, Tabasco, and Yucatán to observe the Maya peoples in the process of defining themselves through theatrical performance. She looks at the activities of four theatre groups or networks, focusing on their operating strategies and on close analyses of selected dramatic texts. She shows that while each group works under the rubric of Mayan or indigenous theatre, their works are also in constant dialogue, confrontation, and collaboration with the wider, non-Mayan world. Her observations thus reveal not only how theatre is an agent of cultural self-definition and community-building but also how theatre negotiates complex relations among indigenous communities in Mayan Mexico, state governments, and non-Mayan artists and researchers.
The present study investigates the seasonal and interannual morphodynamics on a micro-tidal sea-breeze dominated tropical beach located in the northern Yucatan peninsula (México). The coastal ...dynamics in the study area are controlled by both local (sea-breeze) and synoptic (Central American Cold Surge; CACS) scale atmospheric events. However, the net (westward) littoral drift is dominated by more persistent sea breeze events. The field study was conducted along a 2-km stretch of sandy beach located in the vicinity of two coastal structures. One hundred beach surveys (2000 beach profiles) were undertaken between May 2015 and June 2019 on a weekly and bi-weekly basis to investigate beach morphodynamics. Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis of the morphological features are used to identify the dominant modes of beach variability. The first and second spatial EOF modes explain the beach long-term trend and rotation, respectively. The first spatial mode is highly influenced by the presence of the structures for all morphological features. The second spatial mode associated to beach rotation shows accretion (erosion) eastward (westward) of the structures during spring-summer (fall-winter) months. Field observations were employed to correlate the beach response with physical parameters (i.e., water level and wave parameters). The long-term trend of the shoreline and subaerial volume show no significant correlations with the physical parameters, whereas the temporal mode of the high-water contour presents a step-like behavior which is correlated to the still water level. On the other hand, beach rotation is highly correlated to the seasonal variability of wave parameters. Field observations suggest that increase of CACS events activity and water level during El Niño 2015–2016 winter season enhanced (decreased) the beach rotation (translation), implying a high beach sensitivity to climate variability in this region.
•A 4-year high spatial and temporal resolution beach monitoring program was conducted on a sea breeze dominated beach.•Tides, waves, and beach profiles are employed to investigate seasonal and interannual morphological changes.•EOF analysis of shoreline position and subaerial features are employed to determine the dominant modes of beach variability.•Beach rotation is found to be sensitive to climate variability.
Flavivirus (family Flaviviridae) and Alphavirus (family Togaviridae) are mosquito-borne viruses that poses a significant risk to public health worldwide. Examples of these viruses include Dengue ...virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) in the Flavivirus genus, and Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in the Alphavirus genus. The potential contribution of bats in the mosquito-to-human transmission cycle of these viral genera in the tropics has not been studied. Here, a total of 144 bats belonging to three families (Emballonuridae, Phyllostomidae, and Molossidae) and six species were captured for one year using mist nets in sites with different landscapes (forest and grassland) in the state of Yucatan, southeastern Mexico. Blood samples and rectal and oral swabs were collected to detect Flavivirus and Alphavirus RNA genomes through RT-PCR. Flavivirus RNA was detected in 53 individuals (36.8%; 95% CI: 29.4%–44.9%), and Alphavirus RNA was detected in 59 individuals (40.1%; 95% CI: 33.2%–49.2%). The sequences obtained were consistent with ZIKV and DENV, into the Flavivirus, and CHIKV into the Alphavirus positive samples. The prevalence of both Flavivirus and Alphavirus was higher during the dry season compared with the rainy season. This high positivity rate, highlighted in both Flavivirus and Alphavirus, suggests a potential contribution of bats in the circulation of these viral genera in sylvatic environments. Seasonal variation in viral genera prevalence, with higher prevalence during dry seasons than rainy seasons, may suggest specific viral activity patterns in response to climatic conditions.
This article investigates Yucatec Maya heritage and identity through the perspective of Indigenous ways of knowing. The focus is the work of Luis May Ku, a contemporary self-identified Yucatec Maya ...artist from the community of Dzan in the state of Yucatán (Mexico). It considers the interplay of heritage discourses and power hierarchies as they apply to his life in Dzan, in Coba, where he has been teaching, and his outreach to international bodies, like the British Museum, and global marketing. My analysis is a case study of the layered, fluid, shifting, and ambivalent notions of Maya heritage and identity. I situate his artwork and practice in a wider context of Indigenous identity struggles, as seen through Tim Ingold's relational model and other bottom-up heritage movements. These seek alternatives to capitalism, take strides to de-colonize land, and provide local lessons which - when applied more widely - can help make the more planet sustainable.
Here we describe the left mandibular ramus of a fossil peccary from the submerged karst cave system in the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The specimen, which was discovered in the Muknal ...cave northwest of Tulúm, is a new genus and species of peccary termed Muknalia minima. The taxon likely dates from the latest Pleistocene and differs significantly from all extant peccaries and their Pleistocene relatives by a concave notch at the caudal edge of the mandibular ramus and prominent ventrally directed angular process. These diagnostic osteological differences suggest that the masticatory apparatus differed from all other peccaries, which may hint to an ecological isolation on the late Pleistocene Yucatán Peninsula.
In this work, the spatial and temporal implications of the Non-Eastern Boundary Upwelling (Non-EBUS) on the bio-productivity from coastal shallow waters have been studied. At the coast of Cabo ...Catoche, on the Yucatán shelf, two 12-day field campaigns (April and July) were conducted. Cross-shore CTD-fluorescence profiles, water samples, and plankton were collected each day. Nutrients, ocean temperature and currents times series from two moorings (8 and 12 m depth) were analyzed, as were temperature and chlorophyll (Chl-a) from satellite data. The water masses from the Yucatan channel reached the coast of Cabo Catoche in both study periods. The Yucatan Upwelling Water (YUW, ~ 19.6–22.5 °C) supplied the surface and subsurface water, up to 6 km offshore, with nutrients during the upwelling pulses from 2 to 5 days. Nutrients were higher in April (nitrate, ammonium < 5, 18 μmol L−1), but the phytoplankton bloom was more consistent in July (Chl-a mean, 1.45 mg m−3) showing greater distribution across the coast. The steady upwelling plume (cold water, high nutrients) recorded in Cabo Catoche and observed on the north shelf, could have been the result of dynamic uplift in the Yucatan Channel prior to the field campaign. Through the way to the shelf, the plankton increased, explaining the high temporal association between low temperatures and the phytoplankton bloom at the coast. The Non-EBUS has strong implications for the pelagic ecosystem from Cabo Catoche, enhancing productivity and triggering energy flow by the physical process.
•The slope water intrusion pulses create phytoplankton bloom events on few days.•The slope water intrusion pulses have implications closer to the Cabo Catoche shore.•The physical-biological interactions are by short periods at the pelagic ecosystem.
Because of differences in craniofacial morphology and dentition between the earliest American skeletons and modern Native Americans, separate origins have been postulated for them, despite genetic ...evidence to the contrary. We describe a near-complete human skeleton with an intact cranium and preserved DNA found with extinct fauna in a submerged cave on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. This skeleton dates to between 13,000 and 12,000 calendar years ago and has Paleoamerican craniofacial characteristics and a Beringian-derived mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup (D1). Thus, the differences between Paleoamericans and Native Americans probably resulted from in situ evolution rather than separate ancestry.
Background: Pavonia (Malvaceae) is a morphologically diverse genus with more than 200 species in America of which 32 have been previously reported in Mexico. In a field trip to the Reserva Estatal de ...Dzilam de Bravo, in northern Yucatan, a population of a Malvaceae species was detected that could not be unequivocally matched with any species known previously in the country.
Questions: What is the identity of the Malvaceae species collected? Is it a taxonomic national or regional novelty?
Species of study: Malvaceae, Malvoideae, Pavonia.
Study site and dates: Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, 2021–2022.
Methods: Botanical specimens were collected and determined taxonomically through the use of specialized keys, and consulting of botanical collections. The conservation status was assessed using the IUCN methodology.
Results: The specimens collected at the study site do not represent an undescribed species but instead Pavonia paludicola Nicolson ex Fryxell, which is a new record for Mexico. The species is assessed as Least Concern (LC) along its full distributional range whereas the Yucatan population is assessed as Data Deficient (DD) at this time. Furthermore, we offer a key to the two species of Pavonia in the Mexican portion of the Yucatan Peninsula, the second being P. schiedeana Steud., whose conservation status is assessed as Least concerned (LC).
Conclusion: With the report of Pavonia paludicola, thirty-three species of the genus are now recognized from Mexico, two of which occur in the Mexican portion of the Yucatan Peninsula.
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