Amazon was not all manufactured landscape, Smithsonian scientist says
Thursday, June 14, 2012 - 16:30
in Earth & Climate
New evidence challenges the idea that the Amazon basin was densely inhabited before European arrival. Population estimates for the Amazon basin just before Europeans arrived range from 2 to 10 million people. The newly reported reconstruction of Amazonian prehistory by Smithsonian scientist Dolores R. Piperno and colleagues suggests that large areas of western Amazonia were sparsely inhabited. This clashes with the belief that most of Amazonia, including forests far removed from major rivers, was heavily occupied and modified. The team's research is published in the June 15 issue of Science.