Journal article
Maize monoculture supported pre-Columbian urbanism in southwestern Amazonia
- Abstract:
- The Casarabe culture (500–1400 ce), spreading over roughly 4,500 km2 of the monumental mounds region of the Llanos de Moxos, Bolivia, is one of the clearest examples of urbanism in pre-Columbian (pre-1492 ce) Amazonia. It exhibits a four-tier hierarchical settlement pattern, with hundreds of monumental mounds interconnected by canals and causeways. Despite archaeological evidence indicating that maize was cultivated by this society, it is unknown whether it was the staple crop and which type of agricultural farming system was used to support this urban-scale society. Here, we address this issue by integration of remote sensing, field survey and microbotanical analyses, which shows that the Casarabe culture invested heavily in landscape engineering, constructing a complex system of drainage canals (to drain excess water during the rainy season) and newly documented savannah farm ponds (to retain water in the dry season). Phytolith analyses of 178 samples from 18 soil profiles in drained fields, farm ponds and forested settings record the singular and ubiquitous presence of maize (Zea mays) in pre-Columbian fields and farm ponds, and an absence of evidence for agricultural practices in the forest. Collectively, our findings show how the Casarabe culture managed the savannah landscape for intensive year-round maize monoculture that probably sustained its relatively large population. Our results have implications for how we conceive agricultural systems in Amazonia, and show an example of a Neolithic-like, grain-based agrarian economy in the Amazon.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 17.0MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41586-024-08473-y
Authors
+ Arts and Humanities Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0505m1554
- Grant:
- H5461900
- Publisher:
- Nature Research
- Journal:
- Nature More from this journal
- Volume:
- 639
- Issue:
- 8053
- Pages:
- 119–123
- Publication date:
- 2025-01-29
- Acceptance date:
- 2024-12-02
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1476-4687
- ISSN:
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0028-0836
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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2068636
- Local pid:
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pubs:2068636
- Deposit date:
-
2024-12-05
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Lombardo et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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