Amazonian Archaeology

Heckenberger, Michael; Neves, Eduardo Góes

doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164310

Cited by 191 publications

(194 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…were rapid, thorough, and widespread throughout the Americas (38,39) and, according to some estimates (3,40), may have resulted in the loss of as much as 80-95% of the agricultural population across the neotropics. The labor-intensive raised-field agricultural systems (41) must have been particularly impacted by this substantial reduction of the labor force, resulting in their abandonment.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Iriarte

Power

Rostain

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

104

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The nature and scale of pre-Columbian land use and the consequences of the 1492 "Columbian Encounter" (CE) on Amazonia are among the more debated topics in New World archaeology and paleoecology. However, pre-Columbian human impact in Amazonian savannas remains poorly understood. Most paleoecological studies have been conducted in neotropical forest contexts. Of studies done in Amazonian savannas, none has the temporal resolution needed to detect changes induced by either climate or humans before and after A.D. 1492, and only a few closely integrate paleoecological and archaeological data. We report a highresolution 2,150-y paleoecological record from a French Guianan coastal savanna that forces reconsideration of how pre-Columbian savanna peoples practiced raised-field agriculture and how the CE impacted these societies and environments. Our combined pollen, phytolith, and charcoal analyses reveal unexpectedly low levels of biomass burning associated with pre-A.D. 1492 savanna raised-field agriculture and a sharp increase in fires following the arrival of Europeans. We show that pre-Columbian raised-field farmers limited burning to improve agricultural production, contrasting with extensive use of fire in pre-Columbian tropical forest and Central American savanna environments, as well as in present-day savannas. The charcoal record indicates that extensive fires in the seasonally flooded savannas of French Guiana are a post-Columbian phenomenon, postdating the collapse of indigenous populations. The discovery that pre-Columbian farmers practiced fire-free savanna management calls into question the widely held assumption that pre-Columbian Amazonian farmers pervasively used fire to manage and alter ecosystems and offers fresh perspectives on an emerging alternative approach to savanna land use and conservation that can help reduce carbon emissions.pre-Columbian agriculture | anthropogenic fire | indigenous fire practices | savanna ecology | tropical seasonal wetlands M ounting archaeological and paleoecological evidence indicates that societies of considerable size and complexity emerged in some regions of Amazonia and began to transform landscapes at an unprecedented scale during the late Holocene (1-4). Anthropogenic dark-earth soils associated with intensive agriculture developed along the bluffs of major rivers in forested areas of Amazonia and its periphery, and large expanses of previously uncultivated seasonally flooded savannas were reclaimed for intensive raised-field agricultural systems (5, 6).Many seasonally flooded tropical savannas of South and Central America, such as the coastal belt of the Guianas (7), the Mompos depression in Colombia (8), and the Beni in the Bolivian Amazon (9), were reclaimed into vast agricultural landscapes through the construction of raised fields by pre-Columbian farmers during the Late Holocene. Early European chronicles illustrate the practice of raised-field agriculture by the Otomac in Venezuela (10) and by the Tainos in Hispaniola (11), who constructed small mounds u...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Iriarte

Power

Rostain

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

104

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“…Because crop domestication began thousands of years before food production systems became important [51,121], it is not at all surprising to see a dramatic contrast such as that in Amazonia. As the archaeology of Amazonia becomes better understood [153] and as the number of species studied with genetic and phylogeographic methods expands, we will certainly be able to clarify the patterns mentioned here and perhaps identify others.…”

Section: Patterns Of Diversitymentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Rindos [51] and Tudge [152] hypothesize that foragers who also practiced plant domestication would be more successful than those who did not, and it was from the southwestern periphery that two language diasporas occurred: Tupi-Guaraní and Arawak-Maipuran [122]. The southern and southwestern periphery eventually was the stage for the development of complex societies as well [153], but a detailed search is still required for signs of in situ crop domestication, with Caryocar brasiliense mentioned as a possible candidate.…”

Section: Patterns Of Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Origin and Domestication of Native Amazonian Crops

et al. 2010

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Molecular analyses are providing new elements to decipher the origin, domestication and dispersal of native Amazonian crops in an expanding archaeological context. Solid molecular data are available for manioc (Manihot esculenta), cacao (Theobroma cacao), pineapple (Ananas comosus), peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) and guaraná (Paullinia cupana), while hot peppers (Capsicum spp.), inga (Inga edulis), Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa) and cupuassu (Theobroma grandiflorum) are being studied. Emergent patterns include the relationships among domestication, antiquity (terminal Pleistocene to early Holocene), origin in the periphery, ample pre-Columbian dispersal and clear phylogeographic population structure for manioc, pineapple, peach palm and, perhaps, Capsicum peppers. Cacao represents the special case of an Amazonian species possibly brought into domestication in Mesoamerica, but close scrutiny of molecular data suggests that it may also have some incipiently domesticated populations in Amazonia. Another pattern includes the relationships among species with incipiently domesticated populations or very recently domesticated populations, rapid pre-or post-conquest dispersal and lack of phylogeographic population structure, e.g., Brazil nut, cupuassu and guaraná . These patterns contrast the peripheral origin of most species with domesticated OPEN ACCESSDiversity 2010, 2 73 populations with the subsequent concentration of their genetic resources in the center of the basin, along the major white water rivers where high pre-conquest population densities developed. Additional molecular genetic analyses on these and other species will allow better examination of these processes and will enable us to relate them to other historical ecological patterns in Amazonia.

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“…T he notion of Amazonia as a pristine wilderness has now been overturned by increasing evidence for large, diverse, and socially complex pre-Columbian societies in many regions of the basin. The discovery of numerous, vast terra preta (anthropogenic dark earth) sites bordering the floodplains of major rivers, and extensive earthwork complexes in the seasonally flooded savannas of the Llanos de Mojos (northeast Bolivia), Marajó Island (northeast Brazil), and coastal French Guiana, are seen to represent examples of major human impacts carried out in these environments (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of pre-Columbian “geoglyph” builders on Amazonian forests

Watling

Iriarte

Mayle

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

151

144

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Over 450 pre-Columbian (pre-AD 1492) geometric ditched enclosures ("geoglyphs") occupy ∼13,000 km 2 of Acre state, Brazil, representing a key discovery of Amazonian archaeology. These huge earthworks were concealed for centuries under terra firme (upland interfluvial) rainforest, directly challenging the "pristine" status of this ecosystem and its perceived vulnerability to human impacts. We reconstruct the environmental context of geoglyph construction and the nature, extent, and legacy of associated human impacts. We show that bamboo forest dominated the region for ≥6,000 y and that only small, temporary clearings were made to build the geoglyphs; however, construction occurred within anthropogenic forest that had been actively managed for millennia. In the absence of widespread deforestation, exploitation of forest products shaped a largely forested landscape that survived intact until the late 20th century.

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Amazonian Archaeology

Cited by 191 publications

References 82 publications

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Origin and Domestication of Native Amazonian Crops

Impact of pre-Columbian “geoglyph” builders on Amazonian forests

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