ENSP 101: Module 2 - Lecture 2

The Amazon in the Anthropocene

What should be take seriously, not focus on, but what was original?

• Indigenous thinking

• What appears to limit their growth and complexity

• Region’s societies

What is the most common social perception of the amazon? What is it really?

Lungs of the Planet; Biodiversity

Amazon’s History: Where did it use to flow? What cut it off?

Pacific Ocean; Andes Mountains

Amazon History: Where did the water eventually direct and what did it create?

Broke the granitic shield to the Atlantic Ocean; Down-drop valley

What is the Pan-amazon? Area? What % of territories does it occupy? How many species of plants?

• Region that has an area of 7.8 million km² of territory

• 60% of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, and Venezuela

The Amazon River: The largest?… Black vs clear water rivers

Largest river in the world by water volume

• Black water rivers: slow moving rivers w/ dark, tea colored water caused by tannins from decaying leaves and vegetation (Decomposition)

• Clear water rivers: minimal sediments, comes from ancient shields and Andean headwaters

The Amazon River: What are flying rivers?

Movement of large quantities of water “moisture highways” vapor transported in the atmosphere from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes Mountains

The People of the Amazon River: Analogy of the “Snake River”?

Ancestral anaconda journeyed through the waters where its body served as a canoe for the first human communities —> once it left, it left behind riverbanks

**Amazon watershed Form-Amplification: What is biosemiosis?

Meaning-making processes in living systems, viewing life as fundamentally based on signs, codes, and communication

• Patterned distribution of rivers forms as a constraint of possiblity

The Forest-City: What is terra-preta? How were towns organized in the Southern Amazon? How many yrs ago did populations inhabit the Amazon?

• Advanced landscape management techniques

• Pre-columbian towns were organized in clusters that were connected by extensive systems of raised paths from 1250 to 1350 AD

• 12,000 yrs ago

** What are the 3 kinds of people in the Amazon?

1. Amerindians (from North Amazonia)

   1. Tobacco-coca-people (murui-muina) & yaje-people (kametsa, desana, barasana

   2. High interactions w/ national societies, few groups struggle to live in isolation

2. Sprawling capital cities: manaos, lecticia, iquitos