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Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

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Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#111

Post by aa-jv »

khanhnguyen8386 wrote: post #39

The myth of the 'pristine, untouched Amazon' was always a European trope. Lidar is proving that ancient civilizations were sophisticated ecosystem engineers, shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it.

See also, the Australian landscape - which early Europeans were certain had been cultivated by some lost tribe of Israel, since it was so pristine, plentiful, and food was abundant.

That lasted about 5 years after contact, and 20 years later it was all a waste.

The original caretakers were robbed of abundance and plenty.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#112

Post by suddenlybananas »

curioadu wrote: post #106
suddenlybananas wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indigenous people aren't any more or less of the ecology than anyone else, unless you believe in blood and soil. Humans are part of the ecology, being indigenous has nothing to do with it.

In some ways I agree with you, but I also think that the other commenter indirectly might uncover some insights. For instance, Australian Aboriginals mighy have historically both; fire-stick farmed ("farming" in the sense of clearing land for animals to hunt, apart from some foraging, as far as I can tell) so much and in such a large area that both large animal species and perhaps some plant species went extinct or w…

Of course, but that's no different than the changes brought on by urbanization or climate change due to carbon emissions.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#113

Post by aa-jv »

b112 wrote: post #90
khanhnguyen8386 wrote: post #39

The myth of the 'pristine, untouched Amazon' was always a European trope. Lidar is proving that ancient civilizations were sophisticated ecosystem engineers, shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it.

shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it. That's the myth. A lot of native populations farmed. Where do you think that farmland came from? It came from tearing down forests and tearing down trees. And yes, ancient peoples could do that with fire, and with older axes. And not only was that wood cut down, but it was also used for fuel. Fuel for fires, for cooking. Fuel to warm a house at night. Mines…

I see you are very uninformed about the original caretakers of the Australian continent .. who very definitely cultivated the land so that there was an abundance of food safety for all. They were a lot more altruistic, also, about how they prepared food - leaving things in place for any forthcoming caretakers that would enter the region.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#114

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

ithkuil wrote: post #107
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and clearing for beef production I know the real point is that you'd prefer we eat the proverbial bugs, but there's akshually more grassland in the world than forest. You don't need to cut down trees for beef production - it doesn't make any economic sense unless your logistics costs are deliberately screwed by perverse government incentives.

So some countries have more forest than grassland?

a) There's way more grassland in the world than forests. (On all continents.)

b) Cows walk as they graze, the meat even delivers itself. You just need a herder.

Shrimple as. The scheme worked for millennia with zero problems. Nobody had a problem with beef production until tariffs and other fuckery was invented.

But apparently we need to switch to eating bugs instead of fixing the root of the problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#115

Post by sophrosyne42 »

boomlinde wrote: post #93
Terr_ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since when is "assigning virtuous environmental brownie-points" the topic of discussion? I think it's very straightforward. Here's a recap of the thread, you can see it in the quote for the first item: 1. khanhnguyen8386 implied that they were "sophisticated ecosystem engineers, shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it." 2. smt88 challenged that by pointing that 97% of "the rainforest" was probabl…

Yeah, I confused you for another user. Still, I don't get where "virtuous environmental brownie-points" enter the discussion or how the first reply pertains to them. It seems like a simple factual statement that is either true or false and can be evaluated as such without invoking virtuous brownie points. That the Amazon remained largely untouched is true regardless of whether that was the result of a deliberate effo…

> It can simultaneously be true that the populated areas of the Amazon where deliberately and carefully managed by the population and that the Amazon was largely untouched for any other reason.

Certainly, though nothing about the quoted fact that 97% of forest was uninhabited should lead us to make statements like "the pristine untouched Amazon idea is a European myth", nor does it give any information to go off of regarding their possible knowledge of environmental engineering.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#116

Post by graemep »

b112 wrote: post #90
khanhnguyen8386 wrote: post #39

The myth of the 'pristine, untouched Amazon' was always a European trope. Lidar is proving that ancient civilizations were sophisticated ecosystem engineers, shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it.

shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it. That's the myth. A lot of native populations farmed. Where do you think that farmland came from? It came from tearing down forests and tearing down trees. And yes, ancient peoples could do that with fire, and with older axes. And not only was that wood cut down, but it was also used for fuel. Fuel for fires, for cooking. Fuel to warm a house at night. Mines…

The myth of indigenous people's living in harmony with nature is just the current version of the myth of the "noble savage" and remains a disguise for racism, as it takes away the history and moral agency of such people, and trivialises their culture to a "natural state".

The fact is that human being usually alter their environment drastically. They might eventually reach a stable state, but after changing. All over the world megafauna disappeared just as human being appeared. In many cases there are other possible causes such as climate change, but the pattern is very consistent, but from our first spreading out of Africa to the Maoris reaching New Zealand just a few hundred years ago where ever humans go megafauna has swiftly disappeared.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#117

Post by Cthulhu_ »

khanhnguyen8386 wrote: post #39

The myth of the 'pristine, untouched Amazon' was always a European trope. Lidar is proving that ancient civilizations were sophisticated ecosystem engineers, shaping the rainforest for centuries without destroying it.

One quote early in the article stood out to me:

> Decades of subsequent research by Ranzi and colleagues have slowly revealed remnants of peoples that occupied even the forest’s most remote areas.

They're considered remote now, but that's hundreds of years after the existing civilization was decimated.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#118

Post by Cthulhu_ »

defrost wrote: post #110
gabriel666smith wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst being aware that the civilization in question ended significantly before European arrival in South America, I have two questions that hopefully someone smart here can help with: 1. The spread of disease (smallpox specifically) being fast enough that most European sources describe a relatively uninhabited Amazon strikes me as potentially interesting. This means that contact and trade was happening between local…

> some kind of metal detector sellotaped to the underside Been a thing since the 1970s, physics dictates dimensions though - you can go wrap or dangle: * https://csegrecorder.com/articles/view/the-megatem-fixed-win... * https://cseg.ca/airborne-electromagnetic-systems-state-of-th... * https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysi...

I've seen the 'dangle' type in action in the Netherlands last year (I was on the island of Texel for vacation); they were doing a project of mapping underground water if I recall correctly. Really interesting stuff.

Would be neat if this could be automated and scaled up, I'm sure most of the world is as of yet unmapped with these kinds of detectors. Same with under the ocean.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#119

Post by graemep »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #114
ithkuil wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So some countries have more forest than grassland?

a) There's way more grassland in the world than forests. (On all continents.) b) Cows walk as they graze, the meat even delivers itself. You just need a herder. Shrimple as. The scheme worked for millennia with zero problems. Nobody had a problem with beef production until tariffs and other fuckery was invented. But apparently we need to switch to eating bugs instead of fixing the root of the problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Beef should not the the main meat in some places. There is a particular problem in the Americas with cattle. Tariffs do sometimes reduce imports from places where cattle are not a great fit - i.e. the very places where forests are cleared too grow grass.

All the beef (and most other meat too) I eat is grown in the same country. For a premium you can get higher quality local (i.e. same county) meat.

Re: Amazonian civilization had estimated 3M people in 3% of forest area

#120

Post by gabriel666smith »

defrost wrote: post #110
gabriel666smith wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst being aware that the civilization in question ended significantly before European arrival in South America, I have two questions that hopefully someone smart here can help with: 1. The spread of disease (smallpox specifically) being fast enough that most European sources describe a relatively uninhabited Amazon strikes me as potentially interesting. This means that contact and trade was happening between local…

> some kind of metal detector sellotaped to the underside Been a thing since the 1970s, physics dictates dimensions though - you can go wrap or dangle: * https://csegrecorder.com/articles/view/the-megatem-fixed-win... * https://cseg.ca/airborne-electromagnetic-systems-state-of-th... * https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysi...

Awesome, thanks for these.

I wonder if you couldn’t distribute heavier parts across a swarm - perhaps separating the sender and receiver(s) - running the wave at an angle (or many angles simultaneously) to the surface.

The sources mention mostly aircraft, rather than drones, and human pilots aren’t as good as drones at flying in extremely tight formations, which might allow (if the tech allows in the first place!) parts to be distributed to work around pesky laws of flight.

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