Interpreting interfluvial landscape transformations in the pre-Columbian Amazon
Date
2015
Authors
Stahl, Peter
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Holocene
Abstract
Despite evidence for the protracted presence of humans in the Amazon Basin, its vast interfluvial habitats are frequently depicted as having survived until recently as “wild” landscapes with neither human settlement nor substantial human land use. Related research interests of paleoecology and archaeology share parallel histories in the development of explanatory paradigms for understanding processes contributing to neotropical ecology, as both emerged from earlier periods dominated by models based on stability and equilibrium to a contemporary advocacy of dynamic stability and change. Recent paradigms accommodate humans as keystone species and implicate their role in past and present landscape management. This is particularly important in the Neotropics where it is argued that an extensive and ancient indigenous agroforestry employed intermediate disturbance in the management of interfluvial landscapes. This is contrasted with a critical discussion of recent paleoecological research in central and western Amazonia, which argues that interfluvial landscapes were devoid of pre-Columbian populations and survived as relatively pristine relic landscapes throughout most of the Anthropocene.
Description
Keywords
Anthropocene, Amazon, agroforestry, paleoecology, archaeology, historical ecology
Citation
Stahl, P. W. (2015). Interpreting interfluvial landscape transformations in the pre-Columbian Amazon. The Holocene, 25(10), 1598-1603. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683615588372