
Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival - soneca
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27945-myth-of-pristine-amazon-rainforest-busted-as-old-cities-reappear/
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davidw
I recall reading about this some in the book 1491, which is quite interesting,
and talks about how the Americas were prior to Columbus.

[http://amzn.to/1HQYgSY](http://amzn.to/1HQYgSY)

~~~
benbreen
Seconding this recommendation - I'm planning on assigning this book in a
college course on the Columbian Exchange next year. It's got the readability
of a longform New Yorker article and the scholarly credibility of an academic
book. Totally fascinating material that will up end much of what you learned
in high school textbooks.

~~~
moultano
Thirded. It took me years to become interested in history, and books like this
are what finally broke through.

~~~
marai2
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I too wasn't interested in history at
all until I read this book: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (
[http://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-
Power/dp/143911...](http://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-
Power/dp/1439110123)) Which was a fascinating history from the rise of oil in
modern times uptil the first Gulf War. I would love recommendations on other
history books that got people turned onto history?

~~~
benbreen
I actually got into history through visual sources and maps, like Colin
McEvedy's "Penguin Atlas of Medieval History." But the history books that I
remember really changing my life include Simon Schama's "The Embarrassment of
Riches" (a fantastic history of the rise and fall of the Dutch empire), Alfred
Crosby's "Ecological Imperialism" (similar to 1491, but more wide-ranging),
and Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism series (the best history
books of the 20th century, in my view).

I also remember loving John Brewer's "The Pleasures of the Imagination:
English Culture in the 18th Century" and Mario Biagioli's "Galileo Courtier."
Also "Mad Blood Stirring" by Edward Muir, which tackles the question of why
16th century Italian street life was so incredibly violent.

Edit: seems apropos to mention that a couple friends of mine are about to
launch a site for historians to curate lists of their favorite books on key
topics, called Backlist: [http://backlist.cc](http://backlist.cc)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I actually got into history through visual sources and maps

I've noticed that fantasy novels often include maps of the fictional geography
of the world, and fantasy authors sometimes write introductions basically on
the theme "I've always loved maps and thought they were special". Personally,
I've never really looked at those omnipresent maps, because they never matter
in the story.

On the other hand, maps are incredibly useful when reading history. Or they
would be... but history books almost never include them!

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clock_tower
Following _1491_: home to millions of people, the jungle mostly consisting of
fruit-bearing trees (the modern Amazonian tribes are living in overgrown
orchards), and in possession of miraculous sanitation/fertilizer technology.

Everyone should know about terra preta. It turns out it wasn't a soil-
enrichment technique, it was sanitation with a side effect of soil enrichment
-- and could be very applicable in the developing world (and the developed
world!) today. An experiment in Germany -- look up the paper "Terra Preta
Sanitation" \-- showed that a slightly modified method of terra-preta
production can sanitize human waste to well within First World standards.

~~~
alisson
Terra preta is formed naturally by falling fruits, leaves and branches that
get composted on the soil. There's a agriculture method called agroforestry
that make use of this concept, it's very promising for organic farms:
[https://vimeo.com/146953911](https://vimeo.com/146953911)

I know a couple of people here who have "dry bathrooms" (or banheiro seco)
that is just a bucket to collect the poo, when you poo you cover it with dry
leaves or grinded wood (they are the source of carbon, and stop the bad
smell), when the bucket fills up they take it to an area outside far from the
house where it will compost, naturally kill the pathogens (because of the heat
it produces) and became terra-preta, much better solution than to send it down
stream, easier to decentralize and the end result is the best product you
could have.

~~~
cylinder714
_The Humanure Handbook_
([http://humanurehandbook.com/](http://humanurehandbook.com/)) goes into the
specifics of how to build sawdust toilets and manage waste and compost safely.
For those even remotely interested, the e-book is only USD$10, and earlier
editions are free for the downloading.

If you know someone who lives in the country and is interested in off-the-grid
living, or is merely serious about gardening, a copy would make for an unusual
gift.

~~~
green7ea
I've read this book and strongly recommend it. The subject matter is not the
easiest to write about but the author really does a great job, approaching it
in an educative and interesting way. He also clearly demonstrates that this is
something important to our civilization as a whole and that ignoring it
because it is uncomfortable is a mistake.

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jccooper
There is also good evidence that there were extensive agricultural urban
civilizations around and along the Mississippi. But they were so thoroughly
destroyed (by the Little Ice Age, drought, and disease) that by the time
European settlers got to those territories, even the descendant peoples had no
memory of them. Only a handful of early explorers recorded them, and the
principal archaeological traces are earth mounds (some rather large) built in
their cities. For quite some time the "Mound Builders" were thought to be a
different people entirely from the present native peoples.

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tosseraccount
Original paper here :
[http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1812/2015...](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1812/20150813)

"Here, we review the evidence of an anthropogenic Amazonia"

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tosseraccount
side note on Amazon Indians: [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
nature/dna-search-firs...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dna-
search-first-americans-links-amazon-indigenous-australians-180955976/?no-ist)

DNA Search for the First Americans Links Amazon Groups to Indigenous
Australians. a researcher in Reich’s lab, noticed that the Suruí and Karitiana
people of the Amazon had stronger ties to indigenous groups in
Australasia—Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders—than to
Eurasians."

I wonder how much was lost by the Amazon peoples by the invasions of the
Clovis peoples from Siberia.

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duaneb
While it's probably in the millions, all projected numbers are extremely rough
and work by calculating the percentage likely to have die died in the disease
that swept the continent. DO NOT VIEW THEM AS PRECISE OR ACCURATE.

However, the evidence seems pretty convincing that the vast majority of the
indigenous people died in the centuries following spanish contact.

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dghughes
Supposedly when Europeans (the later arrivals not Vikings) showed up and
disease spread killing many First Nations/Native Americans it caused a
dramatic environmental shift.

As forests took over the former areas where the first peoples of the Americas
lived trees sucked up a lot of CO2 causing the mini ice age in Europe.

Interesting if true, yet of course very sad as well but if true that pretty
incredible to think of such a connection.

~~~
facepalm
That must be a joke?

~~~
datenwolf
No it's not. The little ice-age is a well documented period of time of below
average temperatures at the end/after the medival ages
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)

There's still a lot of speculation going on, what caused it, because the
explanation for the "Big" ice ages (the periodic tilting of the Earth's axis
reaching a position that gives to a colder climate) doesn't fit. So there are
a lot of possible explanations.

From archeological evidence we know that in the timeframe before the little
ice-age begain large parts of the North American population fell victim to
disease and/or famine, so one proposed model is, that the regrowth of forrests
on (fertile) ground left unmanaged by the decreasing population sucked out a
lot of CO2 from the atmosphere.

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jMyles
When I think about the Amazon rainforest and those who have called it home in
the past 500 years - especially as we learn that they were more advanced than
we had supposed - I think back to Terence McKenna's dying hope to save the
plant medicines that are being forgotten and eradicated with deforestation.

We have no idea what manner of spiritually relevant plants are falling into
obscurity cum annihilation, and given the resurgent interest in (and power of)
ayahuasca, it's worth taking action to document and remember them.

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redwood
Similar levels of density were reported around the Mississippi river delta

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gp7
With a little digging you can trace back the development of the consenus
surrounding this issue over the past 25 years or so, which would probably be
worth an article on its own.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-
rain...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-rainforest-
was-home-to-millions-of-people-before-european-arrival-says-
study-10412030.html).

------
patrickfl
When I first saw this post I thought (Amazon.com) came out with a new product
called "rainforest."

Anyway, so did the natives breed with the Europeans when they "wiped them out"
or did the native people migrate to another part of the continent?

~~~
Symmetry
Basically malaria was unknown in the Americas before western explorers brought
it over. From there it became very prevalent in some places such as the Amazon
and essentially made mass agriculture impossible there. Then pretty much
everyone starved. There were also things like smallpox that devastated people
everywhere in the Americas but those were more a one time thing, people were
able to rebuild after they passed.

~~~
cubano
Isn't a devastating, long-term drought a recent and popular theory as well,
decimating many Central and South American tribes such as the Mayans and the
Aztec?

[1][http://science.time.com/2012/11/09/mayans/](http://science.time.com/2012/11/09/mayans/)

~~~
duaneb
I believe the drought predated contact by ~7-800 years. Definitely explains
the decline of the Mayans, but not really relevant to discussing the effects
of Columbian contact.

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cowardlydragon
Why is it this article has the vague overtone of "so we can go ahead and chop
it all down, right?" on it?

I think it's the "pristine myth" language. Just reeks of let-us-clear-cut-it
mentality.

~~~
CPLX
I don't get that at all. I got the "how presumptuous of Europeans to think
that they brought civilization to the area, it was already there and if
anything they may have set back the pace of progress."

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adamkochanowicz
Wow, Amazon has so many products.

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rogerbinns
I do wish the historians/reporters for this article were more accurate in
their use of "decimation".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#Curren...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_\(Roman_army\)#Current_usage_of_the_word)

The 1491 book put the death rates at around 1 in 20 surviving - ie 19 out of
every 20 people dying from disease etc.

~~~
graeme
The definition "destroy a large number of" has been around for centuries.
You're contradicting long established usage, while pretending to appeal to it.

~~~
rogerbinns
I am not contradicting it. From their context it was not possible to tell if
they meant the deaths of 1 in 10, a number similar to that, about half of all
people, 9 in 10, 99 in 100 etc. I gave the proportions as remembered from the
book as that gives a far clearer picture.

~~~
graeme
Here's the dictionary definition of decimate. The primary definition is
"destroy a large number of". This isn't recent - I looked it up in the full
OED and it's been around for centuries.

[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/decimat...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/decimate)

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meira
Great content!

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EGreg
I wonder if any of this can be used to answer the objections to Biblical
stories like Noah's flood: "how did the rainforest come about in a mere 4000
years?" And here we read that the forests were domesticated in the last 3000.

~~~
crpatino
Many ancient cultures have myths about a great flood or series of floods. It
was probably not a single global event, but plausibly to have been based in
some shift in climate patterns during protohistoric times.

