Facing Change through Diversity: Resilience and Diversification of Plant Management Strategies during the Mid to Late Holocene Transition at the Monte Castelo Shellmound, SW Amazonia

Author(s):Show less -

Furquim, Laura P. ^[1] ; Watling, Jennifer ^[1] ; Hilbert, Lautaro M. ^[1] ; Shock, Myrtle P. ^[2] ; Prestes-Carneiro, Gabriela ^[2] ; Calo, Cristina Marilin ^[3] ; Py-Daniel, Anne R. ^[2] ; Brandao, Kelly ^[1] ; Pugliese, Francisco ^[1] ; Zimpel, Carlos Augusto ^[4] ; da Silva, Carlos Augusto ^[5] ; Neves, Eduardo G. ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Lab Trop Archaeol, Museum Archaeol & Ethnol, BR-05508070 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] Fed Univ Western Para, Dept Archaeol & Anthropol, BR-68040255 Santarem, Para - Brazil

^[3] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Phys, Lab Archaeometry & Appl Sci Cultural Heritage Stu, BR-00508090 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[4] Fed Univ Rondonia, Dept Archaeol, BR-76801059 Porto Velho, Rondonia - Brazil

^[5] Fed Univ Amazon, Ctr Environm Sci, BR-69080900 Manaus, Amazonas - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: QUATERNARY; v. 4, n. 1 MAR 2021.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

Recent advances in the archaeology of lowland South America are furthering our understanding of the Holocene development of plant cultivation and domestication, cultural niche construction, and relationships between environmental changes and cultural strategies of food production. This article offers new data on plant and landscape management and mobility in Southwestern Amazonia during a period of environmental change at the Middle to Late Holocene transition, based on archaeobotanical analysis of the Monte Castelo shellmound, occupied between 6000 and 650 yr BP and located in a modern, seasonally flooded savanna-forest mosaic. Through diachronic comparisons of carbonized plant remains, phytoliths, and starch grains, we construct an ecology of resource use and explore its implications for the long-term history of landscape formation, resource management practices, and mobility. We show how, despite important changes visible in the archaeological record of the shellmound during this period, there persisted an ancient, local, and resilient pattern of plant management which implies a degree of stability in both subsistence and settlement patterns over the last 6000 years. This pattern is characterized by management practices that relied on increasingly diversified, rather than intensive, food production systems. Our findings have important implications in debates regarding the history of settlement permanence, population growth, and carrying capacity in the Amazon basin. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 19/07794-9 - Human-environment relationships in Pre-Columbian Amazonia
• Grantee: Eduardo Góes Neves
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 17/25157-0 - Peoples, plants and landscapes in Amazônia
• Grantee: Jennifer Watling
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Young Investigators Grants
• FAPESP's process: 16/03400-8 - Archaeobotany and socioeconomic changes in the Middle Holocene in Southwetern Amazon
• Grantee: Laura Pereira Furquim
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master