2008/08/29 by Michael Heckenberger, Judith Russell, Carlos Fausto +5 · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Environmental Science · Health Professions · #Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Indigenous Health and Education #Amazon rainforest #Geography #Urbanism #Human settlement #Prehistory #Biodiversity #Ecology #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1159769
openalex publication_date 2008/08/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The archaeology of pre-Columbian polities in the Amazon River basin forces a reconsideration of early urbanism and long-term change in tropical forest landscapes. We describe settlement and land-use patterns of complex societies on the eve of European contact (after 1492) in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. These societies were organized in articulated clusters, representing small independent polities, within a regional peer polity. These patterns constitute a "galactic" form of prehistoric urbanism, sharing features with small-scale urban polities in other areas. Understanding long-term change in coupled human-environment systems relating to these societies has implications for conservation and sustainable development, notably to control ecological degradation and maintain regional biodiversity.