A field mission of archeological digs and a collect of plants was organized in the Nouragues research station at Parare camp for 15 days
LongTIme LONG Term Impact of ancient aMErindian settlements on guianese forests
A growing body of archaeological and pedological evidence, accumulated since the 1990s, suggests that Amazonian rainforests might have been much more densely occupied and intensely modified by Amerindian societies before the first contact than previously thought. These discoveries, by challenging the very existence of “pristine” tropical rainforests, have forced ecologists to consider pre-industrial human activities as one of the potential drivers influencing biodiversity of Amazonian rainforests.
The LongTIme project will build on the skills of several complementary CEBA and non‐CEBA teams, including Amerindian experts, to evaluate the influence of past Amerindian societies on present day soils and forest structure, composition and diversity across various temporal and spatial scales.
LongTIme will contribute to a better understanding of biodiversity patterns in French Guianese rainforests and thus provide key elements for environmental policy makers and for the modeling of forest changes in response to future land use and climate changes.
This historical ecological project is multidisciplinary. Researchers used to work in close concert with Amerindian experts from French Guaina ((Teko, Wayãnas, Wayãmpis).
This field mission was funded LabEx CEBA and Agency for Cultural Affairs. It gathered archeologists and arborists climbers for 15 days on the top of a crowned mountain. Two unaltered pre-Columbian ceramics has been founded (Fig. 4). The climbers collected a panel of plants to complete the missing sample in the last inventory. Overall, it represents 4 hectares of inventories which have completed. The 3 last hectares are being collected at the present time (November 2018).
Mission team:
• An ethnobotanist and coordinator: Guillaume Odonne (LEEISA)
• Archeologists: Mickael Mestre and Martijn Van den Bel (INRAP), Matthieu Hildebrand (SRA), Michelle Hamblin (SRA), Nathalie Cazelles (Association Aïmara)
• A geoarchaeologist: Jeanne Brancier (LEEISA),
• A geophysician: François Levêque (LIENSs)
• Arborists climbers: Kike Castro Rovira, Valentin et Valentine Alt (Synusia Climbers)
• A movie director: Cédric Michel
To go further about the crowned moutain:
Mission field photo coverage:
