Crops were cultivated in regions of the Amazon '10,000 years ago'

Far from being a pristine wilderness, some regions of the Amazon have been profoundly altered by humans dating back 10,000 years, say researchers. An international team found that during this period, crops were being cultivated in a remote location in what is now northern Bolivia. The scientists believe that the humans who lived here were planting squash, cassava and maize. The inhabitants also created thousands of artificial islands in the forest. The end of the last ice age, around 12,000 years ago, saw a sustained rise in global temperatures that initiated many changes around the world. Perhaps the most important of these was that early civilisations began to move away from living as hunter-gatherers and started to cultivate crops for food. Researchers have previously unearthed evidence that crops were domesticated at four important locations around the world. So China saw the cultivation of rice, while in the Middle East it was grains, in Central America and Mexico it was maize, while potatoes and quinoa emerged in the Andes. Now scientists say that the Llanos de Moxos region of southwestern Amazonia should be seen as a fifth key region. The area is a savannah but is dotted with raised areas of land now covered with trees. The area floods for part of the year but these "forest islands" remain above the waters. Some 4,700 of these small mounds were developed by humans over time, in a very mundane way. "These are just places where people dropped their rubbish, and over time they grow," said lead author Dr Umberto Lombardo from the University of Bern, Switzerland...MORE