Premium
Pre‐Columbian ring ditch construction and land use on a ‘chocolate forest island’ in the Bolivian Amazon
Author(s) -
Carson John F.,
Mayle Francis E.,
Whitney Bronwen S.,
Iriarte José,
Soto J. Daniel
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of quaternary science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.142
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1099-1417
pISSN - 0267-8179
DOI - 10.1002/jqs.2835
Subject(s) - deforestation (computer science) , ditch , geography , amazon rainforest , charcoal , context (archaeology) , vegetation (pathology) , woodland , ecology , forestry , archaeology , medicine , materials science , pathology , computer science , metallurgy , biology , programming language
We present a palaeoecological investigation of pre‐Columbian land use in the savanna ‘forest island’ landscape of the north‐east Bolivian Amazon. A 5700‐year sediment core from La Luna Lake, located adjacent to the La Luna forest island site, was analysed for fossil pollen and charcoal. We aimed to determine the palaeoenvironmental context of pre‐Columbian occupation on the site and assess the environmental impact of land use in the forest island region. Evidence for anthropogenic burning and Zea mays L. cultivation began ∼2000 cal a BP, at a time when the island was covered by savanna, under drier‐than‐present climatic conditions. After ∼1240 cal a BP burning declined and afforestation occurred. We show that construction of the ring ditch, which encircles the island, did not involve substantial deforestation. Previous estimates of pre‐Columbian population size in this region, based upon labour required for forest clearance, should therefore be reconsidered. Despite the high density of economically useful plants, such as Theobroma cacao , in the modern forest, no direct pollen evidence for agroforestry was found. However, human occupation is shown to pre‐date and span forest expansion on this site, suggesting that here, and in the wider forest island region, there is no truly pre‐anthropogenic ‘pristine’ forest.