Session – Historical ecology and landscape archaeology in lowland South America / Ecologia histórica e arqueologia da paisagem nas terras baixas da América do Sul (Milheira and Colonese)
Tropical and subtropical lowlands of South America have some of the most diverse biomes on earth and supported human populations at least since the transition from the Pleistocene to Holocene. Archaeology offers unambiguous evidence that pre-European human societies have shaped and transformed some of these environments, contributing to biological and landscape diversity. However, the nature and scale of these interactions are matters of debate and their legacy to modern lowland environments is not fully understood. This symposium will address some of these issues by bringing together works from distinct disciplines, including theoretical and methodological approaches on single case studies or broad regional syntheses, with no chronological constraint. We aim to generate i) a stimulating forum for discussing examples of human interaction with past environments and resources in lowland South America from pre-Colonial to Colonial times, ii) discuss the legacy of these past interactions and their potential contribution to informing current conservation and development agendas, iii) to publish a special issue on this session in an international peer-reviewed journal (e.g. Anthropocene, The Holocene, Quaternary International).
