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My understanding of why Europeans think the americas were pristine and barely touched by human existence is because smallpox was ahead of European explorers and

by pibaker 2mo ago

My understanding of why Europeans think the americas were pristine and barely touched by human existence is because smallpox was ahead of European explorers and by the time Europeans set foot on many places on the continent, they saw ecosystems that had recovered from human intervention after the local population had collapsed.

culi 2mo ago
I've heard that explanation as well. But I don't know if "recovered from human intervention" is a fair characterization since they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases. Estimates range from 5 to 10 million people in the Amazonian Basin by the time Colombus reached the Americas (though some go as high as 20 million). I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human intervention. I think it was just so alien a concept to Europeans who kept very tidy woodlands like dehesa in Spain or the coppiced woodlands of Central Europe. As much as 10% of the soil in Amazonia was man-made terrapreta. And they spread what could best be translated as complex polycultural "orchards" of brazilnuts, aqui, coco, and more. Botanists have been puzzled for years by the hyperdominance patterns of some of these trees until anthropologists realized the human connection. Anyways I guess what I'm saying is that the Amazonian landscape management is so radically different from what Europeans know that they likely just didn't realize what was before their eyes.
- vasco 2mo ago
  There wasn't a single civilization there. The same way if you arrived in Greece during the roman period you'd have 2000 year old temples to look at and if you go there now you have both the 4000 year old ones and the 2000 year old ones. In the amazon some of the stuff that is there was ancient already at the time of the Discoveries.
  - culi 2mo ago
    > There wasn't a single civilization there. That's what I said. There have been multiple. The linked article is about the Aquiry civilization which numbered 3 million people in only 3% of the land. The Marajoara outlasted them. The Upano Valley civilization predates both of them by 100 years and built dense garden cities. The Beni Mounds spanned over 20k earthen mounds and human-made forest islands that were connected by massive canals and causeways
    - vasco 2mo ago
      I'm sorry but you didn't write that, and so I thought it was interesting to add. Maybe you added it in a different comment.
      - culi 2mo ago
        Ah, you're right. Different comment. My mixup, sorry
- ErigmolCt 2mo ago
  A landscape does not become "pristine" a decade after millions of people disappear. The human influence would still be everywhere, but it would not necessarily look like European agriculture
  - icantevenhold 2mo ago
    Isn’t that literally what the comment you replied to was saying?
    - ErigmolCt 2mo ago
      And I'm writing my comment to understand it better...
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- ywvcbk 2mo ago
  Europeans didn't really get to most of the more isolated inland areas in the Americas until the 1600s or well after that, though.
  - cucumber3732842 2mo ago
    >Europeans didn't really get to most of the more isolated inland areas in the Americas until the 1600s or well after that, though. It takes more than a few decades for things to regrow. There's a reason that half of all towns in New England have the name "field" in them. The impenetrable thicket that characterizes unmaintained New England land would have been foreign to literally every human to ever set foot there prior to the mid 1700s (decades of re-growth after the natives had been mostly driven off but not long enough for complete cultivation by europeans). Now, obviously that's not that far inland, but by the time you're talking about the french surveying the continental interior native populations had stabilized. The worst disease epidemics were very much at 1500s and early 1600s thing.
    - kvgr 2mo ago
      Amazon is different beast, humidity, insect fast growing plants. It is nasure on hyperdrive. I wouldn't be surprised if things took 5-10 times faster than england. Or any more dry european places.
      - fellowniusmonk 2mo ago
        Brasil has tried building a highway to Manaus like twice and each time the interior has eaten it. That's with relatively modern tools.
        kvgr 2mo ago
        Yeah, i spend some time in south america and you can see that even in Rio. If people left the nature would just gulp it up. fun time sleeping in jungle in Iquitos, its crazy how dens the jungle can be
    - 2mo ago
- rbanffy 2mo ago
  > I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human intervention The weather there is quite brutal. Roads need tons of maintenance to remain passable. This is one of the reasons rivers are such an important transportation network. > Amazonian landscape management is so radically different from what Europeans know that they likely just didn't realize what was before their eyes This is an interesting explanation. Also, refusing to document previous occupation is a convenient way to claim land rights.
  - indoordin0saur 2mo ago
    To add to that, most of their structures in the Amazon would have undoubtedly been built by wood (plentiful) rather than stone (scarce). Also, I think 30 years of a field being abandoned in the Amazon is likely more than enough for it to return fully to jungle. It's not like explorers were running around counting tree rings.
    - b_t_s 2mo ago
      It's hard for temperate folks to appreciate just how incredibly agressive tropical vegetation growth can be. I'm only subtropical but I've got a tree that's about 6 years old and a foot in diameter. And that's after I've topped it at 5 ft(0 branches left, just a stump) every 6 months or so just to try to keep it under control. If I'd let it run rampant it would be at full growth now, around 50ft and 1.5ft across. I had another tree that went from 10 inch seedling to 10ft and bearing fruit in 9 months. A field abandoned for 30 years in the amazon is 100% jungle.
    - culi 2mo ago
      Actually, the vast majority of structures are earthen. Even the article states as much
- indoordin0saur 2mo ago
  > they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases I think it was much more than this. Remember Columbus landed in 1492 and these areas were very connected with trade networks, including from the Carribean islands to the mainlands. Diseases could have spread through most of both of the continents in a decade. And then places like what became the United States were not regularly seeing Europeans until ~1620, so the apocalyptic plague would have already had a 100 year head start. Places like the West Coast and interiors of the US or interior of South America would have been 200 years or more post-plague. Also, many of the earliest explorers of the deep interior often described sophisticated and heavily populated societies. But when others eventually reached those areas to find them sparsely populated wilderness those stories were dismissed as just more legends and rumors of cities of gold. See Francisco de Orellana's description of his expedition down the Amazon for a good example of this.
- marcosdumay 2mo ago
  > since they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases They weren't. It took centuries for them to make any inroad into the Amazon.
- forlorn_mammoth 2mo ago
  > I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human intervention Appreciate you stating your assumptions. you might be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us > The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared... it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years
ErigmolCt 2mo ago
Europeans often failed to recognize Indigenous land management because it did not resemble European cities or farms
- suddenlybananas 2mo ago
  There's accounts of Europeans encountering cities in the Amazon, people didn't take them seriously since they disappeared in the intervening time.
- jeltz 2mo ago
  No, what they failed to recognize was indigenous land management that had been abandoned for many decades. In remote areas smallpox moved quite far ahead of European settlers.
cucumber3732842 2mo ago
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by pibaker 2mo ago

culi 2mo ago

I've heard that explanation as well. But I don't know if "recovered from human intervention" is a fair characterization since they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases. Estimates range from 5 to 10 million people in the Amazonian Basin by the time Colombus reached the Americas (though some go as high as 20 million). I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human intervention. I think it was just so alien a concept to Europeans who kept very tidy woodlands like dehesa in Spain or the coppiced woodlands of Central Europe. As much as 10% of the soil in Amazonia was man-made terrapreta. And they spread what could best be translated as complex polycultural "orchards" of brazilnuts, aqui, coco, and more. Botanists have been puzzled for years by the hyperdominance patterns of some of these trees until anthropologists realized the human connection. Anyways I guess what I'm saying is that the Amazonian landscape management is so radically different from what Europeans know that they likely just didn't realize what was before their eyes.

vasco 2mo ago
There wasn't a single civilization there. The same way if you arrived in Greece during the roman period you'd have 2000 year old temples to look at and if you go there now you have both the 4000 year old ones and the 2000 year old ones. In the amazon some of the stuff that is there was ancient already at the time of the Discoveries.
- culi 2mo ago
  > There wasn't a single civilization there. That's what I said. There have been multiple. The linked article is about the Aquiry civilization which numbered 3 million people in only 3% of the land. The Marajoara outlasted them. The Upano Valley civilization predates both of them by 100 years and built dense garden cities. The Beni Mounds spanned over 20k earthen mounds and human-made forest islands that were connected by massive canals and causeways
  - vasco 2mo ago
    I'm sorry but you didn't write that, and so I thought it was interesting to add. Maybe you added it in a different comment.
    - culi 2mo ago
      Ah, you're right. Different comment. My mixup, sorry
ErigmolCt 2mo ago
A landscape does not become "pristine" a decade after millions of people disappear. The human influence would still be everywhere, but it would not necessarily look like European agriculture
- icantevenhold 2mo ago
  Isn’t that literally what the comment you replied to was saying?
  - ErigmolCt 2mo ago
    And I'm writing my comment to understand it better...
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
ywvcbk 2mo ago
Europeans didn't really get to most of the more isolated inland areas in the Americas until the 1600s or well after that, though.
- cucumber3732842 2mo ago
  >Europeans didn't really get to most of the more isolated inland areas in the Americas until the 1600s or well after that, though. It takes more than a few decades for things to regrow. There's a reason that half of all towns in New England have the name "field" in them. The impenetrable thicket that characterizes unmaintained New England land would have been foreign to literally every human to ever set foot there prior to the mid 1700s (decades of re-growth after the natives had been mostly driven off but not long enough for complete cultivation by europeans). Now, obviously that's not that far inland, but by the time you're talking about the french surveying the continental interior native populations had stabilized. The worst disease epidemics were very much at 1500s and early 1600s thing.
  - kvgr 2mo ago
    Amazon is different beast, humidity, insect fast growing plants. It is nasure on hyperdrive. I wouldn't be surprised if things took 5-10 times faster than england. Or any more dry european places.
    - fellowniusmonk 2mo ago
      Brasil has tried building a highway to Manaus like twice and each time the interior has eaten it. That's with relatively modern tools.
      - kvgr 2mo ago
        Yeah, i spend some time in south america and you can see that even in Rio. If people left the nature would just gulp it up. fun time sleeping in jungle in Iquitos, its crazy how dens the jungle can be
  - 2mo ago
rbanffy 2mo ago
> I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human intervention The weather there is quite brutal. Roads need tons of maintenance to remain passable. This is one of the reasons rivers are such an important transportation network. > Amazonian landscape management is so radically different from what Europeans know that they likely just didn't realize what was before their eyes This is an interesting explanation. Also, refusing to document previous occupation is a convenient way to claim land rights.
- indoordin0saur 2mo ago
  To add to that, most of their structures in the Amazon would have undoubtedly been built by wood (plentiful) rather than stone (scarce). Also, I think 30 years of a field being abandoned in the Amazon is likely more than enough for it to return fully to jungle. It's not like explorers were running around counting tree rings.
  - b_t_s 2mo ago
    It's hard for temperate folks to appreciate just how incredibly agressive tropical vegetation growth can be. I'm only subtropical but I've got a tree that's about 6 years old and a foot in diameter. And that's after I've topped it at 5 ft(0 branches left, just a stump) every 6 months or so just to try to keep it under control. If I'd let it run rampant it would be at full growth now, around 50ft and 1.5ft across. I had another tree that went from 10 inch seedling to 10ft and bearing fruit in 9 months. A field abandoned for 30 years in the amazon is 100% jungle.
  - culi 2mo ago
    Actually, the vast majority of structures are earthen. Even the article states as much
indoordin0saur 2mo ago
> they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases I think it was much more than this. Remember Columbus landed in 1492 and these areas were very connected with trade networks, including from the Carribean islands to the mainlands. Diseases could have spread through most of both of the continents in a decade. And then places like what became the United States were not regularly seeing Europeans until ~1620, so the apocalyptic plague would have already had a 100 year head start. Places like the West Coast and interiors of the US or interior of South America would have been 200 years or more post-plague. Also, many of the earliest explorers of the deep interior often described sophisticated and heavily populated societies. But when others eventually reached those areas to find them sparsely populated wilderness those stories were dismissed as just more legends and rumors of cities of gold. See Francisco de Orellana's description of his expedition down the Amazon for a good example of this.
marcosdumay 2mo ago
> since they couldn't have been more than a decade behind the smallpox/diseases They weren't. It took centuries for them to make any inroad into the Amazon.
forlorn_mammoth 2mo ago
> I don't think a few years is enough to erase all trace of human intervention Appreciate you stating your assumptions. you might be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us > The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared... it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years

ErigmolCt 2mo ago

Europeans often failed to recognize Indigenous land management because it did not resemble European cities or farms

suddenlybananas 2mo ago
There's accounts of Europeans encountering cities in the Amazon, people didn't take them seriously since they disappeared in the intervening time.
jeltz 2mo ago
No, what they failed to recognize was indigenous land management that had been abandoned for many decades. In remote areas smallpox moved quite far ahead of European settlers.

cucumber3732842 2mo ago

[dead]