Town Networks Defy Myth Of Pristine Rainforest

torpor writes "An interesting article being published in Science magazine discusses the ways tribes in the Xinguano region cultivated and integrated the Amazon rainforest into their culture by building 'networks of towns and cities, geometrically structured' to accomodate better use of the surrounding forest region. From an article at agriculture.com: "Brazil's northern Amazon region, once thought to have been pristine until modern development began encroaching, actually hosted sophisticated networks of towns and villages hundreds of years ago, researchers said on Thursday." ... When I saw some of the satellite pictures, I couldn't help thinking it would make a very interesting software model ... Starcraft, Xinguano-mod, anyone?"

Comments

Stereotypes and Impact

[fm6]

We have all these stereotypes about the "primitive" people who lived in the Americas before Columbus. Even their descendents, struggling to find identity and self-esteem, tend to think this. These stereotypes are usually, romantic, or racist, or both.

The big stereotype is the naked savage. In Manifest Destiny days, this allowed people to justify land grabs and massacres by thinking in terms of "progress" and "dying races". The post-Hitler era is less sanguine, but still likes this stereotype -- "noble savages" make for nice guilt-tripping.

The reality is a lot more complicated. There were hunter-gatherer bands in the Americas. But there were also agricultural communities, towns, cities, and everything in between. I'm not just talking about the famous civilizations south of the Rio Grande. The first settlers in what is now upstate New York found large settlements, even nascent cities. These soon disappeared of course -- too vulnerable to epidemics and raids.

And of course these cultures had their environmental impacts, as human cultures always do. It may be comforting to think of natives as ecologically wise -- but any wisdom they actually have, they acquired the hard way. Yes, Pueblo folklore is full of sound ecological concepts -- but it also contains nasty folk memories of the Anasazi culture that was too successful for its own good.

The bottom line is that ecological impact is just a part of being human. To manage this impact we need to find a good middle path between naive romanticisim and glib "progress and development" stupidity.

Good book Re:Stereotypes and Impact

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I'm currently reading "Gun, germs and steel" by Jack Diamond which outlines the reasons how europe ended up as top dogs in the world. To oversimplify- it's because Europe is at the same latitude, so crops/animals that are useful at one part spreads very rapidly across the whole continent; and had certain resources such as 3 key crops and a few domesticable animals.

In particular the animals are crucial- animal power is much more efficient than human power, so any animal that can be domesticated multiplies farming effectiveness up enormously; that means that surpluses are produced that creates trading, and that leads to villages, towns and eventually cities.

Additionally, living with your animals means you are more likely to catch diseases from them- that's why the europeans carried nasty diseases that practically annihilated native populations that lacked domesticated animals. The europeans themselves had built up a tolerance over time, so were mostly immune.

Anyway, putting the book to one side, this discovery is particularly interesting. The sustainable farming technology that these 'primitive' people found is actually better than the slash and burn that is used in the Amazon currently. Who would have guessed that stirring in some graphite into the Amazon soil would improve it so much that long term the soil is preserved? In fact the soil they made is still good nearly 5 centuries later, and is sold commercially.

Amazon rain forest a human artifact?

[mlinksva]

"1491", an intriguing article in the Atlantic magazine last year claims this may be so.