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Ancient Amazonian farmers fortified valuable land they had spent years making fertile to protect it from conflict Ancient Amazonian communities fortified valuable land they had spent years making fertile to protect it from conflict, excavations show. Farmers in Bolivia constructed wooden defences around previously nutrient-poor tropical soils they had enriched over generations to keep them safe during times of social unrest. These long-term soil management strategies allowed Amazonians to grow nutrient demanding crops, such as maize and manioc and fruiting trees, and this was key to community subsistence. These Amazonian Dark Earths, or Terra Preta, were created through burning, mulching, and the deposition of organic waste. ....
Credit: Mark Robinson Ancient Amazonian communities fortified valuable land they had spent years making fertile to protect it from conflict, excavations show. Farmers in Bolivia constructed wooden defences around previously nutrient-poor tropical soils they had enriched over generations to keep them safe during times of social unrest. These long-term soil management strategies allowed Amazonians to grow nutrient demanding crops, such as maize and manioc and fruiting trees, and this was key to community subsistence. These Amazonian Dark Earths, or Terra Preta, were created through burning, mulching, and the deposition of organic waste. It was known that some communities built ditches and embankments, known locally as a zanja, around their settlements, which had suggested to act as a defensive structure. The examples from Bolivia were specifically constructed to also enclose the enriched soil and this is the first evidence of an additional fortification built in t ....
Detail of a circular mound village called Dona Maria with ‘twin’ village. Image credit: Iriarte et al., doi: 10.5334/jcaa.45. “Lidar provides a new opportunity to locate and document earthen sites in forested parts of Amazonia characterized by dense vegetation,” said Professor Jose Iriarte, an archaeologist and archaeobotanist at the University of Exeter. “It can also document the smallest surficial earthen features in the recently opened pasture areas.” Professor Iriarte and his colleagues used a lidar sensor integrated into an MD 500 helicopter to document architectural features below the forest canopy, revealing a more complex and spatially organised landscape than previously thought. ....