A new study found that the Amazon rainforest is a domesticated land before the European conquest. The world has long regarded the Amazonia as a pristine sanctuary, where human influence is almost nonexistent. This perception wavered through time despite some statements saying that humans indeed touched some parts of the said nature haven. In the new study conducted by international experts, they reviewed the claims of sparse populations but argue that the Amazonia has minimal socio-cultural/ populous influences compared to any other forests in the world before the European emergence.
Amazonia is a significant point of plant domestication. As the Europeans came, at least 83 species of plants and 55 neotropical trees were cultivated and grown at some point. The plants included sweet potato, tobacco, cacao, hot pepper and pineapple. Domesticating plants requires a long process; natural selection relates to human selection to pursue the modifications that enhance the benefits to human populations and coping to tamed landscapes. With this, there is progression from fundamental change to completely tamed conditions where the plants are contingent to the human population to thrive. Managing plant species play an essential role in the sustenance measures, encompassing the 3,000-5,000 misused non-domesticated species.
The Amazon rainforest is largely filled with uplands that lack nutrients; however, about 10 percent of soils in the forest are nutrient-rich and/ or sufficient including Gleysols and Fluvisols in floodplains and palaeo-floodplains in Brazil alone.
The impact of humans in the form, intensity and distribution of Amazonian landscapes before the European conquest is said to be linked to the totals and densities of native populations. Data from 1492 are highly varied because details are very limited during this time. The conventional estimates of one to two million humans are based on data in the last 2,000 years, which are considered recent and are not responsible for the decrease of populations due to starvation, epidemics and slavery post-1492. In 1996, the projected number for Greater Amazonia is about six million.
New information continuously emerge about the Amazon forests and for experts, these multidisciplinary data may be considered as one of the most notable diversity stories that occur through time. The extent at which landscape domestication is increased significantly was markedly observed as changes in food production, development of orchards and anthropogenic soils occurred. The Amazonia is highly sensitive to the climate and human influence; hence further investigations of a variety of views using solid fieldwork will be of great benefit, the researchers recommended.
Photo: Ivan Mlinaric | Flickr
