Anthropocene Amazonia, Beyond the Buzzword: Centennial-Scale Anthropogenic Influences on Southern Amazonian Forests, 1000-2000 CE

Summary

The Anthropocene is defined here as the time when human-induced alterations of the environment become a driver of regional and global climate. The Amazon has very deep histories of human alterations of forest systems, but settled occupations that dramatically altered forest structure in regional systems of Late Holocene age, particularly following the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), ca. 900-1300 CE. Global population loss in the Old World, beginning in the 13th century, and the demographic collapse of New World populations, following European contact, resulting in the LIA, creating the closed forest conditions that characterize the Amazon today. During the Current Warm Period (CWP) deforestation threatens to force a near-term tipping event in the southern Amazon and other areas. This paper summarizes data from archaeological and paeloecological work in the transitional forests of the southern Amazon over the past millennium, including past adaptations to warmer climates in the MWP, such as large-scale forest management. These can provide practical solutions to changes afoot today in the CWP.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22629