Pre-Columbian Vegetational And Fire History In Western Amazonia

The extent to which pre-Columbian human societies occupied and significantly impacted Amazonian environments is a long-standing question that remain under active discussion. Data are particularly limited from terra firme forests, that is, formations located away from watercourses that occupy over 90% of the Amazon Basin. This new study investigates pre-Columbian influences on fire and vegetation in three regions of the western Peruvian Amazon through phytolith and charcoal analysis of terrestrial soils. One area, in the Tapiche-Blanco watersheds, had not been previously studied; relevant tree data and soil samples were collected during the Field Museum’s Rapid Inventory 27 in 2014. Previous phytolith research for the other two regions, the Los Amigos Biological Station and the area between the towns of Iquitos and Nauta, was expanded to study forest composition and cultural palm usage through time in more detail. The results indicate that the diverse forests in these regions remained intact and were little affected by human forest clearing and agriculture with annual seed and root crops during the past 2000–5000 years of prehistory. In limited areas within each region, usually in riverine environments, people planted domesticated palm species for food, building materials, etc., creating tree communities now have more domesticated palm trees than forests elsewhere. All in all, however, the accumulated evidence from various proxies indicates the persistence of diverse, forest-dominated pre-Columbian landscapes in western and parts of central Amazonia studied to date.
Two of the co-authors, Marcos Ríos and Luis Torres, are Action Associates who participated in the Tapiche-Blanco inventory. That’s Marcos in the top photo (left) with Nigel, during the RI27 in 2014. Luis spent two months at the Museum last summer (bottom right photo) to identify herbarium specimens from the Tapiche-Blanco tree plots established during that inventory. His visit was supported by the Science and Scholarship Funding Committee. Data from those plots are published with the new paper, and have also been incorporated into the Amazon Tree Diversity Network.
February 23. 2024