Anthropogenic Landscape Dynamics in Amazonia

The Amazon Basin has been profoundly moulded by human societies over millennia, transforming perceived wilderness into a complex socio-ecological tapestry. Indigenous communities engineered nutrient-rich soils, known as Amazonian Dark Earths, through waste disposal and recurrent burning, supporting high densities of useful plants. Fire management, selective planting of perennials and construction of earthworks, canals and reservoirs fostered enduring agroforestry systems and low-density urbanism. The demographic collapse following European contact triggered widespread forest regrowth, temporarily sequestering carbon on a global scale. In recent centuries, frontier expansion, commercial agriculture and infrastructure have accelerated deforestation and fragmentation, disrupting hydrological regimes, species assemblages and climate feedbacks. Understanding past and present anthropogenic legacies is essential to inform sustainable land stewardship, biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation strategies.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Stable isotope analyses of human and faunal remains from pre-colonial sites in southwestern Amazonia reveal intensive maize cultivation and possible domestic management of muscovy ducks between ce 700 and 1400. This evidence underscores sophisticated agro-subsistence strategies and direct animal management within seemingly forested environments. Genomic studies of the Amazonian fruit tree cupuaçu demonstrate two phases of domestication over the past 8,000 years. An initial genetic bottleneck 5,000–8,000 years ago was followed by modern expansion in diversity loss and geographic spread, highlighting long-term indigenous influence on crop evolution. High-resolution lidar mapping of interfluvial savannah-forest mosaics uncovers extensive pre-Hispanic settlement networks, with concentric earthworks, raised causeways and water-management infrastructure indicative of tropical low-density urbanism across thousands of square kilometres.

Anthropogenic Landscape Dynamics in Amazonia publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in anthropogenic landscape dynamics in amazonia across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Anthropogenic landscape dynamics: The study of how human activities alter landform, vegetation and ecosystem processes over time.

Amazonian Dark Earth (ADE): Highly fertile, charcoal-rich soil formed through long-term human deposition of organic waste and controlled burning.

Domestication: The genetic and phenotypic modification of wild species through human selection for desirable traits.

Earthworks: Anthropogenic earthen constructions such as ditches, mounds and embankments used for settlement defence or water management.

Lidar remote sensing: Airborne laser scanning technology that reveals sub-canopy archaeological features and landscape modifications beneath dense forest cover.

References

1. Stable isotope evidence for pre-colonial maize agriculture and animal management in the Bolivian Amazon. Nature Human Behaviour (2024).
2. Domestication of the Amazonian fruit tree cupuaçu may have stretched over the past 8000 years. Communications Earth & Environment (2023).
3. Lidar reveals pre-Hispanic low-density urbanism in the Bolivian Amazon. Nature (2022).
4. The legacy of human use in Amazonian palm communities along environmental and accessibility gradients. Global Ecology and Biogeography (2023).
5. Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492. Quaternary Science Reviews (2019).
6. Pedogenetic processes in anthrosols with pretic horizon (Amazonian Dark Earth) in Central Amazon, Brazil. PLOS ONE (2017).