Olga F. Linares

Educational background and training

Early education

Linares received her A.B. in Anthropology from Vassar College in 1958 and later completed her Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1964.

Career related

Linares served as an instructor of anthropology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1964 and a lecturer of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1966 to 1971. She also was a visiting associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin in 1974. Linares worked as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford University in California, from 1979 to 1980 and as a visiting professor in 1982. Later she was a fellow at St. John's overseas at Cambridge University in England from 1986 to 1987. In 2002 she was a trustee for the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Rome in 2002.

Linares retired in 2008, as senior research scientist at STRI, after an association at the institute lasting some 35 years. She retained status as scientist emerita with the STRI scientific faculty.

Principal archaeological research projects

Southern Central America

Linares began her career as an archaeologist mainly focused on studying lower Central America, in particular Panama. In part, her research was an effort to bring to light the validity or invalidity of popular assumptions that this region served solely as a corridor between Mesoamerica and South America. She deduced that historically, there were populations that lived, hunted and farmed in these regions, and that it was not merely a pathway connecting Central America to South America.

One of Linares' earliest ventures was exploring occupation sequences in the Gulf of Chiriqui in central Panama from AD 300 to the 'Classic' Chiriquí Province culture. This was the first effort to establish a chronology of the Chiriqui based on stratified refuge deposits. She did this by studying changing ceramic techniques of four excavation sites in the region which presented a sequence of occupation which she then related to other central Panamanian provinces and in Costa Rica.

Linares later studied 'adaptive radiation' in prehistoric populations in Western Panama. To do this, she looked at the archaeological evidence of two differing environments present at the same time, one humid while the other was more seasonal, to explain the divergence of a people with a single origin. Related to the different environments was the emergence of different agricultural practices: vegeculture versus seed culture. By looking at what may have happened when an ancient population migrated and colonized a new territory, Linares is essentially developing theories of patterns of the peopling of the Americas.

Linares also examined "Ecology and the arts in ancient Panama." During this research she studied the culture and art of ancient populations of the central provinces of Panama. Much of her research was done at Sitio Conte where she collected artifacts in order to better understand the 'meaning and function' of the arts. This included a study of trade practices and social structures of power during the 16th century of the Cocle and Guna cultures.

Senegal

From the 1980s until present, Linares began extensive research in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal, the region located below the Gambia. More specifically, this research focused on social organizations and food production of the Jola people (also spelled Diola.) She looks at the varying techniques of wet rice production and compares them with different modes of cultivation in the region. She also examines how social organization shapes these differing methods.

One example of this is the role gender plays in the production of cash crops versus subsistence crops. Here, she looks at the effects of colonial influence on the practices of the Jola, and how traditional cultivation differs from modern cultivation of crops purely for export.

In addition to rural food cultivation practices, Linares explores a new form that she refers to as "urban farming" that has developed in the age of post-colonialism. With much migration to larger cities, traditional practices of subsistence growing have led to backyard farming in urban areas, providing not only another source of food, but also a way to maintain and strengthen friendship, "inter-ethnic" cooperation, as well as to enrich the environment.

Furthermore, she discusses the role the government has played in agricultural failures due to drought in the Basse Casamance region. According to Linares, drought and other uncontrollable factors are not the sole reason for subpar agricultural performance, but also the state's inability to respond effectively and appropriately to these environmental stresses.

Awards and memberships

Grantee National Science Foundation, 1965, 1970—73

Fellow: American Association for the Advancement of Science; mem.: National Academy of Sciences, Royal Anthropology Institute, Am. Anthropology Association (member ethics committee 1992–93).