In the modern world, there are many places the history of which scholars are trying to explore on the basis of the few existing sources of information. The article “The Domestication of Amazonia before European Conquest” attempts to provide evidence of the density of population on the territory of Amazonia despite the current determination of its sparsity. The authors justify their opinion by referring to the spheres of life influenced by the local people of pre-Columbian times.
The central theme of the article is the evidence of the human presence in Amazonia that allows scholars to conduct research based on previously overlooked facts. Clement et al. (2015) consider some aspects of human life that provide the information in that regard: domestication of plants and their management, impact on soils and earthworks, and landscapes. On the basis of the conducted research, they claim the existence of socio-cultural diversity in pre-Columbian Amazonia and the larger population.
The change in the approach of scholars regarding the problem resulted in the difference in interpretation of the existing data on earlier Amazonian settlers. The attempts to figure out the precise amount of the southern Amazonia’s population in the past led to the erroneous conclusion about its sparsity (Clement, 1999). The difficulty in making conclusions about the people of Amazonia at that time lies in the lack of archaeological evidence. The crop resources can speak of the presence of people in some sites, but this evidence is not enough for the conclusion. With the decline in population due to external reasons or its later expansion, the task of finding out the truth is becoming more complicated.
The researchers can sometimes only guess whether the places were inhabited or not until they find a positive proof for it. In the case of Amazonia, this task is especially difficult due to the loss of human heritage and the decline in population at Columbian times. For example, Clement (1999), in his first research, claimed that the territory was sparsely populated as there was little evidence of crop genetic resources. He believed that as crops depend mostly on humans, the places where they grow should be the ones where people of Amazonia lived in pre-Columbus times. However, some other factors should have been considered, such as migration of population typical for interfluve settlements (Clement et al., 2015). Consideration of these additional factors in the subsequent studies resulted in the opposite conclusions of scholars.
Discoveries made researchers reconsider their position concerning the population density in Amazonia. Massive geometrical earthworks on the south of Amazonia are one of the examples of such findings. The research showed the presence of these earthworks for 1800 km made by people living in numerous fortified villages (de Souza et al., 2018). This discovery contributed to the re-evaluation of the previous results on population density and the impact of earlier inhabitants on the environment.
The fact of the location of geometrical earthworks in interfluvial areas of the southern Amazonia led to the expansion of places of alleged settlements as scholars previously considered only territories along the floodplains to be the ones. Therefore, it is vital to avoid excessive generalization concerning the studied subject, e.g., the population of Amazonia was centered only in some areas. The more ancient structures archaeologists find, the larger the population of Amazon could have been in the opinion of scholars.
The results of similar researches in other regions have contributed to a better understanding of the population’s distribution and size. As in the example of the island Southeast Asia, these indicators do not necessarily depend on economic factors. Population density tends to adjust to the new economic conditions, not the other way around (Henley, 2002). Therefore, the population in Southeast Asia changed not due to some external factors, but adjusted itself to the existing situation.
The external environment that includes economic conditions or, for example, crop genetic resources, is not the essential factor that has an impact on the population’s reduction or growth. One can draw an analogy between these two regions and their indicators of population. In both cases, the similarity is in the independence of these indicators from the external environment. Thus, the combination of the external factors, together with personal choices, can give a better idea of the evolution of the amount of people rather than consideration of separate influences.
The difference between the older and the newer researches is in consideration of the evidence of the human presence and migration patterns, not only permanent settlements and traditional places for them. At present, the change in the approach of researching the population of pre-Columbian Amazonia and the consideration of new factors resulted in a completely different outcome. The research on its population is expanding through the works of numerous scholars. The new factors that have been overlooked in the previous studies become the main focus of researchers. The mechanism of human migration and personal choices are considered to be the essential pieces of information that help to figure out the precise number of people who had lived on the territory of Amazonia.
References
Clement, C. R., Denevan, W. M., Heckenberger, M. J., Junqueira, A. B., Neves, E. G., Teixeira, W. G., & Woods, W. I. (2015). The domestication of Amazonia before European conquest. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282(1812), 20150813.
Clement, C. R. (1999). 1492 and the loss of Amazonian crop genetic resources. I. The relation between domestication and human population decline. Economic Botany, 53(2), 188.
De Souza, J. G., Schaan, D. P., Robinson, M., Barbosa, A. D., Aragão, L. E., Marimon Jr, B. H., Iriarte, J. (2018). Pre-Columbian earth-builders settled along the entire southern rim of the Amazon. Nature communications, 9(1), 1-10.
Henley, D. (2002). Population, economy and environment in island Southeast Asia: A historical view with special reference to northern Sulawesi. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 23(2), 167-206.