The Lower Holocene and Amazonian anthropogenesis during the long indigenous history of the Eastern Amazon (Carajás, Pará, Brazil)

Abstract

Archeology and other sciences increasingly affirm that indigenous influence on the Amazon rainforest has been intense and diversified, beginning with the arrival of humans by the Lower Holocene. But cultural selection of useful species was not a one-way street during this long history; instead, geographic distribution by human societies affected natural selection. These choices and customs of these societies were consequently influenced by the selected species, resulting in important capital for future generations. As a result, there has been a long-term relationship or coevolution between culture and nature; in other words, during the accumulation of this capital an interrelationship between culture and nature took place, with both developing and/or evolving together. This contradicts the idea that these societies were simple hunter-gatherer groups with no history whose characteristics and cultures were determined by the natural availability of subsistence resources. In Carajás (Pará State) we have evidence that in addition to the interplay between humans and nature (the effects of which can be seen in vegetation beyond the areas where the material culture is found), early societies were able to transform environments to construct resource-rich domesticated landscapes.