Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Archaeology provides few examples of large-scale fisheries at the frontier between catching and farming of fish. We analysed the spatial organization of earthen embankments to infer the functioning of a landscape-level pre-Columbian Amazonian fishery that was based on capture of out-migrating fish after reproduction in seasonal floodplains. Long earthen weirs cross floodplains. We showed that weirs bear successive V-shaped features (termed 'Vs' for the sake of brevity) pointing downstream for outflowing water and that ponds are associated with Vs, the V often forming the pond's downstream wall. How Vs channelled fish into ponds cannot be explained simply by hydraulics, because Vs surprisingly lack fishways, where, in other weirs, traps capture fish borne by current flowing through these gaps. We suggest that when water was still high enough to flow over the weir, out-migrating bottom-hugging fish followed current downstream into Vs. Finding deeper, slower-moving water, they remained. Receding water further concentrated fish in ponds. The pond served as the trap, and this function shaped pond design. Weir-fishing and pond-fishing are both practiced in African floodplains today. In combining the two, this pre-Columbian system appears unique in the world.
Source: Scientific Reports
Authors: Rumsaïs Blatrix, Bruno Roux, Philippe Béarez, Gabriela Prestes-Carneiro, Marcelo Amaya, Jose Luis Aramayo, Leonor Rodrigues, Umberto Lombardo, Jose Iriarte, Jonas Gregorio de Souza, Mark Robinson, Cyril Bernard, Marc Pouilly, Mélisse Durécu, Carl F. Huchzermeyer, Mashuta Kalebe, Alex Ovando, Doyle McKey
Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, Centre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Sorbonne Université, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Archéozoologie et Archéobotanique, Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University, Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, University of Exeter, Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l'Homme, Biologie des Organismes et Écosystèmes Aquatiques, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Université de Caen Normandie, Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
Awards: GEOSUD : Infrastructure nationale d'imagerie satellitaire pour la recherche sur l'environnement et les territoires et ses applications à la gestion et aux politiques publiques, Past and present agricultural landscapes and their interaction with the environment: An ethnographic analogue of pre-Columbian raised fields of Amazonia in present-day Africa.
OpenAlex ID: W2807532350