Study Reveals 800-Year-Old Sustainable Farming in Amazonian Savannas
An international team of archaeologists and paleoecologists analyzing records of pollen, charcoal and other plant remains like phytoliths spanning more than 2,000 years has created the first detailed picture of land use in the Amazonian savannas in French Guiana.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that indigenous people, living in the savannas around the Amazonian forest, farmed without using fire and practiced ‘raised-field’ farming, which involved constructing small agricultural mounds with wooden tools.
These raised fields provided better drainage, soil aeration and moisture retention: ideal for an environment that experiences both drought and flooding. The fields also benefited from increased fertility from the muck continually scraped from the flooded basin and deposited on the mounds. The raised-field farmers limited fires, and this helped them conserve soil nutrients and organic matter and preserve soil structure. Read more.
