Abstract
Abstract Most native Amazonian crops were domesticated in the periphery of the basin. The upper Madeira River basin is an important part of this periphery where several important crops were domesticated and others are suspected to have been domesticated or arrived early. Some of these crops have been reasonably well studied, such as manioc, peanut, peach palm, coca and tobacco, while others are not as well known, such as the hot peppers Capsicum baccatum and C. frutescens, and still others need confirmation, such as cocoyam and annatto. We review the information available for manioc, peach palm, Capsicum, peanut, annatto and cocoyam. The state-of-the-art for Capsicum frutescens, annatto and cocoyam is insufficient to conclude definitively that they were domesticated in the upper Madeira, while all the others have at least one of their origins or centers of diversity in the upper Madeira.
Highlights
The Madeira River drains a large portion of southwestern Amazonia, with a complex of headwater rivers that arise either in the Andes, with sediment-rich ‘white’ waters, or the western edge of the Brazilian shield, with sediment-poor ‘clear’ or ‘black’ waters
Pre-ceramic societies occupied the area of Porto Velho, Rondônia, as early as 12,000 before present (BP) (Miller, 1992a), Lombardo et al (2013) report initially preceramic shell mounds in the Llanos de Mojos, lowland Bolivia, dated to 10,600 BP, and Neves et al (2015) are excavating a similar mound along the Guaporé River, Rondônia, so we can accept early occupation of the upper Madeira River basin as confirmed
A micro-center is a geographically restricted area with an abundance of crop genetic resources used in both agroecosystems and in other domesticated landscapes. In this contribution we will review principally the genetic evidence, and some morphology, biogeography and ethnography, for manioc, peach palm, Capsicum peppers, especially C. baccatum and C. frutescens, cocoyam and annatto, some of which originated in the upper Madeira and others of which were produced there before European conquest
Summary
The Madeira River drains a large portion of southwestern Amazonia, with a complex of headwater rivers that arise either in the Andes, with sediment-rich ‘white’ waters, or the western edge of the Brazilian shield, with sediment-poor ‘clear’ or ‘black’ waters. The major root crop of Amazonia, manioc (Manihot esculenta) was confirmed to have originated in the upper Madeira (Schaal et al, 2006) and new information suggests the same for peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) (Cristo-Araújo et al, 2013).
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