Jennifer Watling

• PhD
• Lecturer at University of São Paulo

The nature and extent of pre-Columbian (pre-AD 1492) human impact in Amazonia is a contentious issue. The Bolivian Amazon has yielded some of the most impressive evidence for large and complex pre-Columbian societies in the Amazon basin, yet there remains relatively little data concerning the land use of these societies over time. Palaeoecology, wh...

Significance Amazonian rainforests once thought to be pristine wildernesses are increasingly known to have been inhabited by large populations before European contact. How and to what extent these societies impacted their landscape through deforestation and forest management is still controversial, particularly in the vast interfluvial uplands that...

Southwestern Amazonia is considered an early centre of plant domestication in the New World, but most of the evidence for this hypothesis comes from genetic data since systematic archaeological fieldwork in the area is recent. This paper provides first-hand archaeobotanical evidence of food production from early and middle Holocene (ca. 9,000–5000...

Phytolith reference collections of plants and surface soils are a critical part of studies that use these microbotanical remains for archaeological and paleoecological reconstruction. In the archaeologically-rich region of the Upper Madeira river in Rondônia, Brazil, phytolith analysis is being applied in both on- and off-site contexts in order to...

This paper summarizes phytolith analyses from four pre-Columbian agricultural raised-field sites of the coastal savannahs of French Guiana—Savane Grand Macoua, Piliwa, Bois Diable and K-VIII—and carbon isotope analyses from the first-named site. The combined phytolith and 13C isotope analyses evidence the transformation of the landscape from a rela...

Vegetation and fire activity have dynamically changed in response to past variations in global and regional climate. Here we investigate these responses across the Neotropics based on the analysis of modern vegetation distribution and fire activity in relation to modern climate patterns in the one hand, and a compilation of 243 vegetation records a...

The Casarabe culture (500–1400 ce), spreading over roughly 4,500 km² of the monumental mounds region of the Llanos de Moxos, Bolivia, is one of the clearest examples of urbanism in pre-Columbian (pre-1492 ce) Amazonia. It exhibits a four-tier hierarchical settlement pattern, with hundreds of monumental mounds interconnected by canals and causeways1...

The dispersion of occupations associated with the ceramics of the Polychrome Tradition of Amazonia, a classic theme of Amazonian Archaeology, has been discussed based on regional studies. In the Middle Solimões basin (AM), evidence of ancient occupations and techno-stylistic flows between ceramic productions indicated more complex relationships bet...

RESUMO Recentemente, Roberts et al. (2023) definiram três thresholds socioeconômicos que teriam sido a base do Antropoceno no mundo: o primeiro, entre 4.000 e 1.000 AEC, relacionado ao início da agricultura; o segundo, entre 0 e 1.500 EC, relacionado ao urbanismo e à consolidação demográfica das populações humanas; e o terceiro, entre 1.500 EC e o...

Recently, Roberts et al. (2023) defined three socioeconomic thresholds thought to have laid the foundations for the Anthropocene: the first, between 4000 and 1000 BCE, related to the beginnings of agriculture; the second, between 0 and 1500 CE, related to urbanism and the demographic consolidation of human populations; and the third, between 1500 a...

Abstract The dispersion of occupations associated with the ceramics of the Polychrome Tradition of Amazonia, a classic theme of Amazonian Archaeology, has been discussed based on regional studies. In the Middle Solimões basin (AM), evidence of ancient occupations and techno-stylistic flows between ceramic productions indicated more complex relatio...

Abstract The history of palynology in Brazil is presented in decades and three phases. The first phase (i.e., the 1940s and 1950s) represents the first steps in this science. In the 1940s, studies were restricted to nonpollen palynomorphs and to the Paleozoic period; in the 1950s, research expanded to include all types of palynomorphs and the Mesoz...

Amazonian dark earth (ADE) is highly nutrient- and carbon-rich soil created by past inhabitants of the Amazon. It would be valuable to know the extent of ADE because of its cultural and environmental importance, but systematic efforts to map its distribution and extent are impractical with traditional field methods. We use remote-sensing imagery an...

This unpublished text is related to our recently published paper in Communications Earth and Environment and serves as a response to a critique submitted by Clement et al. to the journal's Matters Arising section. Both the critique and our reply underwent peer review. However, the editorial team decided to reject publishing the exchange, largely ag...

The expansion of globalized industrial societies is causing global warming, ecosystem degradation, and species and language extinctions worldwide. Mainstream conservation efforts still focus on nature protection strategies to revert this crisis, often overlooking the essential roles of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LC) in protecting...

Amazonia, one of the largest and most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, is a significant yet less-known arena for ancient plant domestication. Here, we traced the origins of cupuaçu (Theobroma grandiflorum), an Amazonian tree crop closely related to cacao (T. cacao), cherished for its flavorful seed-pulp, by employing an extensive genomic analysis ba...

Fertile soil known as Amazonian dark earth is central to the debate over the size and ecological impact of ancient human populations in the Amazon. Dark earth is typically associated with human occupation, but it is uncertain whether it was created intentionally. Dark earth may also be a substantial carbon sink, but its spatial extent and carbon in...

The nature and extent of past indigenous transformations in the Amazon basin is an actively debated topic, and one that has important implications for both conservation policy and the cultural heritage of its indigenous and traditional populations. The use of charcoal and phytoliths to measure past human impacts in non-lacustrine settings has becom...

Este ensaio apresenta uma breve história das teorias antropológicas utilizadas para compreender as interações milenares entre as pessoas e o ambiente, particularmente em relação à arqueologia. Com destaque especial na região amazônica, pretende-se fornecer um panorama dos paradigmas principais, começando com a Ecologia Cultural da primeira metade d...

Tropical rainforests have retained an image of being pristine environments scarcely occupied by humans over the millennia. Archaeological research carried out in the last thirty years in the Amazon has contributed to changing this picture. In this chapter we aim to explore some of the patterns revealed by archaeology as it studies records of human...

Human-landscape interactions have influenced the carbon cycle in numerous ways since the industrial revolution, but the role of human activities in the ancient world is less well known. One example is the Amazon region, one of the most important terrestrial carbon reservoirs, where the size of ancient human populations and the extent of their impac...

We question prevailing models of the settlement of the Americas based on notions of adaptation to resource scarcity in the environment. Archaeobotanical data from twenty sites from the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene from Brazil and Amazonia demonstrate the ample and persistent use of a large variety of plants that have been domesticated and/or...

RESUMO Quando pensamos em cenas cotidianas, como o preparo de alimentos, a construção de habitações, a caça e a pesca, o preparo de contextos funerários, há uma grande quantidade de materiais que não se preservam no registro arqueológico. Alguns exemplos são: palhas, têxteis, gorduras, banhas, couros, insetos, resinas, entre outros. Esses elementos...

Resumo A elaboração de tecnologia de armazenamento de alimentos pelos povos indígenas da Amazônia é um tema descrito desde os relatos dos primeiros cronistas europeus na região. Frequentemente são encontrados, de maneira fortuita ou em sítios arqueológicos, artefatos culturais denominados ‘pães-de-índio’, presentes em diversos ambientes e bacias hi...

Recent advances in the archaeology of lowland South America are furthering our understanding of the Holocene development of plant cultivation and domestication, cultural niche construction, and relationships between environmental changes and cultural strategies of food production. This article offers new data on plant and landscape management and m...

First described over 120 years ago in Brazil, Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) are expanses of dark soil that are exceptionally fertile and contain large quantities of archaeological artefacts. The elevated fertility of the dark and often deep A horizon of ADEs is widely regarded as an outcome of pre-Columbian human influence. Controversially, in their...

Archaeological research provides clear evidence that the widespread formation of Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) in tropical lowland South America was concentrated in the Late Holocene, an outcome of sharp demographic growth that peaked towards 1000 BP. In their recent paper, however, Silva et al. propose that the high fertility of ADE is not of anthr...

During the last two decades, new archaeological projects which systematically integrate a variety of plant recovery techniques, along with palaeoecology, palaeoclimate, soil science and floristic inventories, have started to transform our understanding of plant exploitation, cultivation and domestication in tropical South America. Archaeobotanical...

ADE, a result of domestic, economic, and agricultural activities in and around human settlements, are noted for their extraordinary fertility and resilience and for the significant quantities of organic carbon, much in the form of charcoal. The deepest and most extensive areas of ADE are generally located on the bluffs of major rivers adjacent to f...

During the last two decades, new archaeological projects which systematically integrate a variety of plant recovery techniques, along with palaeoecology, palaeoclimate, soil science and floristic inventories, have started to transform our understanding of plant exploitation, cultivation and domestication in tropical South America. Archaeobotanical...

In this work, several attributes of the internal morphology of drupaceous fruits found in the archaeological site Monte Castelo (Rondonia, Brazil) are analyzed by means of two different imaging methods. The aim is to explore similarities and differences in the visualization and analytical properties of the images obtained via High Resolution Light...

The initial colonization of the Americas remains a highly debated topic1, and the exact timing of the first arrivals is unknown. The earliest archaeological record of Mexico—which holds a key geographical position in the Americas—is poorly known and understudied. Historically, the region has remained on the periphery of research focused on the firs...

Resumo Novos estudos arqueobotânicos mostram que a região da bacia do alto Madeira é uma área onde foram domesticadas várias plantas durante o Holoceno inicial e médio, confirmando o que já havia sido apontado por dados genéticos há anos. No entanto, há menos acúmulo de dados sobre as relações entre pessoas e plantas para as ocupações humanas no Ho...

Resumo Este artigo faz um balanço dos dados atualmente disponíveis para a arqueologia da área a jusante das cachoeiras do alto rio Madeira. Trata-se de um segmento-chave do maior afluente do rio Amazonas, que possui suas áreas de cabeceira nos Andes Centrais: ele é formado pela junção de grandes rios que vêm da Bolívia e do Peru – Mamoré, Beni e Ma...

Na arqueologia Amazônica são comuns sítios abrangendo vários hectares com sobreposição de camadas formadas por depósitos profundos e estratificados, com consequentes perturbações de depósitos mais antigos por ocupações posteriores. Tais características impõem dificuldades de interpretação dos registros. O objetivo deste artigo é realizar uma primei...

Amazonian dark earth (ADE) has received global attention for its remarkable fertility and high carbon content in a region known for low-nutrient soils. ADE is an anthropic soil produced by human activities, including refuse disposal and crop cultivation, that concentrated charcoal, organic matter and nutrients. Evidence for modified soils reaches b...

This chapter is a brief analytical historiography of Mexican (Pleistocene) prehistoric studies, as well as a preliminary presentation of the fiesr results of the 2012 excavations at Chiquihuite Cave.

In this chapter, the reader will find guidelines and suggestions for the application of ethnobotanical and ethnoecological methods in archaeological sites and their surroundings, aiming to establish a closer dialogue between ethnobiology and archaeology for understanding the human history of past and present landscapes. The goal of such methodologi...

This paper applies concepts from the fields of historical ecology and human niche construction theory to interpret archaeological and palaeoecological data from the Brazilian state of Acre, southwest Amazonia, where modern deforestation has revealed hundreds of pre-Columbian monumental earthworks called ‘geoglyphs’, largely built between ca. 2000–6...

New explorations in the desert of northeastern Zacatecas, in central-northern Mexico, revealed dozens of archaeological and geoarchaeological sites. One of them, Ojo de Agua, contains the remains of a Pleistocene spring-fed hydrographic system located at the southeastern end of a large elongated endorheic basin. The locality yielded a particularly...

Accurate archaeological and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions using phytoliths relies on the study of modern reference material. In eastern Acre, Brazil, we examined whether the five most common forest types present today were able to be differentiated by their soil phytolith assemblages, and thus provide analogues with which to compare palaeoeco...

The history of human-environment interactions and the role of agriculture among pre-Columbian populations of Amazonia has been a long-standing topic of debate, usually backed by scattered data. Although most archaeologists agree that Amazonia was inhabited by demographically dense and socio-politically complex societies during the millennium that p...

We are pleased that the publication of our recent study (1) has stimulated further discussion of the complexities of past human-vegetation-climate interactions in the Neotropics and that Silva (2) considers that our study 'fundamentally changes our understanding of the magnitude and nature of pre-Columbian land use in the Amazon region'. However, w...

Significance The discovery of extensive geometric earthworks beneath apparently pristine rainforest across southern Amazonia has fueled debate over the scale of environmental impact caused by ancient human societies. Whereas some claim that these sites are evidence of vast deforestation by populous pre-Columbian (pre-A.D. 1492) societies, others pr...

Phytolith reference collections are a fundamental prerequisite for accurate interpretation of fossil phytolith assemblages used in reconstructing vegetation histories. As part of a multi-disciplinary research project studying Late Holocene landscape transformations associated with pre-Columbian raised field complexes in the coastal savannas of Fren...

The nature and scale of pre-Columbian land use and the consequences of the 1492 "Columbian Encounter" (CE) on Amazonia are among the more debated topics in New World archaeology and paleoecology. However, pre-Columbian human impact in Amazonian savannas remains poorly understood. Most paleoecological studies have been conducted in neotropical fores...