A new local scale prediction model of Amazonian landscape domestication sites

Abstract Amazonia has drawn the interest of researchers over the last few decades as a region with evidence for extensive ancient/past indigenous landscape domestication. Among the major issues surrounding the nature of landscape domestication of pre-Columbian Amazonians, its scale is critically connected with other major problems in the history of Amazonia such as forms of urbanism, land engineering and agriculture. In recent years, some research in historical ecology has focused on developing methods to calibrate landscape domestication by interpreting the effects of human activity on the formation of the modern Amazonian landscape. This paper presents regional-scale research in the Floresta Nacional de Caxiuana (FNC) to provide a method to trace and calibrate long-term forest management. With the data collected from the FNC and satellite images, the relationship between soils, an Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and landscape domestication are explored. The data are interpreted as indicating that zones of anthropogenic enrichment of the soil due to forest management over the last 2000 years have a positive correlation with high EVI values. The research methods have potential to be applied broadly in tropical rainforest environments where pedestrian survey is difficult to undertake.