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

7 Cities of Gold

[AtariAmarok]

Nah. Just a mistake. These guys accidentally looked at the C-64 emulator running "7 Cities of Gold" where Jason in the next cubicle had put little missions and forts over the South American interior. They thought it was satellite imagery.

False alarm, folks. Indiana Jones, better stay home this time.

Complete lack of surprise

[Xenothaulus]

Brazil's northern Amazon region... actually hosted sophisticated networks of towns and villages hundreds of years ago...

The civilisations which existed in this hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans have been consistently looked down upon as "uncivilised" by modern culture. A finding like this leads to surprise and even disbelief. Where is the surprise? They were too busy trying to survive to develop culture, etc? Bah.

Welcome !

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new city-building Amazon overlords. Or is that war-ladies? We look forward to being entwined in their magic lassoes.

Rapacious Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great. Now Bush and Cheney and their rich friends will use this as a justification for clearing the Amazon rain forest: "There have always been people cutting it down".

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.

Re:Book of Mormon

[Creedo]

The Book of Mormon has been shown to be unreliable as a archeological text by Mormons and non-Mormons alike. Claims to archeological validity were dealt with here by the Smithsonian Institute.