Islands in the Rainforest

Description:

"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 Guiana with other wetland regions around the world; and examining millennia of pre-Columbian settlement and colonial occupation alike. Rostain’s work demands a radical rethinking of conventional wisdom about settlement in tropical lowlands and landscape management by its inhabitants over the course of millennia"--P. [4] of cover. Covers the area between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, the Cassiquiare Canal, and the Atlantic Ocean (Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, parts of Brazil, parts of Venezuela).

subjects: History,  Ecology,  Indigenous peoples,  Agriculture,  Raised field agriculture,  Indians of South America,  Land tenure,  Indians of south america, agriculture,  South america, environmental conditions,  Ethnoecology,  Culture sur buttes,  Histoire,  Ethnoécologie,  General

Places: French Guiana