Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes (Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies) [Hardcover]

William M. Denevan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 29, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0198234074 | ISBN-13: 978-0198234074

Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes examines Indian agriculture in South America. The focus is on field types and field technologies, including agricultural landforms such as terraces, canals, and drained fields, which have persisted for hundreds of years. What emerges is a picture of mostly successful indigenous farming practices in difficult environments--rain forests, savannahs, swamps, rugged mountains, and deserts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`An excellent synthesis of indigenous South American agriculture.' Journal of Latin American Studies

About the Author

William M. Denevan, Professor Emeritus of Geography, University of Wisconsin.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198234074
• ISBN-13: 978-0198234074
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,771,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultivated Landscapes, March 22, 2010

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Kashyapa Yapa (Ecuador) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes (Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies Series) (Paperback)

A marvellous work by Bill Denevan, almost a Bible on the subject!

Though not an archaeologist, nor a geographer, I am studying prehispanic engineering works, and this contribution to ancient agricultural engineeering covers almost all aspects of it, that I feel I do not need to write any more about the subject.

At times I feel he summarizes too much, but that is better than not doing it. Bibiliography is excellent for who needs to dig in more. Overall, a great job, by a great person.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic work that belongs in every library, November 30, 2010

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Mike the Forester (Oregon) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes (Oxford Geographical and Environmental Studies Series) (Paperback)

Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes is widely recognized as THE modern masterpiece of historical landscape geography. It is one of a trilogy of books inspired and coordinated by William Denevan. The others are Cultivated Landscapes of Native North America by William Doolittle and Cultivated Landscapes of Middle America on the Eve of Conquest by Thomas M. Whitmore and B.L. Turner II.

The authors of all three volumes are landscape geographers who have studied the profound and lasting impacts that indigenous human beings have had over thousands of years on the vegetation, soils, hydrology, and wildlife of the Americas. Denevan is the unofficial "godfather" of an intellectual tradition that developed under Carl O. Sauer in the Department of Geography at Berkeley.

Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes (and it's companion books) is the culmination of a lifetime of pathfinding research and teaching. It is a text, organized and written for graduate and undergraduate instruction, but between the lines it is also a tale of adventure and exploration. The insights related in Cultivated Landscapes were gained by the combined efforts of hundreds of field researchers braving tropical jungles, trackless swamps, towering mountain ranges, and seared deserts. The book is a synthesis, but it represents hands-on fieldwork in what we think of today as wilderness, but what in truth has been home to humanity for 10,000 years or more.

Amazonia and the Andes seem today to be harsh regions, difficult and testing for the bare survival of only the hardiest people. Yet the indigenous residents developed complex systems of cultivation, planting, orcharding, and plant and animal husbandry that were intensive, highly productive, and sustainable. Apparently marginal lands with extremes of climate and poor soils once supported large populations and complex societies.

Denevan approaches that complexity through the analysis of anthropogenic landforms. These include cross-channel terraces and check dams, sloping-field terraces, bench terraces, embankments, pond fields, sunken fields, bordered gardens, canals, reservoirs, raised and ridged fields, ditched fields, crop mounds, and many others. Hundreds of thousands of such ancient cultivated sites still exist, although they have been rediscovered only recently, most often through aerial observation and photography.

Europeans did not encounter an untrammeled wilderness but a landscape rich with human antiquity and ancient presence. The Americas were homelands to people for thousands of years prior to European expansion here. This is true everywhere in the Americas. Where you sit as you read this review, your location today, has history, a human history of incredible antiquity. That is an important revelation. This is not a "new world" but an ancient land filled with the ghosts of civilizations past. Our landscapes have seen the imprint of humanity for thousands of years. Wilderness is a myth. That is Bill Denevan's lesson for us all. This classic work belongs in every library.