Finding forest management in prehistoric Amazonia

Abstract

Abstract This paper addresses a topic highlighted in recent arguments by Amazonian scholars: the extent to which forms of forest management in prehistory influenced the past and present composition of terra firme and riverine forests. New information on palm phytolith characteristics enabled phytolith analysis on soils sampled from underneath forests in western and central Amazon. We evaluated whether three major economic palms, Oenocarpus bataua, O. bacaba, and Euterpe precatoria, thought to have been significantly enriched by human activities, demonstrated such enrichment. All three palms are hyperdominant species today. We also examined expanded modern phytolith reference collections in a possible context of human management of other arboreal species that involved changes in overall forest structure and diversity during the past several thousand years. Results indicate little to no enrichment of the palms and largely stable forest structure and diversity in terra firme forests through time. Although much research remains, results of this study indicate that prehistoric human modification of Amazonian forest and creation of species hyperdominance was less influential than currently proposed by some Amazonian scholars. Findings contribute toward resolving questions concerning the temporal and spatial scale and characteristics of pre-Columbian human impacts across Amazonia. They also suggest cross-disciplinary insights surrounding the proposed new geological epoch of the Anthropocene.