The Amazon was created by Indigenous peoples over millennia
An interview with Brazilian archeologist Eduardo Neves
At the beginning of this year, the Barcelona art center CCCB hosted an exhibition titled Amazons: The Ancestral Future*. The first section of the exhibition, The Message of the Roots, focused on archaeology and the latest research by renowned Brazilian archaeologist Eduardo Neves. Neves is part of a group of researchers whose discoveries over the past decade have radically changed our understanding of the Amazon region and humanity’s relationship with it.
“Just like a garden, the Amazon rainforest is a social product and the result of the combination of biophysical processes and human actions, whether deliberate or not,” writes Neves.
With more than 30 years of research experience in the Brazilian Amazon, Neves has coordinated numerous archaeological surveys and excavations aimed at understanding the deep roots of human presence in the region and how interaction with this unique rainforest ecosystem has evolved over the centuries.
In recent years, modern archaeology has overturned the long-held belief that the Amazon was sparsely populated, untouched, and inherently hostile to human life. On the contrary, research shows that over the last 13,000 years, Indigenous peoples have played a decisive role in shaping the Amazonian landscape and developing technologies that influenced the entire American continent. The Amazon was one of the earliest regions in the world where agriculture emerged. Many of the plants domesticated by Indigenous communities thousands of years ago are still cultivated and used today. The region also developed strong ceramic traditions and produced exceptionally fertile and stable “black earth” soils, known as terra preta, as a direct result of human activity.
It is estimated that in the early 16th century, around 8 to 10 million people lived in the Amazon, helping transform it into the vast center of biodiversity we know today.
Eduardo Neves is a professor of archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He served as president of the Brazilian Archaeological Society (2009–2011), was a member of the Board of the Society for American Archaeology (2011–2013), and sat on the Advisory Council of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (2011–2014).
Neves holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of São Paulo and a PhD in anthropology from Indiana University. He has been a visiting professor at the Central University of the Province of Buenos Aires (Olavarría, Argentina), the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. His work includes over 130 publications—ranging from books and peer-reviewed articles to research reports, book chapters, and texts for general audiences.
He currently leads the Amazon Revealed project, funded by National Geographic, which uses LiDAR technology to map large areas of the Brazilian Amazon in an effort to locate and protect endangered archaeological sites and the surrounding territories.
Eduardo Neves’ research has significantly contributed to unveiling the true legacy of Amazonian peoples and restoring the historical memory of the rainforest. He is convinced that the future of the Amazon depends on understanding its past—and on how we can learn from thousands of years of traditional knowledge and practices, and thoughtfully integrate them into modern life.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo from Eduardo Neves’ personal archive
My first question is a bit broad. In an interview with The Guardian, you once said that archaeology is not about the past — it’s about the future. The relatively recent discovery that the Amazon region was actually densely populated and, contrary to earlier theories, a place of intense and sophisticated agriculture represents a true paradigm shift. What does this shift mean for our future as humanity, and for the future of the Amazon? Because it really does change our entire understanding of the region — and of human history more broadly.
I think that, to answer this question, we have to look back a little into history—the history of research in the Amazon. For me, when I was a graduate student back in the 1990s, the prevailing idea or hypothesis offered by archaeologists was that not many people had ever lived in the Amazon.
The reasoning behind this idea was rooted in environmental limitations. According to this hypothesis, the tropical environment of the Amazon—the forest, the entire ecosystem—presented severe limitations for human settlement. These perceived limitations were based on notions of scarcity: a lack of protein, poor soils, and even past climate change, all of which were thought to have significantly constrained the possibility for people to live and thrive in the Amazon.
It’s important to track the evolution of this idea. When the first anthropologists and naturalists began traveling through the Amazon in the early 19th century—or even the late 18th century—they often found the region seemingly empty, with few people living there. They interpreted this emptiness as a reflection of how life had always been in the Amazon. In other words, they projected that scenario into the deep past, assuming that indigenous people had no history.
However, what they failed to recognize was that what they were witnessing was actually the result of 300 years of European colonialism. The low population density they observed was much more a reflection of centuries of slavery, the spread of diseases, and other colonial impacts.
Another factor was the absence of visible ruins. In contrast to other parts of the world, where stone was used as a raw material for construction, in the Amazon, people built with wood, straw, and earth. As a result, the ruins didn’t survive in ways that were easily recognizable. Features like artificial mounds or constructed channels were often mistaken for natural formations, such as abandoned riverbeds. There was a general lack of understanding of the particular forms of architecture and landscape modification that had developed in the Amazon over millennia.
So, the idea of the Amazon as an inhospitable place for human habitation was really established in the early 19th century. And it was only in the last 20 or 30 years that this picture began to change. Ultimately, that older perspective reflected more of an external viewpoint than a true understanding of how life evolved here over thousands of years.
Also, it’s interesting to note that there was a very important figure in Brazilian science—a Bavarian naturalist named Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. He played a significant role in early Brazilian scientific exploration. Although primarily a botanist, he undertook a long expedition from 1817 to 1820, spending three years traveling from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon, first overland and then by boat.
During his journey, even though his main focus was botany, he became deeply intrigued by the many different indigenous languages spoken throughout the Amazon. He interpreted this linguistic diversity in a particular way: he believed that the presence of so many languages suggested that these peoples had originally lived outside of the Amazon—in places with more “civilized” or complex forms of political organization—and that they had later migrated into the Amazon. Once in the tropical environment, he theorized, they had “devolved” or “decayed.” The word he used was “degenerated,” implying that the tropical conditions led to a decline into less sophisticated forms of life.
Von Martius was, I believe, the first scientist to associate the tropical environment with the idea of degeneration—the notion that once you entered the tropics, you entered into a kind of decline. This perspective had a lasting influence, and it ties back to your first question—about how we think about the Amazon and its future.
Because if you look at the situation here in Brazil—I live in São Paulo, in the south of the country—even here, we still see a very strong colonialist perspective toward the Amazon. Most Brazilians view the Amazon as a problem that we somehow have to deal with. It’s seen as important for the world, yes, but also as a burden—too hot, too tropical, and very difficult to bring any form of “civilization” into.
What we’ve seen over the last 50 years in Brazil are solutions being brought in from the outside—so-called solutions for the future of the Amazon, like opening roads, strip mining, and similar projects. But these approaches rarely work, because they fail to account for the local conditions of the Amazon.
The connection between the past and the future is crucial here. Many of the ideas we’ve inherited about the Amazon’s past were based on false assumptions. Once archaeology began to seriously engage with the region, researchers started realizing, “Wait—people were everywhere here. There were cities. There were dense populations.” The negative stereotypes about life in the tropics began to be disproven.
This shift in perspective allows us to say: people have been living in the Amazon for at least 13,000 years. Let’s look at how indigenous communities have lived and continue to live there. Maybe they can help us understand how to come up with better, more sustainable alternatives for living in the Amazon—and, by extension, in other tropical regions of the world.
That’s roughly how this debate has been evolving over the last 20 or 30 years.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo: Mauricio de Paiva/Fotoarqueologia
It’s interesting that it took so many years for us to uncover this knowledge—particularly given that some written evidence already existed. For example, the notes of the Spanish missionary Gaspar de Carvajal from the 16th century described towns, roads, and agriculture in the Amazon, yet they were largely dismissed as fiction. And if I’m correct, Professor Donald Lathrap wrote about the house-garden concept as early as the 1950s and even published The Upper Amazon in 1970. Still, these insights were largely overlooked, likely due to the strength of prevailing stereotypes.
It’s interesting that you mention Lathrap, because he was a very critical thinker, and his work has been really important. I spent 15 years working in the central Amazon trying to test some of Lathrap’s ideas. I think he was never as well known here in Brazil. Probably, you’ve read about Betty Meggers—she and Lathrap were debating throughout the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.
Lathrap never actually worked in Brazil. He focused on the Peruvian Amazon and later moved on to work along the coast of Ecuador. So, even though his ideas were quite influential, when I was in graduate school and trying to argue that Lathrap was right and Meggers was wrong, it was a challenge. Because he never conducted fieldwork in Brazil and never published in Portuguese—only in Spanish or English—he didn’t have direct access to the context here. As a result, his work never received as much attention in Brazil as Meggers’ did.
And if you look at the early chroniclers, you’re right—Gaspar de Carvajal, Francisco de Orellana, and others. These early accounts were later revisited by 19th-century scientists, who tended to view them with skepticism. The scientists often dismissed these chronicles, suggesting that they might have been political propaganda or exaggerations, rather than reliable records.
For example, Carvajal famously described the women warriors of the Amazon**—what became known as the “myth of the Amazons.” Because he referenced these female warriors, some scientists claimed he was simply importing a European mythological idea—the Greek Amazon warrior women—and projecting it onto the Americas. As a result, they argued that his account was not credible. They believed that, since there were no Greek-style female warriors in South America, Carvajal’s reports must have been made up or fantastical.
This led many scholars to dismiss the early chronicles as little more than historical curiosities, rather than as serious sources that could reflect the realities of what these travelers were actually seeing as they journeyed down the Amazon.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo from Eduardo Neves’ personal archive
But if you look back over the past few decades, what, in your opinion, was the turning point when everything started to change?
I think, as in many cases, political changes played a major role. Here in Brazil, for example, we were under a military dictatorship until 1985. I was in college at that time. So when democracy was reestablished, there was a strong sense of optimism. We had also lived through a long period of hyperinflation, but in 1994, inflation was finally brought under control. That brought both political and economic stability.
At the same time, there were important intellectual shifts. One was the emergence of a research approach in anthropology called historical ecology, which became very influential. Scholars like William Balée and Darrell A. Posey emphasized that indigenous peoples have a dynamic relationship with their environment—they actively shape and modify it. This challenged the hyper-deterministic hypotheses that had previously dominated the field, which claimed environmental limitations severely restricted human development in the Amazon.
But those ideas no longer made sense. Even today, we can clearly see that indigenous communities modify their landscapes. So naturally, researchers began to look back at the past and ask how these processes worked historically.
There was also an American anthropologist named Anna Curtenius Roosevelt who worked in Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon. She was one of the first scholars to strongly challenge these deterministic views, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.
So it was a fascinating time of both political and theoretical transformation. There was a feeling of optimism, and a sense that a new field of research was opening up for young scholars. I think that explains a lot of the momentum behind the shift in perspective.
At the same time, the Brazilian government began offering scholarships for young students to pursue PhDs abroad, since there were no doctoral programs in archaeology in Brazil at the time. Many people from my generation went to the U.S. or Europe to do their PhDs, and that exposed us to others who were working on similar ideas. It was an exciting moment.
But in many ways, I think the shift was politically driven. It wasn’t just about scientific change—there was a broader political context that opened up the country. And as you know from your own experience—perhaps living part of your life under the Soviet political system—when major political changes happen, everything opens up, including science.
Science isn’t neutral. It’s deeply connected to the political context in which it’s produced. So yes, there were crucial theoretical shifts, but they were made possible—and perhaps even prompted—by a broader political transformation. That, I believe, played a major role in shaping this new perspective on the Amazon.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo: Mauricio de Paiva/Fotoarqueologia
I think one of the important lessons we need to learn from these discoveries is that we must take the intellectual contributions of Indigenous peoples seriously. In some ways, in certain fields, they were more advanced than we are today.
I totally agree with that, because if you look at it, we have a history of around 13,000 years of Indigenous presence in the Amazon. And if archaeology is correct in what it’s revealing, we can say that the Amazon as we know it today—the Amazon we seek to protect—was, in many ways, created by Indigenous peoples over millennia. Through practices like plant cultivation, the production of anthropic (human-made) soils—which are extremely fertile—Indigenous communities have long interacted with nature based on their own ontologies, their own ways of understanding and living in the world. They shaped the Amazon through this interaction.
But in the last 40 years alone, Brazil has lost around 20% of its Amazon forest. That destruction has come from a way of life that is completely at odds with Indigenous ontologies—one based on monoculture, on cattle ranching, soybean cultivation, land clearing, and the replacement of complex, biodiverse ecosystems with simplified, single-crop systems. These are radically different ways of being in the world, and today, they are in direct conflict.
We are now witnessing the environmental consequences of that conflict. Rivers are drying up. Forest fires are occurring on a scale we’ve never seen before. Of course, there were always some fires in the past, but never at this intensity. We’re seeing droughts, not just in the Amazon but in other regions of Brazil as well. Much of the rainfall in southern Brazil depends on the Amazon—on the trees and the evaporation they produce. Fewer trees mean less evaporation, fewer clouds, and less rain. It’s a very direct relationship.
And all of this stems from a radically different ontology—a worldview that treats nature as a set of resources to be extracted and turned into profit. It’s the idea that nature is something that can be bought and sold, that a tree has value only when it’s cut down and sold as timber. This is fundamentally different from Indigenous ontologies, where nature is not just a resource, but a living system one is part of, and in relation with.
So again, we return to the connection between past and future. To me, it seems that the dominant way of living in the world today is leading us from one catastrophe to another. If we are to stop that, we need to take seriously the alternatives—other ways of living—and the Amazon offers a powerful case study. It gives us a long-term historical trajectory of sustainable living, and it shows us the contrast with short-term extractive practices that are destroying what took millennia to build.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo: Mauricio de Paiva/Fotoarqueologia
You mentioned fire, and I think that’s a particularly fascinating area where we can learn from Indigenous civilizations, since they have been managing fire for thousands of years. Indigenous peoples have long known how to use fire as a tool to shape and care for the landscape in sustainable ways. I believe your archaeological findings have helped to shed light on this longstanding knowledge and practice.
We know there’s evidence of fire use going back to the very beginning—archaeologists often find charcoal in the soil. There are still Indigenous communities today who work with fire in the Amazon. What’s different now is the intensity and frequency of these fires.
There’s a group from the University of Exeter in the UK (Ted Feldpausch Research Group- Ed.) working on a fascinating project; I believe it’s ongoing. They’ve done thousands of test pits across the Amazon and found charcoal in many of them. This shows that ancient people used fire—perhaps to clear land for gardening—but those fires were infrequent. There were long intervals between fire episodes.
Today, fires are much more intense. They don’t leave as much charcoal, but they do leave ash, which indicates higher temperatures. And now, some areas are being burned every year, or every other year. So not only is fire happening more often, but it’s also happening under very different conditions.
We also suspect—and I think there’s strong evidence—that some of these fires are being set deliberately for political reasons. I don’t know if you follow Brazilian politics closely, but we had a terrible president, Bolsonaro, who openly attacked environmental protections in the Amazon. When he lost the election and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office—who, despite some criticism, is certainly much better on environmental issues—deforestation began to decline again, thanks in part to Marina Silva, our current and very competent Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.
However, at the same time, fire incidents have been increasing. Many people believe that some large-scale landowners and cattle farmers are deliberately setting fires to undermine environmental policy—essentially to say, “Look, the fires are still happening under Lula too, so nothing has changed.” In this sense, fire becomes a tool of political sabotage—a criminal use of fire.
Another factor is climate. The Amazon is getting drier due to reduced rainfall. Drier conditions mean the forest is more vulnerable to fire, even without direct ignition. But when those dry conditions are combined with intentional burning, it becomes a dangerous mix. So yes, deforestation is decreasing, but fire is increasing—and that’s a serious concern.
Organized crime is also playing a role in this. The Amazon is now a major corridor for cocaine trafficking, mostly to Europe. It’s extremely difficult to monitor and control the borders—it’s a huge, remote area, as you know. This dynamic is relatively recent and has intensified notably since Bolsonaro’s presidency.
As an archaeologist working in the field—I’m heading back to Amazon in two weeks—it’s impossible to separate scientific work from the political and environmental reality around us. You’re out there in the field, with the people, witnessing what’s happening. It’s not just about collecting samples and going back to the lab to write academic papers. Archaeology in the Amazon today is deeply engaged with the present, because the issues affecting the region are immediate, urgent, and deeply political.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo from Eduardo Neves’ personal archive
Can you elaborate a bit on the LiDAR technology you’re using today to identify ancient sites? I suppose many of those recent discoveries were possible also because of it.
LiDAR technology is really interesting because it’s a very powerful tool. It’s a sensor that you can mount on an airplane or a drone, and it allows us to see what’s underneath the forest canopy. So, features like earthworks, ditches, canals, and roads that are hidden beneath the trees become visible through LiDAR. That’s something really fascinating.
Another advantage is that you can use LiDAR on a drone. If you look at the work done in Bolivia by Carla Jaime Betancourt and Heiko Prümers, they were able to map very large sites. Or Stéphen Rostain (French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) – ed.), who also mapped extensive structures in Ecuador’s Upano Valley using LiDAR. You could do this with traditional fieldwork, but it would take months or even years. Today, you can fly a drone for a day or two and map a large area quickly and precisely. So, LiDAR is important not only because it reveals hidden structures but also because it significantly speeds up and improves the accuracy of mapping.
I’m using LiDAR in my own work here in Brazil, though I’m trying to apply it in a particular way. In a project called Amazon Revealed—parts of which were briefly shown at the exhibition in Barcelona at the CCCB—we aim to use LiDAR to identify archaeological sites still covered by forest, but located near what we call the ‘deforestation arc.’ This arc is a vast area that cuts across the southern and eastern edges of the Amazon and is where most of the forest loss is happening. It’s advancing quickly.
What we want to do is find archaeological sites in these threatened areas and officially register them. According to Brazilian law, once a site is registered on the national list of archaeological sites, it gains an additional layer of legal protection. So we’re using archaeology as a tool to help protect these vulnerable regions.
What we’re also doing—which I think is just as important as flying the drones—is engaging with local communities before conducting flights. We go into the field, present the project, and listen to what the people who live there have to say. Only after receiving their input and the proper permits do we proceed with the LiDAR work.
This kind of collaboration—talking to people and hearing their perspectives—is just as rewarding as the technical work. Through this project, we’re not only using archaeology to protect threatened areas but also building a network, an alliance between academics and the people who live in these territories.
We believe this network is crucial because the local communities are the ones who see what’s happening every day. They can provide insights and observations that we, as outside researchers, often miss. So it’s really a multi-layered effort: conducting archaeology, protecting the forest, and building partnerships. And this kind of collaboration with Indigenous and local communities has been working very well.
We had a meeting last year in Manaus with around 90 people. It was really special—people came from the territories, and we brought them together. Some of them traveled for many days to get there, by boat or by plane. We spent four days together in Manaus, discussing the results of the project and thinking about future actions.
So that’s how I’m trying to use LiDAR—not just as a tool for scientific discovery, but also as a means to foster new connections and create new ways to protect the territories that are under threat today.
In a way, through this tool, you are also connecting different forms of knowledge—linking scientific knowledge with the knowledge of Indigenous people.
Totally, yeah, totally. For instance, in more than one case, people told us, ‘Now we understand what you’re trying to do—why don’t you fly over that area?’ In one case, they said, ‘That’s where an old shaman used to live. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but it’s probably a very powerful place.’ So we flew there, and we found these beautiful archaeological structures.
In another area, people said, ‘We have very old Brazil nut trees growing in this spot—why don’t you give it a try there?’ We went, and again, we found some very interesting structures.
So, it really is about local knowledge—people who live in these areas and know the territory in ways we don’t. Bringing together these different ways of producing knowledge is really powerful. I think it’s incredibly interesting.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo: Mauricio de Paiva/Fotoarqueologia
At your presentation at Yale University, you showed pictures of the Sol de Campinas site, where the forest was removed and ancient settlements were discovered, including linear roads. That suggests there were road systems as well—because, as you mentioned, not all Indigenous communities lived near the rivers. The population estimates for people living in these regions in the past are around 8 to 10 million, according to the data. Were they connected in some way?
I mean, I think in this area—in Acre—where we find the roads, and probably elsewhere in the Amazon as well, yes, there were ways to create connections among people. When we think about the Amazon, we often picture the huge, beautiful rivers. And of course, people were traveling by boat all the time—there’s no doubt about that. But in Acre, where the Sol de Campinas site is located, the rivers are much smaller during the dry season. Some of them are barely navigable because they’re so narrow. So people were likely using the roads to travel across very large areas.
There’s an interesting case—a former graduate student of mine did the research. He found an account from 1887 by a Brazilian man who walked 200 kilometers from what is today Bolivia to Acre in 20 days, with a group of 35 people. If you read his report, he mentions roads constantly. He was walking, and we now have archaeological evidence that some of these roads are at least 1,000 years old.
So I imagine that people were using these road networks for hundreds of years to move through the territory. And we know that as people walked through the forest, they brought seeds and seedlings with them. They were planting trees along the way. So if today roads are used to destroy the Amazon, it seems that in the past, road networks were used to enrich it—to enhance agroforestry by introducing and spreading useful plant species.
Again, it’s a completely different strategy. Roads in the past were a way to create and sustain the forest, while today, roads are often a tool of deforestation. It brings us back to that same contrast I mentioned earlier in our conversation.
Yeah, we were talking about those roads, seeds, and everything related to creation. Maybe that can also help explain the mystery of ayahuasca, because in all Indigenous tribes there are different varieties of it, and it seems to have appeared around the same time. Perhaps the answer lies in the roads — people traveled along them and also passed on this knowledge, including the unique combination of the two plants that make up the Amazonian plant teacher, ayahuasca.
Totally. I mean, if you look at plants, a lot of the ones that were cultivated on the Pacific coast—in Peru or Ecuador—are originally Amazonian. For example, sweet potato, cacao, tobacco, coca (which is a very important plant), peanuts, and manioc. Then there’s maize, or corn, which is one of the most important plants in South America. It came from Mesoamerica, but it arrived in the Amazon very early as well. So we can establish very old connections between different parts of the continent, because we see these plants traveling from one place to another. I think in most cases, people were the ones bringing these plants, likely using the road networks too.
There’s a fascinating area—not in Brazil, but in southern Ecuador, near the border with Peru—where the Andes are narrower and lower. It’s called the Huancabamba Pass. There are some archaeological sites there with dates going back more than 5,000 years. At these sites, you find evidence of cacao, which was already domesticated, as well as shells—like Strombus shells from the Pacific—brought by people across the Andes into the Amazon.
Even today in that area, there are old paths and roads that people still use—probably the same ones that were used 5,000 years ago—to cross from one side of the Cordillera to the other. Once these structures are in place, they really become part of the landscape. They serve as long-lasting marks on the land, facilitating the movement of people, plants, and knowledge from one region to another. I completely agree with that.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo from Eduardo Neves’ personal archive
I wanted to ask you also about “terra preta,” or “dark soil,” which, according to the latest discoveries, covers approximately 2–3 percent of the Amazon area. These dark soils were produced by Indigenous people as far back as 5,000 years ago. Even today, they remain incredibly fertile and stable—they don’t lose their fertility over time. What is the secret behind these soils and their long-term sustainability?
It’s interesting because these soils are very fertile, as you mentioned, and they have a fascinating property: they are stable. They don’t lose their fertility over time. Normally, in the tropics—due to intense rainfall—it’s common for added fertilizers to be washed away after just a few years. But what’s remarkable about the dark soils is that they remain fertile and stable over time.
Some of the oldest examples we know of were formed 5,500 years ago. That’s a very long time ago—and they’re still there, and people are still using them today.
What’s also interesting about these soils—again, coming back to the connection between past and future—is that traditional societies, Indigenous communities, still farm on top of them. For example, among the Tenharim people in the southern rim of the Amazon, corn plays a central role in their culture. They’re under a lot of pressure from outside forces, but they hold a major annual feast centered around corn they grow. The only places they can grow corn successfully are on archaeological sites where terra preta soils exist—soils they didn’t create themselves, but that were made long ago.
As they say: “As long as we can keep growing corn, we will survive as an independent society.” So we see that they are using something created by Indigenous people in the past to support their cultural resistance against the encroachment of Brazilian society today.
These soils are important not only from a historical perspective, but also from a political one. In many ways, they serve as a foundation that helps traditional communities in the Amazon maintain their way of life.
And that’s interesting because I remember back in the 1990s, when I was a grad student, there was still debate about whether these soils were natural or man-made. It was only in the late 1990s and early 2000s that it became widely accepted that they were produced by Indigenous people.
And how did they do it? I believe they were composting—throwing in organic matter, digging pits, and adding things like fish bones, seeds, charcoal, even broken pottery. This mixture of cultural materials—pottery, food waste, charcoal—combined to create the right conditions for these soils to develop.
So it’s a beautiful metaphor: a blend of nature and culture working together to create something with amazing properties—fertility and long-term stability. And people still use these soils across the Amazon to grow food. Even those who have no direct connection to the people who originally made them still recognize their value and use them for cultivation today.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo from Eduardo Neves’ personal archive
It’s interesting also that the Amazon was one of the first places for the domestication of plants. It was, in some ways, a kind of experimental space for agriculture. So what could be the main difference between how they did it then and how we do it now? And what could we learn from that?
I think the major difference is that those agroecological systems of the Amazon are based on the notion of being open to nature. Even today, if you go to a contemporary garden, you’ll see many different plants growing together. According to indigenous knowledge, some plants need their “friends”—they form relationships with one another. When they grow together, they’re not alone; they grow faster and healthier. It’s like a family—like people hanging out together in the garden.
So these are places of experimentation and diversity. They’re not based on an idea of erasing or controlling nature, or keeping it out, but instead on allowing space for nature to come in and be incorporated. That’s interesting, because if you look at the idea of the “Amazonian Neolithic,” it was very different in many ways. It included many plants that were never fully domesticated, even until today.
The Neolithic, which is a central concept in archaeology, is about how domestication transforms a wild plant into a cultivated, genetically modified one—through selection and human influence, a new species emerges. And once you have those culturally modified, domesticated plants, you get a kind of “Neolithic package,” which developed in many parts of the world. But in the Amazon, many of the plants still cultivated today are technically wild, or somewhere in a gray zone between wild and domesticated. Of course, this distinction between wild and domesticated is something we impose—categories from our worldview that separate nature from culture. But in these agroecological systems, people didn’t care about that. They just grew the plants together and let the gardens flourish.
Now, if you look at what’s happening today in Brazil with so-called “precision agriculture”—huge soybean farms growing cloned plants, all genetically identical—you see the complete opposite. These systems are based on total control. You use herbicides to kill anything that grows naturally. It’s large-scale monoculture, sometimes planting just a single variety—or even a single cloned individual. Technologically, it’s very sophisticated: GPS, automation, fertilizers, all of it. But it’s also incredibly resource-intensive. It requires huge amounts of water, fuel, and relies heavily on petroleum-based inputs. It’s a production model with a very strong negative environmental impact.
And the people behind this model—well, to use their own words—they are often the same people who promote extreme right-wing, fascist politics. It’s an oil economy. It’s financialized agriculture. It’s all about specialization and control.
On the other hand, if you look at the older agroecological systems—which are still alive today—they were actually far more sophisticated and much more aligned with how we may want to live in the future. They were based on experimentation, openness, and a lack of absolute control. You had to let go and see what happened. Even the idea that “plants like to live together,” that they form communities—that’s the opposite of the rigid, mechanized, hyper-controlled systems we see in modern industrial agriculture. The older systems were much more holistic, more humane, and more ecologically balanced.
Archaeological excavation sites in the Acre region. Photo: Mauricio de Paiva/Fotoarqueologia
If we look at our gardens from a bird’s-eye view, they’re mostly arranged in squares. But in the Amazon, the entire forest is like a garden itself.
So this is like a master garden. People say, “It’s dirty,” or “It looks messy,” or even “The gardeners—usually the women—are lazy, they don’t know how to farm.” But actually, no—it’s the result of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge.
What’s interesting is that these gardens are never truly abandoned. People might move on and start planting in a new area, but they still return to the old gardens to hunt or gather fruit. There’s a whole history of land use that goes beyond active cultivation. Even after a garden is "abandoned," it continues to produce. There’s a much more subtle and gradual transition between the world of culture and the world of nature. Over time, the old garden becomes forest again—but a forest enriched with useful plants and trees that were once cultivated when it was open.
There’s a site we work at where this happened to me several times. You clear an area to excavate, and the next year, papaya trees are growing there. The seeds were lying dormant in the soil from an old garden—who knows how old—and when the sunlight returned, they sprouted. These soils hold a memory of past gardens.
If you compare that to today’s mechanized agriculture, it’s the opposite. Modern farming wipes everything out. It kills all forms of life in the soil. It creates a tabula rasa—a blank slate—which is devastating not just for nature, but for all the beings that live there: insects, animals, plants. It’s a way of erasing the world.
In a way, it also erases memory. And to recover that memory takes a very long time—just as we’ve seen with Amazonia.
Exactly. I think it really does erase memory—and that’s terrible, because how much more can the Earth withstand? Like the fires I mentioned earlier: it might be okay to have a fire once every hundred years, or even every fifty. But if you’re burning the forest every single year, there’s a limit. There’s a point of no return—a tipping point, as some people say. And the question is whether we may already be getting close to that tipping point in some parts of the Amazon.
I’m still optimistic, though. I think we have to remain critical and concerned, but I also believe there’s still time—things are still open—for people to resist and push back. But it’s definitely something we need to take seriously.
But returning to plants, I wanted to ask—maybe it’s just speculation—but from your point of view, what was the base carbohydrate food for those ancient civilizations? Was it manioc or something different?
I think it changes from one place to another. For example, in Bolivia, people who built the large mound of Loma Salvatierra were growing a lot of corn. In other places, we don’t see corn—we see manioc. I don’t think there was a single staple crop used across the region.
Until the 1990s, there was a big debate: maize versus manioc—which was the food staple? But I think today, the emerging consensus is that there wasn’t one single staple. Sweet potato is another plant that is appearing more and more in recent findings. So I think it really varied depending on the region and the local social dynamics. There was a kind of “menu” of possibilities, and people selected from it based on different pressures or needs.
I mean, there was a paper recently published—“Maize monoculture supported pre-Columbian urbanism in southwestern Amazonia” (Nature, 29/02/25)—which, honestly, has a terrible title. I’m one of the co-authors, and I really regret not pushing back against it. "Monoculture" is a misleading term when applied to the past. That said, it does appear that around 1,500 years ago, in the Bolivian Amazon, people were cultivating a significant amount of corn. But if you look at other regions of the Amazon during the same period, while corn was certainly important, it may not have played as central a role as was previously assumed.
So I don’t think there was any single crop that you could point to and say, “This was the main staple across the entire Amazon, throughout time and space.” I prefer the idea of a variety—different growing strategies, different plants, sometimes combined. In some areas, maize was more central. In places like Marajó Island, at the mouth of the Amazon, where you have these beautiful mounds, there’s no strong evidence of cultivation at all—people were managing palm trees instead. So it really depended on the place, in my opinion.
A large part of the exhibition Amazons. The Ancestral Future at the CCCB arts centre in Barcelona—which, in a way, also initiated this conversation—was devoted to art. I remember my conversation with curator Claudi Carreras, who said: “For indigenous communities, these artistic traditions are not merely ‘art’ in the Western sense; they serve communal, spiritual, and cultural functions far beyond the commercial realm. Everything is intertwined because they aren’t artists in the traditional sense of the word.” Art, for these communities, has a completely different purpose. It’s also a way of spreading knowledge and keeping memory alive. I read that in the Amazonian rainforest of Colombia, in the Serranía de La Lindosa, there are rock paintings that date back almost 12,500 years. They were only discovered in 2017. How many such sites have been discovered across the Amazon?
Yes, there are. The ones in Colombia that you mentioned, like those at Cerro Azul in San José, are examples of remarkable rock paintings. There’s also a site called Chiribiquete in Colombia, which is especially notable. And here in Brazil, there’s a place called Monte Alegre where you also find rock art that is as old as some of the Colombian examples. Other sites include Pedra Pintada in Roraima, which is another important location.
In Brazil, we tend to see more petroglyphs—carvings in rock—though there are also beautiful rock paintings. Petroglyphs are particularly common along the major rivers, and you find them in many areas across the Amazon.
Cerro Azul, Chiribiquete, Monte Alegre, and Pedra Pintada—are all locations with significant rock art. Some of these may even be among the oldest in the Americas. For instance, the paintings in Colombia are dated to around 13,000 years ago, while those in Monte Alegre are slightly younger, around 11,000 to 12,000 years old. So, these are very ancient places. What’s fascinating is that alongside some of the earliest Indigenous settlements, we already see artistic expression emerging—very early in the process of human occupation in the region.
Looking at photographs of archaeological excavations in the Amazon region, one gets the impression that these ancient settlements were built with remarkable harmony. Do you agree, or is that just my visual impression?
I mean, I agree. I think it’s very easy to come up with an idealized version of the past—especially when you have a political agenda. And I do, so I often try to say that maybe the past was more interesting or more balanced than what we see in the present. But I agree: in the central Amazon, where I worked for many years, we’ve found some evidence that might suggest conflict—like people building ditches or other defensive structures.
But in Acre, and in the area where Michael Heckenberger (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida – ed.) works*** we don’t see that. We don’t find any signs of major catastrophes or large-scale conflict. So I think the idea of “harmony” makes sense. It could be a useful and meaningful way to frame those different ways of life.
And again, that idea of harmony is the opposite of what we’re seeing today. There’s nowhere else in the world where so many people live in voluntary isolation as in the Amazon. There are over a hundred known cases of Indigenous groups living in isolation. And they know what’s going on—they’re aware of the outside world, and they’re choosing not to be part of it. That, to me, is fascinating.
It’s also complicated, and honestly, a bit frightening. Because their survival depends entirely on the willingness of nation-states to protect their right to remain isolated and to live independently. But at the same time—wow. They’re making a political and rational decision. They’re saying, “We don’t want to be part of that world.” And maybe it’s because they believe that their way of life, even under pressure, is still better than stepping across that line and joining the other side.
So yes, I think “harmony” is an interesting and valid way to frame these lifestyles.
I’d like to end our conversation with a more personal question. After doing this research for more than 30 years, what have you discovered for yourself? What have you learned from this process—on a personal level?
I think the most exciting thing is realizing that I’ve been part of a field of knowledge that has changed significantly over the past 30 years—and not just changed on its own, but changed in part because of the work I’ve done, along with a small group of colleagues. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but the truth is, not every scientist gets the chance to dedicate themselves to a field and actually see it transform, knowing they played a role in that transformation. That’s something I feel proud of—it makes me happy when I look back.
But I’m still very much involved. I’m still actively researching. And I think one of the most important things I’ve learned is how archaeology—especially in the Amazon—can have a powerful political role, not just an academic one. As we discussed earlier, of course I’m fascinated by the past, and archaeology is fundamentally about understanding the past. But I’ve also come to see how archaeology can be used to address critical issues in the present. That’s what makes it such a vibrant and relevant field of research.
People working in Amazonian archaeology today are deeply motivated by the idea that archaeology can and should contribute to the political conversations shaping the future of the region—and even the world. I think that’s amazing. I feel lucky to have entered a field of study that remains so meaningful and urgent. I still love it.
Thank you!
***
*Curated by Claudi Carreras, the exhibition Amazons. The Ancestral Future was on view at the CCCB Art Centre Barcelona from 13 November 2024 till 25 May 2025
**Gaspar de Carvajal writes about female warriors in his 1542 chronicle of the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana’s expedition down the Amazon River.
***Michael Heckenberger’s excavations have focused on the ancient fortified town of Kuhikugu, located in Brazil’s Upper Xingu region.
Title image: Eduardo Neves. Photo by Marina Garcia Burgos
