Abstract
Much of the research done on environmental impacts by Amazonian indigenous peoples in the past focus on certain areas where archaeological remains are particularly abundant, such as the Amazon River estuary, the seasonally inundated floodplain of the lower Amazon, and various sites in the forest-savannah mosaic of the southern Amazon The environmental history of interfluvial upland areas has received less attention. This study reconstructed the history of human use of natural resources in an upland area of 1400 km2 surrounding the indigenous Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon, based on oral history elicited from local elders as well as historical source documents and some modern scientific studies. Although data is scarce, one can conclude that the impacts of humans on the environment have varied in time and space in quite intricate ways. Hunting has affected, and continues affecting, basically the whole study area, but it is now more concentrated in space than what it has probably ever been before. Also forest clearing has become more concentrated in space but, in addition, it has gone from affecting only hilltops forests to affecting alluvial plains as well as hilltops and, lately, also the slopes of the hills.
Highlights
To what extent the Amazonian forests are ‘wilderness’, and what legacies past generations of indigenous peoples have left on the forest ecosystem, are questions that have been intriguing researchers over the last few decades
Amazonian forests were long thought a pristine wilderness, but since the late 1980’s a series of studies using a wide variety of approaches, including studies of historical source documents and archaeological artefacts, as well as biological methods based on dendrochronology and paleobotany, and even remote sensing, have challenged this view (e.g. Balée 1989, 1992; Denevan 1992; Gómez-Pompa & Kaus 1992; Bush & Colinvaux 1994; Cleary 2001; Pärssinen et al 2009; Levis et al 2012)
Such evidence led some authors to make quite radical conclusions, claiming that the Amazonian forests were ‘anthropogenic’ (Gómez-Pompa & Kaus 1992) and that the idea of the forests of Amazonia being pristine was nothing but a ‘myth’ (Denevan 1992, 2011)
Summary
To what extent the Amazonian forests are ‘wilderness’, and what legacies past generations of indigenous peoples have left on the forest ecosystem, are questions that have been intriguing researchers over the last few decades. Amazonian forests were long thought a pristine wilderness, but since the late 1980’s a series of studies using a wide variety of approaches, including studies of historical source documents and archaeological artefacts, as well as biological methods based on dendrochronology and paleobotany, and even remote sensing, have challenged this view (e.g. Balée 1989, 1992; Denevan 1992; Gómez-Pompa & Kaus 1992; Bush & Colinvaux 1994; Cleary 2001; Pärssinen et al 2009; Levis et al 2012) Such studies have shown that forests that previously were thought to be pristine, in reality have been subject to disturbance and modifications by humans during thousands of years, leaving behind traces such as forests with elevated concentrations of useful tree species, earth works, and anthropogenic black-earth deposits. By providing historical depth as well as a view of the spatial variability of resource use in the particular area studied, this paper contributes to the ongoing quest for better understanding past interactions between humans and nature in Amazonia, including how human activities may have left lasting – not always readily visible − traces on the forest composition
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