Late Holocene Neotropical agricultural landscapes: phytolith and stable carbon isotope analysis of raised fields from French Guianan coastal savannahs

Iriarte, José; Glaser, Bruno; Watling, Jennifer; Wainwright, Adam; Birk, Jago Jonathan; Renard, Delphine; Rostain, Stéphen; McKey, Doyle

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2010.06.016

Cited by 76 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…2 and 3B) (4, 13). Further support comes from other raised-field sites in the region, where panicoid phytoliths dominate in mound soil profiles and Cyperaceae phytoliths are more abundant in intermound profiles (4,13). Another major change in the K-VIII core during the "raised-field farmer" period is the increase in wild rice (Poaceae: Oryzoideae) phytoliths (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In addition, channels between raised fields can be used for fish and turtle farming, and their muck and aquatic vegetation can provide a renewable source of nutrients for the soil. Modern raised-field experiments show that raised fields can be very productive, yielding between 2 and 5.8 t ha −1 of maize (Zea mays L.) and up to 21 t ha −1 of manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz), and could thus have supported large and concentrated populations (13).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Iriarte

Power

Rostain

et al. 2012

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

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111

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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: 92%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Iriarte

Power

Rostain

et al. 2012

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

Self Cite

111

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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).…”

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confidence: 99%

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

Watling

Iriarte

Mayle

et al. 2017

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

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170

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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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“…Regions whose study inform on these patterns include the western Orinoco plains of Colombia and Venezuela (Garson, 1980;Gassón, 1998;Spencer & Redmond, 1992Spencer, Redmond, & Rinaldi, 1994;Zucchi & Denevan, 1979), the middle Orinoco of Venezuela (Perry, 2004;Roosevelt, 1980;van der Merwe et al, 1981;Smith & Roosevelt, 1985), the lower Orinoco in Venezuela (Oliver, 2014), and the coastal plains of the Guianas (Boomert, 1980;1987;Iriarte et al, 2010;McKey et al, 2010;Rostain, 2008ab, 2013 a andVersteeg, 2008). [Arauguinoid relatives and also a variety of local cultures have been identified in western, northern, and eastern Venezuela (Gassón, 2002;Navarrete, 2008) and Caribbean coast of Columbia (Oyuela-Caycedo, 2008), but their subsistence has not yet been investigated comprehensively.…”

Section: Late Prehistoric Ceramic Culturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Method and Theory of Early Farming: The Orinoco and Caribbean Coasts of South America

Roosevelt¹

2016

ESR

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The early and mid 20th century was a time of great interest in the rise of agriculture and its role in the evolution of civilizations societies in particular environments. Late 20th century efforts to reconstruct the nature and history of prehistoric farming societies in the northern lowlands of South America ranged from expansive hypotheses to regional case studies using archaeobotanical technologies then available. Since 2000, a large number of regional studies using expanded and refined methods have produced broadly interesting results. Approaches from the fields of geography and earth sciences are being recruited increasingly. The resulting empirical evidence does shed light on aspects of the history of human use of some plants but, as always, has raised more questions than it solved. Many of the problems interpreting the processual and evolutionary significance of these findings are methodological ones. This article reviews what seem to be the most important methodological and interpretive issues of this area of research for the tropical lowlands (up to c. 1500 m a.s.l) of northern South America.

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Late Holocene Neotropical agricultural landscapes: phytolith and stable carbon isotope analysis of raised fields from French Guianan coastal savannahs

Cited by 76 publications

References 29 publications

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

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

Method and Theory of Early Farming: The Orinoco and Caribbean Coasts of South America

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