Landscape-scale spatial variations of pre-Columbian anthropogenic disturbances at three ring ditch sites in French Guiana
Marc Testé, Julien Engel, Kevin Mabobet, Mickael Mestre, Louise Brousseau, John P. Hart, Christian Reepmeyer, Christian Reepmeyer

TL;DR
This study explores how pre-Columbian societies in French Guiana altered landscapes over centuries using earthworks and fire management.
Contribution
The study introduces new insights into pre-Columbian anthropogenic soil disturbances and challenges the Amazonian Dark Earths paradigm.
Findings
Pre-Columbian societies occupied ring ditch sites from the 5th to 15th centuries CE.
Soil enrichments in Corg, N, Mg, K, and Ca suggest long-term human impact.
Amazonian Brown Earths should be integrated into anthropogenic soil definitions.
Abstract
In the past two decades, repeated discoveries of numerous geometric earthworks in interfluvial regions of Amazonia have shed new light onto the territorial extent and the long-term impact of pre-Columbian populations on contemporary landscapes. In particular, the recent development of LiDAR imagery has accelerated the discovery of earthworks in densely forested hinterlands throughout the Amazon basin and the Guiana Shield. This study aimed to evaluate the extent and landscape-scale spatial variations of pre-Columbian disturbances at three ring ditch sites in the French Guiana hinterland. We carried out extensive soil surveys along approximately 1 km-long transects spanning from ring ditches through the surrounding landscapes, and drawn upon multiple indicators, including archaeological artifacts, macro- and micro-charcoals, soil colorimetry, and physicochemical properties to retrace the…
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Click any figure to enlarge with its caption.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsAmazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory · Cassava research and cyanide · Indigenous Health and Education
