List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Foreword; Introduction: "So Much Water!"; Chapter 1. Indigenous Agricultural Savoir Faire; Chapter 2. Humans and Environment: A Happy Marriage; Chapter 3. Terra Cognita: 10,000 Years of Human Impact; Chapter 4. A Natural Garden or a Domesticated Forest?; Chapter 5. "500 Years of Solitude"; Conclusion: "East of Eden"; Notes; Bibliography; Index; About the Author
Summary
Stéphen Rostain's book is a culmination of 25 years of research on the extensive human modification of the wetlands environment of Guiana and how it reshapes our thinking of ancient settlement in lowland South America and other tropical zones. Rostain demonstrates that populations were capable of developing intensive raised-field agriculture, which supported significant human density, and construct causeways, habitation mounds, canals, and reservoirs to meet their needs. The work is comparative in every sense, drawing on ethnology, ethnohistory, ecology, and geography; contrasting island
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-265) and index
