Papers by Jennifer Watling
The Holocene
The nature and extent of past indigenous transformations in the Amazon basin is an actively debat... more 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 become especially influential in this debate but has also generated disagreement among scholars regarding the possible limits of these proxies for detecting ancient land-use. To contribute empirical data to this issue, our paper presents the first attempt to study charcoal and phytolith signals from areas of modern indigenous land-use, in the Xingu Indigenous Territory, southern Amazonia. Our findings show that, while charcoal and early successional herb phytoliths are good indicators of land-use intensity, certain types of land-use leave subtler traces in the phytolith record that can hinder their detection. We demonstrate how using finer samp...
Quaternary International, 2020
Phytolith reference collections of plants and surface soils are a critical part of studies that u... more 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 shed light on human-environment interactions over a period that extends almost the entire Holocene. The present study brings together data on phytolith production patterns among 90 native species, representing 36 plant families, as well as 56 surface soil samples taken from underneath 11 monitored forest plots. Our discussion focuses on the comparison between the surface soil phytolith records and the above-ground floristic inventories, scrutinized considering the plant reference collection results. We found that the phytoliths of several species which produce diagnostic or potentially-diagnostic morphotypes were under-represented in the surface soils, including several understory herbs. While the phytolith assemblages from three forest types (palm, sororoca and dense forest) presented considerable overlap, in accordance with similarities in the floristic inventories, bamboo forest and different types of campinaranas were able to be distinguished based on their phytolith signatures.
Quaternary, 2021
Recent advances in the archaeology of lowland South America are furthering our understanding of t... more 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 mobility in Southwestern Amazonia during a period of environmental change at the Middle to Late Holocene transition, based on archaeobotanical analysis of the Monte Castelo shellmound, occupied between 6000 and 650 yr BP and located in a modern, seasonally flooded savanna–forest mosaic. Through diachronic comparisons of carbonized plant remains, phytoliths, and starch grains, we construct an ecology of resource use and explore its implications for the long-term history of landscape formation, resource management practices, and mobility. We show how, despite important changes visible in the archaeological record of the shellmound during this...
Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas, 2020
Resumo Novos estudos arqueobotânicos mostram que a região da bacia do alto Madeira é uma área ond... more 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 Holoceno tardio. Na calha do alto rio Madeira, ocorrem extensos pacotes de terra preta antropogênica associados a populações ceramistas que viviam na região entre 3.000 e 400 anos atrás. Essas populações deixaram uma riqueza de informações que nos permitem enxergar tais relações através de estudos arqueobotânicos. Este artigo relata novos dados microbotânicos dos sítios Teotônio e Santa Paula para propor novas hipóteses sobre os sistemas de manejo efetuados por essas populações. Além de documentar uma proliferação de cultivos domesticados, foi possível sugerir algumas mudanças no uso de plantas ao longo do tempo. Vimos também como os dados a...
Revista de Arqueologia, 2020
Na arqueologia Amazônica são comuns sítios abrangendo vários hectares com sobreposição de camadas... more 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 primeira tentativa de interpretar o significado da estratigrafia do sítio Teotônio, localizado às margens da cachoeira homônima, no alto rio Madeira, que tem uma cronologia de ocupação que chega há 9.000 anos antes do presente (AP). Nossa pesquisa se restringe às ocupações de grupos ceramistas que se estendeu desde cerca de 3.000 anos AP até o período colonial. Delineou-se a dispersão do material cerâmico assim como uma área específica que concentra quase todos os conjuntos.
PloS one, 2018
Southwestern Amazonia is considered an early centre of plant domestication in the New World, but ... more 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 cal. BP) deposits at Teotonio, an open-air site located on a 40 m-high bluff on the south bank of the Madeira river. Such evidence includes the presence of local and exotic domesticates such as manioc (Manihot esculenta), squash (Cucurbita sp.) and beans (Phaseolus sp.), alongside edible fruits such as pequiá (Caryocar sp.) and guava (Psidium sp.) that point to the beginnings of landscape domestication. The results contribute to an ever-growing number of studies that posit southwest Amazonia as an important centre for early crop domestication and experimentation, and which highlight the longue-durée of human impacts on tropical forest biod...
Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia
Este ensaio apresenta uma breve história das teorias antropológicas utilizadas para compreender a... more 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 do século XIX, passando pelas abordagens paleoeconômicas e comportamentais da Nova Arqueologia, até chegar às contribuições mais recentes da Ecologia Histórica, da Teoria de Construção de Nichos e das perspectivas indígenas.
Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia
Este ensaio apresenta uma breve história das teorias antropológicas utilizadas para compreender a... more 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 do século XIX, passando pelas abordagens paleoeconômicas e comportamentais da Nova Arqueologia, até chegar às contribuições mais recentes da Ecologia Histórica, da Teoria de Construção de Nichos e das perspectivas indígenas.
When we think about everyday scenes such as food preparation, house construction, hunting and fis... more When we think about everyday scenes such as food preparation, house construction, hunting and fishing, the preparation of funerary contexts, there are numerous materials that do not preserve in the archaeological record. Examples of these include fibers, textiles, fats, lard, leather, insects, and resins. These elements are on the “scene” but they are often forgotten when they are not found. Research that seeks to deal with the reconstruction of spaces, materials, and gestures in the present can help us think in a more holistic way about technologies, materials and their remains. By taking a closer look at the gestures and technologies surrounding adornments, basketry, meat preparation, bone artefacts, and others, we aim to explore the potential of studies about perishable objects in Brazilian archaeological contexts. Since perishable technologies were used, we, as archaeologists, aim to reflect, upon our collection methods and the analysis and interpretation of these records that c...
Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas, 2021
Resumo A elaboração de tecnologia de armazenamento de alimentos pelos povos indígenas da Amazônia... more 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 hidrográficas e relatados pelos moradores locais como um composto de plantas processadas e enterradas, comestíveis mesmo depois de anos enterrados. A partir da década de 1980, porém, uma série de trabalhos botânicos e micológicos vem classificando estes supostos pães como um fungo do gênero Pachyma Fr., Polyporus indigenus. Este artigo apresenta evidências arqueológicas, microbotânicas e etnográficas que mostram que pães-de-índio foram compostos preparados pelo processamento de espécies frutíferas e tuberosas, amplamente descritas pelos povos indígenas. Apresentamos os resultados da primeira tentativa de extrair grãos de amido de dois desses...
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2020
During the last two decades, new archaeological projects which systematically integrate a variety... more 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 studies are providing a far greater appreciation of the role of plants in the diets of early colonists. Since~13ka, these diets relied mainly on palm, tree fruits, and underground tubers, along with terrestrial and riverine faunal resources. Recent evidence indicates two areas of precocious plant cultivation and domestication: the sub-Andean montane forest of NW South America and the shrub savannahs and seasonal forests of SW Amazonia. In the latter area, thousands of anthropic keystone structures represented by forest islands show a significant human footprint in Amazonia from the start of the Holocene. While radiocarbon date databases show a decline in population during the middle Holocene, important developments happened during this epoch, including the domestication of cacao, the adoption of maize and the spread of manioc across the basin. The late Holocene witnessed the domestication of rice and the development of agricultural landscapes characterised by raised fields and Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs). Our multi-proxy analysis of 23 late Holocene ADEs and two lakes from southern Amazonia provides the first direct evidence of field polyculture agriculture including the cultivation of maize, manioc, sweet potato, squash, arrowroot and leren within closed-canopy forest, as well as enrichment with palms, limited clearing for crop cultivation, and low-severity fire management. Collectively, the evidence shows that during the late Holocene Amazonian farmers engaged in intensive agriculture marked by the cultivation of both annual and perennial crops relying on organic amendments requiring soil preparation and maintenance. Our study has broader implications for sustainable Amazonian futures.
The Holocene, 2015
The nature and extent of pre-Columbian (pre-AD 1492) human impact in Amazonia is a contentious is... more 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, when integrated with archaeological data, has the potential to fill these gaps in our knowledge. We present a 6000-year record of anthropogenic burning, agriculture and vegetation change, from an oxbow lake located adjacent to a pre-Columbian ring ditch in north-east Bolivia (13°15′44″S, 63°42′37″W). Human occupation around the lake site is inferred from pollen and phytoliths of maize ( Zea mays L.) and macroscopic charcoal evidence of anthropogenic burning. First occupation around the lake was radiocarbon dated to ~2500 calibrated years before present (BP). The persistence of maize in the record from ~1850 BP suggests that it was an importa...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jan 22, 2014
There is considerable controversy over whether pre-Columbian (pre-A.D. 1492) Amazonia was largely... more There is considerable controversy over whether pre-Columbian (pre-A.D. 1492) Amazonia was largely "pristine" and sparsely populated by slash-and-burn agriculturists, or instead a densely populated, domesticated landscape, heavily altered by extensive deforestation and anthropogenic burning. The discovery of hundreds of large geometric earthworks beneath intact rainforest across southern Amazonia challenges its status as a pristine landscape, and has been assumed to indicate extensive pre-Columbian deforestation by large populations. We tested these assumptions using coupled local- and regional-scale paleoecological records to reconstruct land use on an earthwork site in northeast Bolivia within the context of regional, climate-driven biome changes. This approach revealed evidence for an alternative scenario of Amazonian land use, which did not necessitate labor-intensive rainforest clearance for earthwork construction. Instead, we show that the inhabitants exploited a natu...
Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 2013
Accurate archaeological and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions using phytoliths relies on the st... more 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 palaeoecological assemblages from pre-Columbian earthwork sites in the region. Surface soils and vegetation from dense humid evergreen forest, dense humid evergreen forest with high palm abundance, palm forest, bamboo forest and fluvial forest were sampled and their phytoliths analysed. Relative phytolith frequencies were statistically compared using Principal Components Analyses (PCAs). We found the major differences in species composition to be wellrepresented by the phytolith assemblages as all forest types, apart from the two subtypes of dense humid evergreen forest, could be differentiated. Larger phytoliths from the sand fraction were found to be more ecologically diagnostic than those from the silt fraction. The surface soil phytolith assemblages we analysed can therefore be used as analogues to improve the accuracy of archaeological and palaeoecological reconstructions in the region.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jan 24, 2012
The nature and scale of pre-Columbian land use and the consequences of the 1492 "Columbian E... more 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 forest contexts. Of studies done in Amazonian savannas, none has the temporal resolution needed to detect changes induced by either climate or humans before and after A.D. 1492, and only a few closely integrate paleoecological and archaeological data. We report a high-resolution 2,150-y paleoecological record from a French Guianan coastal savanna that forces reconsideration of how pre-Columbian savanna peoples practiced raised-field agriculture and how the CE impacted these societies and environments. Our combined pollen, phytolith, and charcoal analyses reveal unexpectedly low levels of biomass burning associated with pre-A.D. 1492 s...
International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License. This document is subject to final copy-editing and chang... more International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License. This document is subject to final copy-editing and changes in visualization.
Scientific Reports
In this work, several attributes of the internal morphology of drupaceous fruits found in the arc... more 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 Microscopy and X-ray micro-computed tomography (X-ray MicroCT) methods. Both provide data about the three-layered pericarp (exo-, meso- and endocarp) of the studied exemplars, defined by cell differentiation, vascularisation, cellular contents, presence of sclerenchyma cells and secretory cavities. However, it is possible to identify a series of differences between the information that can be obtained through each of the methods. These variations are related to the definition of contours and fine details of some characteristics, their spatial distribution, size attributes, optical properties and material preservation. The results obtained ...
Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas
Resumo Este artigo faz um balanço dos dados atualmente disponíveis para a arqueologia da área a j... more 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 Madre de Díos. Nossa análise comparativa indica que a arqueologia da área a jusante das cachoeiras do rio Madeira possui mais semelhanças com padrões observados na Amazônia central do que com a região de seus formadores. Por outro lado, o alto Madeira também denota elementos da diversidade cultural que caracterizam o seu entorno. Sendo assim, propomos que as cachoeiras do Madeira funcionaram como uma área de fronteira persistente ao longo do Holoceno tardio, conectando regiões com padrões culturais distintos na bacia amazônica.
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Papers by Jennifer Watling
mesmo depois de anos enterrados. A partir da década de 1980, porém, uma série de trabalhos botânicos e micológicos vem classificando estes supostos pães como um fungo do gênero Pachyma Fr., Polyporus indigenus. Este artigo apresenta evidências arqueológicas, microbotânicas e etnográficas que mostram que pães-de-índio foram compostos preparados pelo processamento de espécies frutíferas e tuberosas, amplamente descritas pelos povos indígenas. Apresentamos os resultados da primeira tentativa de extrair grãos de amido de dois desses artefatos, os quais testaram positivamente para grãos de amido de milho, pimenta, batata-mairá e outras espécies de vegetais. Este texto dedica-se a demonstrar, ainda, que pães-de-índio são o testemunho do manejo e do uso da diversidade de plantas da floresta e do emprego de um conjunto de instrumentos e técnicas de produção com fins ao armazenamento de alimento.