The relationship between humans and the Amazon Rainforest has not always been aharmonious one . However , late research suggest that the Indigenous people of the Putumayo realm helped to cultivate the rainforest , leaving it about unchanged for 5,000 yr . Perhaps humans coexisting with nature is potential after all .
The study , published inPNAS , looked at soil samples in the Putumayo realm of the Amazon in Peru to chance grounds of human encroachment on the land . The researchers found that the tree diagram still grow in the area today have been growing there for the last 5,000 eld – evidence that the area has not been home to cities and farmland in that metre . Traces of charcoal found in the dirt , however , signal that people did survive there , they just did so in a room that had minimal impact on their environs .
“ To me , these findings do n’t say that the endemic universe was n’t using the timberland , just that they used it sustainably and did n’t alter its specie composition very much , ” saidDr Dolores Pipernoofthe Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute , who led the subject , in astatement . “We saw no decrease in plant diversity over the time period we canvass . This is a place where homo come along to have been a positive power on this landscape and its biodiversity over thousands of age . ”
To get to these conclusions , the team dug a 0.6–0.9meter ( 2–3 invertebrate foot ) abstruse column into the soil , taking sampling of soil from different heights along the editorial . The deeper sample distribution represented older soil and vice versa . Back in the research laboratory , sampling were carbon - date to mold their eld and then sorted under a microscope to look for evidence of microscopical mineral particles , known as phytoliths . Phytoliths are essentially posthumous grounds of industrial plant – they are produced by plant life from silica in the soil and linger for thousands of years after a plant go bad . Each phytolith is unique to a specific plant and so can be used to decipher which plants have grow in an area in the past .
Over 5,000 years ' worth of samples , no species loss was detected . These findings suggest that contrary to plebeian feeling , the Amazon is not unmoved by humans , but rather has been cultivated by them for thousands of years . The management of the rainforest by Indigenous peoples appears to have been full of life in preserve its biodiversity and will continue to be of import in the fight to prevent itscollapse . AsNigel Pitman , a co - author on the paper , said:“since this particular forest is still being protected by autochthonic people , I hope this written report remind us all how important it is to defend their work . ”
