Pre-Columbian fire management and control of climate-driven floodwaters over 3,500 years in southwestern Amazonia.

ABSTRACT: In landscapes that support economic and cultural activities, human communities actively manage environments and environmental change at a variety of spatial scales that complicate the effects of continental-scale climate. Here, we demonstrate how hydrological conditions were modified by humans against the backdrop of Holocene climate change in southwestern Amazonia. Paleoecological investigations (phytoliths, charcoal, pollen, diatoms) of two sediment cores extracted from within the same permanent wetland, ∼22 km apart, show a 1,500-y difference in when the intensification of land use and management occurred, including raised field agriculture, fire regime, and agroforestry. Although rising precipitation is well known during the mid to late Holocene, human actions manipulated climate-drive

SUBMITTER: Duncan NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8501770 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature