Gabriela Prestes Carneiro: Integrating Archaeology, Ecology...

... and Climate Studies for the conservation of a living forest: Insights from the Amazon.

Evidence of human occupation in the Amazon dates back to 12,000 years BP, but we are still far from understanding when and how humans transformed the Amazon landscape. More than half of the world's living animals and plants live in tropical forests, and more than half of the world's fish species live in freshwater rivers.
How can we conserve biodiversity that is already under threat? Archaeology, particularly zooarchaeology and archaeobotany, provides tools that, when combined with climate and ecological studies, can provide insights into how biodiversity has changed over time. In this talk, we will present studies already conducted in the Amazon region on archaeological shell mounds located along the banks of the Amazon River, which have shown that indigenous peoples in the past managed, and still manage, a much greater diversity of plants and animals than we see today.