Introduction
Amazonian Indians have been leaving marks of their activities for the last 13 thousand years. In this long history of interaction, significant marks were printed in the territory. Here will be presented a series of positive and negative topographical modifications that, in some cases, after millennia of its construction, still remain visible. These anthropogenic and long-lasting topographical modifications will be classified as “earthworks.” The term encompasses different categories of structures, with distinct functionalities, not necessarily related in time and space.
Definition
Earthwoks are positive (when there is an accumulation of earth) and negative (when the earth was dug out) topographical interventions done by people in the past with sufficient intensity to be recognizable today. In the Amazon, Earthworks include different categories of structures with distinct features, most commonly related to water management, aquatic wildlife management, mobility, defense,...
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Moraes, C.d.P., Neves, E.G. (2020). Earthworks of the Amazon. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_3026
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