Abstract
Abstract. Pre-Columbian raised field agriculture in the tropical lowlands of South America has received increasing attention and been the focus of heated debates regarding its function, productivity, and role in the development of pre-Columbian societies. Even though raised fields are all associated to permanent or semi-permanent high water levels, they occur in different environmental contexts. Very few field-based studies on raised fields have been carried out in the tropical lowlands and little is known about their use and past management. Based on topographic surveying and mapping, soil physical and chemical analysis and OSL and radiocarbon dating, this paper provides insight into the morphology, functioning and time frame of the use of raised fields in the south-western Llanos de Moxos, Bolivian Amazon. We have studied raised fields of different sizes that were built in an area near the town of San Borja, with a complex fluvial history. The results show that differences in field size and height are the result of an adaptation to a site where soil properties vary significantly on a scale of tens to hundreds of metres. The analysis and dating of the raised fields sediments point towards an extensive and rather brief use of the raised fields, for about 100–200 years at the beginning of the 2nd millennium.
Highlights
The Llanos de Moxos (LM) is one of the largest floodplains in Latin America, characterized by a prolonged rainy season and a contrasting dry season, often resulting in either severe flooding or droughts (Hanagarth, 1993)
We analyse raised fields of different sizes which were built in an area, near San Borja, with a complex fluvial history
Different generations of palaeo rivers, partly overlapping each other, coexist in the area, resulting in a heterogeneous depositional environment. This is reflected in the great variability of sediment particle size of the excavated raised fields
Summary
The Llanos de Moxos (LM) is one of the largest floodplains in Latin America, characterized by a prolonged rainy season and a contrasting dry season, often resulting in either severe flooding or droughts (Hanagarth, 1993). Distributed over a wide range of latitudes, spanning from almost 20◦ N to 40◦ S, they exist in very different environmental contexts: in seasonal inundated floodplains, around lake shores and in coastal zones; all of them associated to permanent or semi-permanent high water levels (Erickson, 1988; Kolata and Ortloff, 1989; Wilson et al, 2002; Dillehay et al, 2007; Denevan, 2001; Rostain, 2010) Since their discovery about 100 years ago by Erland Nordenskiöld (Denevan, 2009), increasing interest in raised field agriculture has led to a body of literature focused on understanding how raised fields worked and were managed and how pre-Columbian societies were sustained
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