{"id":48314,"date":"2019-09-07T06:37:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T11:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=48314"},"modified":"2019-09-07T06:37:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-07T11:37:33","slug":"ancient-amazonian-societies-managed-the-forest-intensively-but-sustainably-heres-what-we-can-learn-from-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=48314","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Amazonian Societies Managed the Forest Intensively But Sustainably–Here’s What We Can Learn From Them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ANCIENT AMAZONIAN SOCIETIES MANAGED THE FOREST INTENSIVELY BUT SUSTAINABLY \u2014 HERE\u2019S WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THEM<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Amazon\u2019s trees, soils and mysterious earthworks tell the story of the millions who lived there before European arrival <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Intro<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

August 15, 2019 \u2014 <\/em>When loggers and cattle ranchers began toppling the rainforest in Brazil\u2019s far western state of Acre, they revealed a mystery: vast ancient earthworks, hidden for centuries under the trees<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These \u201cgeoglyphs\u201d took the form of geometric shapes \u2014 squares, rectangles and circles \u2014 hundreds of meters across, marked out with ditches and raised mounds. Since the 1980s, around 450 geoglyphs have been identified in Acre alone, dating back between 650 and 2,000 years<\/a> \u2014 offering new perspectives on the supposed pristine nature of the Amazon as well as insights into how agriculture and healthy ecosystems might coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Amazon has long been thought of as an untrammeled ecosystem, a wilderness relatively untouched by humans. Indigenous peoples were presumed to be so few in number, and live so lightly on the land, that they had a negligible impact on the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But recent interdisciplinary research across the Amazon basin is overturning that old story. It\u2019s showing instead that the rainforest\u2019s early inhabitants numbered in the millions<\/a>, and that they managed the landscape intensively, in complex and sustainable ways \u2014 offering lessons for how we manage the Amazon today.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient Agroforestry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Watling, currently an archaeologist at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo in Brazil, spent several seasons digging holes in some of Acre\u2019s geoglyphs for her Ph.D.\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Exeter in the U.K.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is still unclear exactly what the geoglyphs were used for, Watling says. From the lack of household debris, it seems people didn\u2019t live there, but perhaps visited for ceremonies and other special events. New tools, including the analysis of microscopic plant remains called phytoliths, are helping archaeologists find other stories in the soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"coffee
Agroforesters grow crops among trees for benefits such as increased biodiversity and soil health. Of the ancient sites archaeologists are finding in Brazil, one researcher says, \u201cIt looks a lot like agroforestry \u2014 managing the landscape, encouraging palms and probably other useful plants as well.\u201d Photo courtesy of Icaro Cooke Vieira\/CIFOR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCIENT AMAZONIAN SOCIETIES MANAGED THE FOREST INTENSIVELY BUT SUSTAINABLY \u2014 HERE\u2019S WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THEM The Amazon\u2019s trees, soils and mysterious earthworks tell the story of the millions who lived there before European arrival  August 15, 2019 \u2014 When loggers and cattle ranchers began toppling the rainforest in Brazil\u2019s far western state of Acre, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[10763,977,27110,1392,6513,27111,769],"class_list":["post-48314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-agroforestry","tag-amazon","tag-amazonian-rainforest","tag-earthworks","tag-ensia","tag-food-poduction","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48315,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48314\/revisions\/48315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}