TY - JOUR
KW - agriculture
KW - Amazon
KW - fishing
KW - subsistence agriculture
KW - fire
KW - energetics
KW - wildfires
KW - Venezuela
AU - Kathleen Clark
AU - Christopher Uhl
AB - Studies of Río Negro subsistence farming and fishing activities are used to estimate the human carrying capacity for the region and the likely pattern of human land-use during prehistory. Ceramic evidence suggests human presence in the region more than 3,000 years ago. Traditional farming is labor intensive and relatively unproductive. Nevertheless, farmers achieve an energy return of 15.2:1, and produce 2,600 kcal per work hour. Fish are the major protein source, but fish catch per unit of effort and fish yield per hectare of floodplain are very low; fishermen are probably exploiting local fish resources very close to their limit. The low human population density would suggest that the Río Negro forest has been relatively undisturbed. Nevertheless, charcoal is widespread and abundant in forest soils. This charcoal is probably from anthropogenic or natural wildfires. These results suggest a much more complex history for Amazonia than previously thought. (author)
AN - 93-03343
BT - Human Ecology
C1 - Hum Ecol
C6 - 0300-7839; 1572-9915
DA - 03/1987
DB - JSTOR
DO - 10.1007/BF00891369
IS - 1
LA - English
N2 - Studies of Río Negro subsistence farming and fishing activities are used to estimate the human carrying capacity for the region and the likely pattern of human land-use during prehistory. Ceramic evidence suggests human presence in the region more than 3,000 years ago. Traditional farming is labor intensive and relatively unproductive. Nevertheless, farmers achieve an energy return of 15.2:1, and produce 2,600 kcal per work hour. Fish are the major protein source, but fish catch per unit of effort and fish yield per hectare of floodplain are very low; fishermen are probably exploiting local fish resources very close to their limit. The low human population density would suggest that the Río Negro forest has been relatively undisturbed. Nevertheless, charcoal is widespread and abundant in forest soils. This charcoal is probably from anthropogenic or natural wildfires. These results suggest a much more complex history for Amazonia than previously thought. (author)
PY - 1987
RN - <p>ArticleType: research-article</p><p>Full publication date: Mar., 1987</p><p>Copyright &copy; 1987 Springer</p>
SP - 1
EP - 26
T2 - Human Ecology
TI - Farming, fishing, and fire in the history of the upper Río Negro region of Venezuela
UR - http://www.jstor.org/stable/4602829
VL - 15
ER -