Evidence for Landscape Transformation of Ridgetop Forests in Amazonian Ecuador

Abstract

The Napo River basin, which is situated within the Upper Amazon archaeological region, is one of the most speciose forests in Greater Amazonia. Standard thinking in scholarship and science holds that these forests are essentially pristine because any Indigenous impacts in the past would have been minimal, seedbanks would have been nearby, and natural forests would have reappeared after the humans left, died out, or dispersed. Inventory research in 2019 on three ridgetop forests in Waorani territory inside the Curaray basin (which drains to the right margin of the Napo River) and a comparable inventory on one control site forest along the Nushiño River (also in the Curaray basin) show human impacts from about the late nineteenth century to about 1960; they occurred during the period of wartime among Waorani themselves and between Wao people and outsiders. The human impacts resulted in the high basal-area presence of two long-lived species with important Waorani cultural uses: cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) and ungurahua palm (Oenocarpus bataua Mart.). These species have high frequency and dominance values and do not occur in the control site, which is comparable in terms of elevation above the flood zone of the rivers in the sample. These findings mean that alpha diversity in the right margin sector (or south) of the Napo River basin cannot a priori be explained by reference to traditionally, biologically accepted patterns of ecological succession but may require knowledge of historical patterns of Indigenous land use and secondary landscape transformation over time due to human (specifically Waorani) impacts of the past.

Genes in the Chagra: Crop and Crop Wild Relative Landesque Capital among Amazonian Runa in Ecuador

“…We emphasize how historical ecological processes can influence the evolutionary trajectories of plant gene pools through intentional and unintentional cultural features. Historical ecology and landesque capital of gene pools as a research program and a framework of study can offer much needed insight into how such recursive interplay of plant–human lifeworlds co-produce one another in anera of biocultural diversity loss and climate change (Balée et al 2023; Wolverton 2013; Iriarte et al 2020; Joseph et al 2021).…”

The impact of ancient Mesoamerican cities on long-term environmental sustainability: the view from historical ecology

“…Furthermore, from an anthropological point of view, forest-gardens are management schemes that perfectly embody land-use systems in which a culture-nature continuum exists (Wartman et al, 2018). Examples of forest-gardens have been studied mainly in Papua New Guinea (Bourke, 1985), Indonesia (Michon and De Foresta, 1999;Mulyoutami et al, 2009), Thailand (Withrow-Robinson et al, 1998, Brazil (Denevan et al, 1984;Posey, 1985;Baleé et al, 2020), Ecuador (Baleé et al, 2023), Bolivia (Erickson, 2000), and Mexico (Goḿez-Pompa and Kaus, 1990;Ford and Nigh, 2015).…”

Landscape-scale spatial variations of pre-Columbian anthropogenic disturbances at three ring ditch sites in French Guiana

“…Four dates, obtained from the pits RH1 (0-5, 10-15) and C2 (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45), were spread over a period ranging from 1214 to 1398 CE. One intermediate date from RH2 (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) was dated between 993 and 1155 CE. At NOUR and GALB, radiocarbon dates show three and four different (nonoverlapping) chronological periods.…”