Topic ID #8523 - posted 9/4/2010 4:45 AM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Scientists find evidence discrediting theory Amazon was virtually unlivable
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Scientists find evidence discrediting theory Amazon was virtually unlivable
Archaeologists say the heart of the Amazon was home to an advanced, even spectacular civilization that managed the forest and enriched infertile soils to feed thousands.
By Juan Forero
Friday, September 3, 2010; 11:10 AM
SAN MARTIN DE SAMIRIA, PERU - To the untrained eye, all evidence here in the heart of the Amazon signals virgin forest, untouched by man for time immemorial - from the ubiquitous fruit palms to the cry of howler monkeys, from the air thick with mosquitoes to the unruly tangle of jungle vines.
Archaeologists, many of them Americans, say the opposite is true: This patch of forest, and many others across the Amazon, was instead home to an advanced, even spectacular civilization that managed the forest and enriched infertile soils to feed thousands.
The findings are discrediting a once-bedrock theory of archaeology that long held that the Amazon, unlike much of the Americas, was a historical black hole, its environment too hostile and its earth too poor to have ever sustained big, sedentary societies. Only small and primitive hunter-gatherer tribes, the assumption went, could ever have eked out a living in an unforgiving environment.
Read the rest here.
Archaeologists say the heart of the Amazon was home to an advanced, even spectacular civilization that managed the forest and enriched infertile soils to feed thousands.
By Juan Forero
Friday, September 3, 2010; 11:10 AM
SAN MARTIN DE SAMIRIA, PERU - To the untrained eye, all evidence here in the heart of the Amazon signals virgin forest, untouched by man for time immemorial - from the ubiquitous fruit palms to the cry of howler monkeys, from the air thick with mosquitoes to the unruly tangle of jungle vines.
Archaeologists, many of them Americans, say the opposite is true: This patch of forest, and many others across the Amazon, was instead home to an advanced, even spectacular civilization that managed the forest and enriched infertile soils to feed thousands.
The findings are discrediting a once-bedrock theory of archaeology that long held that the Amazon, unlike much of the Americas, was a historical black hole, its environment too hostile and its earth too poor to have ever sustained big, sedentary societies. Only small and primitive hunter-gatherer tribes, the assumption went, could ever have eked out a living in an unforgiving environment.
Read the rest here.
Post ID#18115 - replied 9/4/2010 1:04 PM
whatamIdoing
There has been some real cool stuff going on down there lately. Too bad not a lot of institutions up in the states have people who research it.
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