The narrative used there weren't any civilizations in the Amazon. The contemporary rewrite is there were civilizations but they were wonderful stewards of the environment and did nothing but better it. Eventually we'll be back to a balanced perspective. Their societies likely expanded beyond the capacity of the environment and they collapsed too hundreds of years before the damage done by the Europeans.
Do you have access to the full article? I'd like to read it. Location of the study sites would be tremendously important. If they were in the southwestern Amazonia (think of Acre State in Brazil or the Pando region of Bolivia) this would make sense. This region is the forest-savanna marginal area of shifting climate. On the other hand, if the sites are located in the central Amazon basin where the terra preta soils are found and where Francisco de Orellana reported high density populations of miles in size along the main rivers, the narrative would surely be challenged.
It looks like there were sites across Amazonia and there were variabilities in them. The claim is that human management of the rain forest peaked around 1200 AD so there was already a decline happening by the time of European arrival. It's not claiming, of course, that the European arrival wasn't devastating, only that humans may have maxed out before the Europeans.
Climate change may have been a key but there is also evidence of increased warfare around the time caused by migration of peoples from the Andean highlands and also increased spread of tuberculosis.
By using a robust model testing approach, our analyses document that the growth of pre-Columbian human population over the 1700 years prior to European colonization adheres to a logistic model of demographic growth. This suggests that, at an aggregate level, these pre-Columbian populations had potentially reached carrying capacity (however high) before the onset of European colonization.
By the way the regions where terra preta exists (or can exist) was much more limited than I realized.
Terra pretas were most frequently found in central and eastern Amazonia along the lower courses of the major Amazonian rivers. Terrain, hydrologic and soil characteristics were more important predictors of terra preta distributions than climatic conditions. Our modelling efforts indicated that terra pretas are likely to be found throughout ca 154 063 km2 or 3.2% of the forest.
To me what all of this points to is that conditions for "harmony" with nature have been special or temporary. Invaders, climate change, disease, over population, lost of fertility of soil - any number of things can upset a delicate balance
Thanks for the articles. They are as I suspected, nuanced and full of noting the uncertainties of generalizing across a vast region. I agree with their notion that the narrative of a plague of European diseases causing a "Little Ice Age" is overly simplistic. There was, as there usually is, a complex co-arising across a period of time.
Yes, the terra preta regions were small in the context of vast Amazonia, concentrated among high density riverine populations who used local conditions and their awareness to improve rather than deplete soil productivity and deal creatively with waste management. Their wisdom is now reemerging in the modern form of the International Biochar Initiative.
Conditions of "harmony" are always conditional, which is what makes the "delicate balance" delicate and places a premium on expanding awareness. I have never asserted that a Golden Age lies at the end of the rainbow. The fact that you repeatedly project that I'm asserting a past, present or future Golden Age is why I asked you if you have ever seen the end of the rainbow?
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
I'm curious as to what meaning you give to your bolded 3.2% figure below?
By the way the regions where terra preta exists (or can exist) was much more limited than I realized.
Terra pretas were most frequently found in central and eastern Amazonia along the lower courses of the major Amazonian rivers. Terrain, hydrologic and soil characteristics were more important predictors of terra preta distributions than climatic conditions. Our modelling efforts indicated that terra pretas are likely to be found throughout ca 154 063 km2 or ≈3.2% of the forest. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896013/
Last edited by Lou Gold on Wed Dec 29, 2021 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
I'm curious as to what meaning you give to your bolded 3.2% figure below?
By the way the regions where terra preta exists (or can exist) was much more limited than I realized.
Terra pretas were most frequently found in central and eastern Amazonia along the lower courses of the major Amazonian rivers. Terrain, hydrologic and soil characteristics were more important predictors of terra preta distributions than climatic conditions. Our modelling efforts indicated that terra pretas are likely to be found throughout ca 154 063 km2 or ≈3.2% of the forest. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896013/
It was just to point out that the conditions for these soils were somewhat limited to the major riverways that had an abundance of fish. So the conditions were somewhat unique and wouldn't work across all of Amazonia even less across South America or many other places.
I'm guessing they survived primarily off fish with the crops being important but only secondary sources of food. Why terra preta would mostly be found there might be accounted for by a possibility that bones (particularly fish bones) might have been an essential component. In Googling, I actually found that terra preta has been found in Asia also associated with fish bones. Amazing technology in a way but really all it took was somebody to notice that the town garbage pile was where plants grew best.
Of course, none of this was about thinking thoughts about harmony with nature, although they may have thought like that. It was all about an accidental creation of a technology.
I'm curious as to what meaning you give to your bolded 3.2% figure below?
By the way the regions where terra preta exists (or can exist) was much more limited than I realized.
Terra pretas were most frequently found in central and eastern Amazonia along the lower courses of the major Amazonian rivers. Terrain, hydrologic and soil characteristics were more important predictors of terra preta distributions than climatic conditions. Our modelling efforts indicated that terra pretas are likely to be found throughout ca 154 063 km2 or ≈3.2% of the forest. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896013/
It was just to point out that the conditions for these soils were somewhat limited to the major riverways that had an abundance of fish. So the conditions were somewhat unique and wouldn't work across all of Amazonia even less across South America or many other places.
I'm guessing they survived primarily off fish with the crops being important but only secondary sources of food. Why terra preta would mostly be found there might be accounted for by a possibility that bones (particularly fish bones) might have been an essential component. In Googling, I actually found that terra preta has been found in Asia also associated with fish bones. Amazing technology in a way but really all it took was somebody to notice that the town garbage pile was where plants grew best.
Of course, none of this was about thinking thoughts about harmony with nature, although they may have thought like that. It was all about an accidental creation of a technology.
Yikes, Jim, it's as I suspected.
The 3.2% figure should not be taken as an extreme eco-rareness. High density urban settlements ALWAYS occupy a tiny portion of the land mass. For example, urbanization takes up 2% of the present US land mass. Actual settlement area compared with agricultural area was probably a fraction of the 3.2%. Sure fish bones may have been an important ingredient, just as fish flesh was important for food. The point is that the urban populations developed a soil-enhancing rather than soil-depleting agriculture that facilitated urban growth rather than leading to a crash.
C'mon, ecological embeddedness causes thinking about harmony with nature and some thoughts are more sustainable than others. That someone might have noticed where seeds sprout is not an accidental emergence of technology. It is the thoughtful observation of critters who use and develop tools.
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
I'm curious as to what meaning you give to your bolded 3.2% figure below?
By the way the regions where terra preta exists (or can exist) was much more limited than I realized.
Terra pretas were most frequently found in central and eastern Amazonia along the lower courses of the major Amazonian rivers. Terrain, hydrologic and soil characteristics were more important predictors of terra preta distributions than climatic conditions. Our modelling efforts indicated that terra pretas are likely to be found throughout ca 154 063 km2 or ≈3.2% of the forest. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896013/
It was just to point out that the conditions for these soils were somewhat limited to the major riverways that had an abundance of fish. So the conditions were somewhat unique and wouldn't work across all of Amazonia even less across South America or many other places.
I'm guessing they survived primarily off fish with the crops being important but only secondary sources of food. Why terra preta would mostly be found there might be accounted for by a possibility that bones (particularly fish bones) might have been an essential component. In Googling, I actually found that terra preta has been found in Asia also associated with fish bones. Amazing technology in a way but really all it took was somebody to notice that the town garbage pile was where plants grew best.
Of course, none of this was about thinking thoughts about harmony with nature, although they may have thought like that. It was all about an accidental creation of a technology.
Yikes, Jim, it's as I suspected.
The 3.2% figure should not be taken as an extreme eco-rareness. High density urban settlements ALWAYS occupy a tiny portion of the land mass. For example, urbanization takes up 2% of the present US land mass. Actual settlement area compared with agricultural area was probably a fraction of the 3.2%. Sure fish bones may have been an important ingredient, just as fish flesh was important for food. The point is that the urban populations developed a soil-enhancing rather than soil-depleting agriculture that facilitated urban growth rather than leading to a crash.
C'mon, ecological embeddedness causes thinking about harmony with nature and some thoughts are more sustainable than others. That someone might have noticed where seeds sprout is not an accidental emergence of technology. It is the thoughtful observation of critters who use and develop tools.
You completely missing that these settlements were on major waterways. They weren't concentrated population centers scattered randomly through the Amazon. But yes, the same applies in many different sorts of circumstances. Many major cites are ports on bays, with harbors, or rivers. Other cities are the confluence of trade routes. Other cities have built near other resources like oil and coal. Sure seems like a huge relationship between technology and where people live.
It was just to point out that the conditions for these soils were somewhat limited to the major riverways that had an abundance of fish. So the conditions were somewhat unique and wouldn't work across all of Amazonia even less across South America or many other places.
I'm guessing they survived primarily off fish with the crops being important but only secondary sources of food. Why terra preta would mostly be found there might be accounted for by a possibility that bones (particularly fish bones) might have been an essential component. In Googling, I actually found that terra preta has been found in Asia also associated with fish bones. Amazing technology in a way but really all it took was somebody to notice that the town garbage pile was where plants grew best.
Of course, none of this was about thinking thoughts about harmony with nature, although they may have thought like that. It was all about an accidental creation of a technology.
Yikes, Jim, it's as I suspected.
The 3.2% figure should not be taken as an extreme eco-rareness. High density urban settlements ALWAYS occupy a tiny portion of the land mass. For example, urbanization takes up 2% of the present US land mass. Actual settlement area compared with agricultural area was probably a fraction of the 3.2%. Sure fish bones may have been an important ingredient, just as fish flesh was important for food. The point is that the urban populations developed a soil-enhancing rather than soil-depleting agriculture that facilitated urban growth rather than leading to a crash.
C'mon, ecological embeddedness causes thinking about harmony with nature and some thoughts are more sustainable than others. That someone might have noticed where seeds sprout is not an accidental emergence of technology. It is the thoughtful observation of critters who use and develop tools.
You completely missing that these settlements were on major waterways. They weren't concentrated population centers scattered randomly through the Amazon. But yes, the same applies in many different sorts of circumstances. Many major cites are ports on bays, with harbors, or rivers. Other cities are the confluence of trade routes. Other cities have built near other resources like oil and coal. Sure seems like a huge relationship between technology and where people live.
Do we need less technology or more?
I'm not missing that the settlements were on major waterways. They were not scattered randomly but much less than what was potentially available for more population and settlement expansion. Do you know that the mainstream Amazon River has more than one hundred tributaries that are larger than the US Mississippi River? Building near a resource does NOT mean building near a technology. It means building near an abundance easy to exploit and a population to supply by developing the tools to do so.
Again, you do it. No, we need not less technology but more appropriate technology and better comprehension of when to use or not use. Selection logging following indigenous wisdom of thinking of the seventh generation to come more than thinking of quarterly profits does not get rid of chainsaws but instead better understands when and where to use and not use them. And, guess how we do this? We do not wait for an accident to randomly fall from on high but we develop our thinking in order to hopefully come into better balance with our situation.
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
Here's an excellent talk about what is known about how things worked in the transitional forest/savanna regions of southwestern Amazonia, where there were palisades, evidence of warfare and a lot of effort to create and maintain a human preferred balance between savanna and forest. These would be regions of much competition, boom and bust cycles, climate change, etc. I'm not aware of evidence of the prevalence of these patterns in the terra preta regions of the central Amazon basin where the agricultural technology combined with local resources to produce a soil improvement and boom-and-bloom more than a boom-and-bust with population expansion along the great rivers. Bottom line is a great diversity across a vast region.
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
Here's an excellent talk about what is known about how things worked in the transitional forest/savanna regions of southwestern Amazonia, where there were palisades, evidence of warfare and a lot of effort to create and maintain a human preferred balance between savanna and forest. These would be regions of much competition, boom and bust cycles, climate change, etc. I'm not aware of evidence of the prevalence of these patterns in the terra preta regions of the central Amazon basin where the agricultural technology combined with local resources to produce a soil improvement and boom-and-bloom more than a boom-and-bust with population expansion along the great rivers. Bottom line is a great diversity across a vast region.
Yes, great diversity and the subsistence methods used in central Amazon basin needed to be modified or replaced. The terra preta is almost solely on rivers in central region. The lighter green shade in map.
You may be underestimating the role of fish in the civilizations of the central basin. The fish was an essential source of protein. They couldn't live on manioc alone.
There is an outlier paper which suggests that the high calcium and phosphorus content of the terra preta soils can't be accounted for by human activity and it could be that people actually didn't create the soils but they were created by a natural process. People were attracted by the fertility to live near them. I don't think I accept that theory but the high calcium and phosphorus content may have been essential to the soil's fertility and to me the most logical explanation for its presence is fish bones. It might also have provided an alkalizing influence which altered the pH enough to entice different forms of bacterial growth. The paper ran numbers and argues there was too much mineral content for it to be simple human waste. The possibly exists to me that actually the indigenous caught fish far in excess of what they needed for food and used the fish as fertilizer. They may have also used fish poisons to catch fish in large numbers. There is evidence they use fish poison even today. I know of an old tomato farmer in the countryside outside Atlanta who my wife and discovered used dynamite to kill large number of fish then used the fish for fertilizer. We stopped buying tomatoes from him after we learned that.
Here's an excellent talk about what is known about how things worked in the transitional forest/savanna regions of southwestern Amazonia, where there were palisades, evidence of warfare and a lot of effort to create and maintain a human preferred balance between savanna and forest. These would be regions of much competition, boom and bust cycles, climate change, etc. I'm not aware of evidence of the prevalence of these patterns in the terra preta regions of the central Amazon basin where the agricultural technology combined with local resources to produce a soil improvement and boom-and-bloom more than a boom-and-bust with population expansion along the great rivers. Bottom line is a great diversity across a vast region.
Yes, great diversity and the subsistence methods used in central Amazon basin needed to be modified or replaced. The terra preta is almost solely on rivers in central region. The lighter green shade in map.
You may be underestimating the role of fish in the civilizations of the central basin. The fish was an essential source of protein. They couldn't live on manioc alone.
There is an outlier paper which suggests that the high calcium and phosphorus content of the terra preta soils can't be accounted for by human activity and it could be that people actually didn't create the soils but they were created by a natural process. People were attracted by the fertility to live near them. I don't think I accept that theory but the high calcium and phosphorus content may have been essential to the soil's fertility and to me the most logical explanation for its presence is fish bones. It might also have provided an alkalizing influence which altered the pH enough to entice different forms of bacterial growth. The paper ran numbers and argues there was too much mineral content for it to be simple human waste. The possibly exists to me that actually the indigenous caught fish far in excess of what they needed for food and used the fish as fertilizer. They may have also used fish poisons to catch fish in large numbers. There is evidence they use fish poison even today. I know of an old tomato farmer in the countryside outside Atlanta who my wife and discovered used dynamite to kill large number of fish then used the fish for fertilizer. We stopped buying tomatoes from him after we learned that.
No, I'm not underestimating the role of fish, which was a main nutrient across the Amazon basin and surely one reason settlements occurred along rivers. (Other reasons for living along rivers were ease of commerce and transportation.) But nutrient is not the key feature of terra preta soils. It is the charcoal that changed the difficult soils, which did not well hold nutrients, into something like a nutrient-rich and amazingly fertile coral reef-like structure. Terra preta is not about the availability of fish nutrients; it's about holding them in the soil.
Note additionally that sizeable waterways are spread all over Amazonia, which is a vast floodplain with abundant fish and aquatic nutrient in no way limited to the main stems of the great river.
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
Actually, this is a great map. I lived for more than a decade in the southwestern region (near Rio Branco) where earthworks are concentrated. This region is transitional, back and forth between savanna and forest depending on climatic conditions. This would surely be a region with the boom-and-bust cycles you describe and loaded with savanna-style agricultural adaptations and innovations, which are quite different from the riverine adaptations of the central basin. Bottom-line is that it's not justifiable to generalize across the vast and diverse Amazonia. For example, the southwestern region contains BOTH the Inca capital Cuzco high in the Andes at 11,000 feet and lowland Rio Branco at 470 feet with very few cultural similarities. Interestingly, the Inca elite in Cuzco got their fresh fish for much-loved ceviche delivered by postal runners arriving from the Pacific coast and, yet, these incredibly dissimilar eco-cultural contexts are both technically within the 'Amazon basin' stretching from the crest of high Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.
Be calm - Be clear - See the faults - See the suffering - Give your love
