Abstract: There is growing evidence that pre-Columbian humans had strong impacts on soils, plant and animal communities and ecosystem functioning in many parts of Amazonia, and that the legacies of these impacts still affect biodiversity and how ecosystems function today. Understanding the history of human/environment interactions in Amazonia is essential for analyzing the current state of these interactions and imagining scenarios for the future. This study gives a brief overview of these themes.
Key words
Amazonian Dark Earths; ecological legacy; historical ecology; Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions; pre-Columbian raised fields
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