The Development of Prehistoric Complex Societies: Amazonia, A Tropical Forest

Abstract

Early research in Amazonia suggested the possibility that prehistoric complex societies had developed in several regions, despite assumptions that humid tropical conditions would prevent such developments. Under the rubric of cultural ecology, various processes have been hypothesized for the development of these societies: invasion and subsequent devolution of groups from expanding states in temperate regions outside Amazonia, social and ecological interactions among regions within Amazonia, and social adaptation to local ecological variation. The hypotheses differ, but researchers generally employed ecological determinist and functionalist assumptions of causality: from environment to subsistence and population and thence to social adaptation. Recent thinking on complex society has distilled the concept of heterarchy as an alternative to cultural materialist explanations for the processes of formation and functioning of a range of complex societies. This chapter examines the accumulated data on complex societies in two Amazonian regions-Marajo Island at the mouth of the Amazon and the Santarem-Monte Alegre region in the Lower Amazon-in light of the theoretical issues about the formation and functioning of complex societies worldwide. Results of the comparison tend to accord more with heterarchical hypotheses than with the earlier cultural ecological hypotheses. In Amazonia, non-state societies appear to have organized large, dense populations, intensive subsistence adaptations, large systems of earthworks, production of elaborate artworks and architecture for considerable periods of time. The more centralized and hierarchical of these societies had developed more ritual and material culture related to conflict, and had a heavier impact on their environments. The patterns of social development in Amazonia can still be causally related to environmental patterns through cultural ecological theory, but the new data suggests the need to envision a more mutualistic, variable, and complex causal nexus. PARADIGMS FOR PREEVDUSTRIAL SOCIAL COMPLEXITYAmazonia has relevance for theories of complex societies. Theorists have related the process of social evolution in Amazonia in different ways to factors of environment, economy, population, ritual, and social context () at a time when there were little or no relevant archaeological data. Data on the interaction of such factors in the indigenous occupation of this region, therefore, can shed light on the origins and nature of complex human communities. This chapter, therefore, outlines Amazonian cultural ecology and culture history in relation to general theory of complex societies.

New Insights From Pre-Columbian Land Use and Fire Management in Amazonian Dark Earth Forests

“…(Stenborg et al, 2012), represented by the increase in SPD and site frequency values (Figure 7). At this time, the Santarém polity comprised an area of ∼23,000 km 2 with sites extending for hundreds of miles along river bluffs and interior plateaus (Roosevelt, 1999). Sites during this period extended for hundreds of miles along river bluffs and interior plateaus.…”

“…Sites during this period extended for hundreds of miles along river bluffs and interior plateaus. The largest occupation, located in the modern city of Santarém, is estimated to contain 500 ha of ADE soils, of which 16 ha constitute the core of the pre-Columbian settlement (Nimuendajú, 1948(Nimuendajú, , 2004Roosevelt, 1999;Gomes, 2001Gomes, , 2017Stenborg et al, 2012). The increase in fire activity during this period occurs prior to the shift to drier regional climate conditions, suggesting pre-Columbian fire management continued to be the dominant driver of fire activity at LC.…”

“…This regional phenomenon has been attributed to both natural and anthropogenic drivers (Montoya and Rull, 2011;Montoya et al, 2011a,c;Rull and Montoya, 2014;Maezumi et al, 2015). Disentangling climate and pre-Columbian drivers of the late Holocene expansion of Mauritia/Mauritiella and other useful plants is complicated by the synchroneity of changes in regional climate (Baker et al, 2001b;Cruz et al, 2009;Novello et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2017) and the apex of pre-Columbian activity in lowland Amazon during this time (Roosevelt, 1999;Schaan, 2010Schaan, , 2012Gomes, 2011;Schaan et al, 2012;Stenborg et al, 2012). Paleoclimate records indicate an anti-phasing in regional precipitation patterns between the eastern Amazon and other areas of lowland South America (Baker et al, 2001b;Cruz et al, 2009;Novello et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2017).…”

Dark Earths and manioc cultivation in Central Amazonia: a window on pre-Columbian agricultural systems?

“…The term 'cassava' comes from casaba, an Arawak word that refers to manioc bread, rather than the plant itself (Gade, 2002). 4 While maize arrived in Amazonia some 6.000 years ago, it did not become widely cultivated until the late-pre-Columbian chiefdoms of the major rivers (Roosevelt, 1980(Roosevelt, , 1999. Chernela, 1987;Boster, 1984;Elias et al, 2000b;Wilson and Dufour, 2002;Emperaire and Peroni, 2007).…”

A extração da flora e fauna nativas na Amazônia brasileira – uma segunda apreciação

“…No entanto, não foram tão complexas e duráveis quanto as que floresceram nas montanhas e platôs dos Andes, da América Central e da América do Norte (atual território mexicano), que criaram sistemas agrícolas complexos de grande porte (Brito, 1990;Roosevelt, 1999a;1999b).…”