Seminar: "Amazonian Landscapes in Deep Time: Land Use in Amazonian Dark Earths with Implications for Sustainable Amazonian Futures"

Prof. José Iriarte, from the University of Exeter (UK) will visit ICTA-UAB to give a seminar on the Amazonian Dark Earths

Title: "Amazonian Landscapes in Deep Time: Land Use in Amazonian Dark Earths with Implications for Sustainable Amazonian Futures"

Speaker: Prof. José Iriarte, University of Exeter (UK)

Date: Wednesday, June 7th 2023
Time: From 12:00 to 13:30
Venue: Sala Z/023, ICTA-UAB & Online teams

Abstract
In the popular imagination, the Amazon forest is a virgin wilderness nearly empty of people. It has been traditionally conceived as a deceitful Garden of Eden, whose infertile soils and scarce game prevented the development of intensive agriculture leading to complex societies. However, a spate of recent discoveries and technological breakthroughs are overturning these long-held assumptions and creating an entirely new picture of Amazonian human history. Understanding the nature and scale of pre-Columbian human impact and the legacy of past land use is not an easy question to answer. The Amazon is huge, largely unexplored, and has a long history of occupation begging around thirteen thousand years ago. Fortunately, interdisciplinary science and novel approaches are allowing us to reveal the relationship between humans and the rainforest in the past. The human-made soils of Amazonia, Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), are arguably one of the most compelling pieces of evidence of the human transformation of tropical environments in the Americas. Much progress has been made on the genesis and archaeology of these anthrosols. However, until recently, we knew very little about the type of land-use practised on ADEs. In this presentation, I summarise the results of the PAST project along the Amazon, showing that polyculture agroforestry involving soil fertilisation, closed-canopy forest enrichment, limited clearing for crop cultivation and low-severity fire management was practised on ADEs. These millennial-scale agro-ecosystems had an enduring legacy on persisting patches of highly fertile soil and the modern composition of the forest, including legacy plots of fruit trees. I would argue that ADE agro-ecosystems provide evidence of successful, sustainable subsistence strategies while also highlight a millennial rich indigenous cultural-ecological heritage with implications for sustainable Amazonian futures.

Biography
Prof. Jose Iriarte is an archaeologist and archaeobotanist whose principal research interests are:

• The investigation of coupled human environment systems in the Neotropics and subtropics of Latin America
• The peopling of the Americas
• Plant domestication and the development of agricultural landscapes
• The emergence of complex societies in the Americas.

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