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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

#91

Post by tkel »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #69
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.

The important lesson is not that ancient people left no ecological footprint, but that a heavily managed landscape can still remain remarkably biodiverse

The lesson is more that indigenous people were (+ are) part of the ecology, not separate from it or above it. With cultural, social, technological, and spiritual practices that were formed dialectically and hyper-locally with the ecology, as a result of it, and as part of it. Often considered a keystone species in these ecologies.

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

#92

Post by [deleted] »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #74
culi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that explanation as well. But I don't know if "recovered from human intervention" is a fair characterization since they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases. Estimates range from 5 to 10 million people in the Amazonian Basin by the time Colombus reached the Americas (though some go as high as 20 million). I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human interven…

A landscape does not become "pristine" a decade after millions of people disappear. The human influence would still be everywhere, but it would not necessarily look like European agriculture

[deleted]

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

#93

Post by boomlinde »

Terr_ wrote: post #84
boomlinde wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is "assigning virtuous environmental brownie-points" the topic of discussion? Your original claim which GP responded to is unrelated to that.

> 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 effort, a technological limitation, a lack of need or any other reason. No one uses "preserved" until now. 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.

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

#94

Post by yreg »

_heimdall wrote: post #27
marojejian wrote: post #2

Originally heard about this via Nature podcast's interview with the researcher: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02367-x This is a continuation of many findings in this direction. It's wonderful to imagine the many societies humans have created, and sad that we'll be able to learn so little about them.

I've always been confused by the idea that we know all civilisation that has happened on earth, human or otherwise. Written record doesn't go back very far at all, and even archeological evidence is lacking. Its believed that homo sapiens have been around for at least 300,000 years and yet we think almost all of that was entirely without civilization. We find fossil records of dinosaurs but we have little to no evide…

So what do you claim as 'not foolish' to think?

That there were non-human civilizations before the dinosaurs?

Do you consider ants/bees to have civilizations or is it just humans currently?

Or do you mean that there were human civilizations in the prehistory? And what do you mean by that – is it foolish to think that they were hunter gatherers for hundreds of years?

I don't mean to make strawmans, that's why I'm asking.

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

#95

Post by curioadu »

culi wrote: post #54
WalterBright wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your reference: "it is the colonizers who get to write the history" There's a simple explanation for this. The colonists were literate, and would keep diaries and write letters about their experiences. Churches would log births, deaths, and marriages. Printers would print newspapers. Later, these materials were fodder for academics who converted them into historical narratives. The Indians were not literate and…

I don't think that's true. Mesoamerica had a very rich tradition of papermaking (Amatl) that predated paper in Europe (though probably not Chinese). Colonists severely repressed, criminalized, and even destroyed the paper and writing systems. Thousands of Maya codices were burned in 1562. Almost all pre-colombian libraries ( amoxcalli ) were destroyed We've deciphered Nahuatl and Maya script but Zapotec, Olmec, Isthm…

The destruction during the Spanish conquests of the Aztecs and others was terrible. It was also rather disorganized initially, especially due to the huge delays regarding communication between the Americas and Europe.

In regards to paper, while the Aztecs had impressive achievements, especially considering the almost complete isolation of the Americas from the rest of the world (is there any civilization close to the achievements of the Aztecs and other Amerindians in Africa south of Egypt?), are you sure that amatl/amate counts as paper? It was possibly stretched bark, and not woven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amate#True_paper

> The Maya used a writing material called huun starting from the 5th century. It was made from the inner bark of the wild fig tree. It was cut and stretched thin rather than made of randomly woven fibers, which according to one source, disqualified it as true paper.

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

#96

Post by curioadu »

WalterBright wrote: post #41
paimapi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the Native Americans were highly literate, they just didn't record granular details to ledgers because they didn't have strictly hierarchical institutions that utilized this data for controlling their population there is so much easily searchable resources for this and though it might not be your intent, your comment reads as willfully ignorant for being so broad and bought into the type of 16th century Puritan Euroc…

Highly literate? From your britannica reference: "No native writing system was known among Indigenous peoples of North America at the time of first European contact" And yes, I was referring to the North American Indians. I know the Mayans had writing. I even have a book on the Mayan writing system. > they didn't have strictly hierarchical institutions that utilized this data for controlling their population People d…

I wonder if one could group Central American and North-Central-American civilizations and peoples into two gross and very approximate groups:

1: Sedentary farmers like Aztecs and possibly Pueblos and those doing Three Sisters farming, some of them like the Aztecs having significant civilizational achievements all considered.

2: Hunting nomads, first doing fire-stick farming to create good conditions for hunting animals as well as gather certain plants, and later utilizing horses after their introduction from Europe.

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

#97

Post by graemep »

_heimdall wrote: post #27
marojejian wrote: post #2

Originally heard about this via Nature podcast's interview with the researcher: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02367-x This is a continuation of many findings in this direction. It's wonderful to imagine the many societies humans have created, and sad that we'll be able to learn so little about them.

I've always been confused by the idea that we know all civilisation that has happened on earth, human or otherwise. Written record doesn't go back very far at all, and even archeological evidence is lacking. Its believed that homo sapiens have been around for at least 300,000 years and yet we think almost all of that was entirely without civilization. We find fossil records of dinosaurs but we have little to no evide…

> Its believed that homo sapiens have been around for at least 300,000 years and yet we think almost all of that was entirely without civilization.

Depends what you call civilization. If there was a civilization what happened to it and why did it leave no trace.

> We find fossil records of dinosaurs but we have little to no evidence of what would have been before them, presumably there was an extinction event prior to them as well.

Actually we do have evidence of what came before them, and there were extinction events.

> It seems foolish to think we are the latest incarnation of the only chain of civilization that had ever happened on Earth.

We might not know about previous civilizations (that is the point of the Silurian Hypothesis - a lot of traces will disappear over time) but we have no evidence that there was any previous civilization, or of any sufficiently intelligent animal to build one. The oldest stone tools we have found are only about 3m years old.

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

#98

Post by dev_l1x_be »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #69
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.

The important lesson is not that ancient people left no ecological footprint, but that a heavily managed landscape can still remain remarkably biodiverse

> left no ecological footprint

Well not in a sense you might think.

There are few odd things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untou...

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

#100

Post by uwagar »

smallerfish wrote: post #46
uwagar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you dont destroy something, its usually close to an idea of pristine. the trouble is slash and burn agriculture and clearing for beef production.

Actually they did something like slash and burn agriculture, but they apparently rotated sites, allowing forest regeneration.

they also maintained cattle? i dont think 3 million people would have used only 3% of the forest area if their main diet was bovine heavy.
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