Archaeologist Eduardo Neves talks about indigenous evidence from thousands of years ago

ANCIENT AMAZON

Expert defends way of life similar to that of traditional peoples and criticizes the production of agribusiness based on monoculture.

How can the way of life of traditional peoples teach us to preserve nature?

To answer this question, Eduardo Neves, archaeologist at the University of São Paulo Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE), proposes a reflection on the history of the indigenous peoples of the Brazilian Amazon.

In his work, in order to be able to address these issues, he seeks evidence of forms of life: patterns of eating and relationships with nature.

We work in Amazonian archaeology with things like plant and coal remains, microscopic structures related to the use of plants, with animal bones that are preserved in archaeological sites.

One example of archaeological evidence of this indigenous way of life that enters into a symbiosis with the forest is the so-called “Indian Black Earth.”

According to Neves, it is very dark and very fertile soil. It has one thing that is so important: stability, meaning they don't lose nutrients over time.

These are soils formed by indigenous human activity in the past, and which began to form about 5000 years ago.

They are the result of a process (...) which is related to the fact that these peoples have become more sedentary and spend more time in the same places: dumping and managing organic waste, composting and forming this type of soil that is an important legacy for contemporary populations.

Neves thus contrasts the indigenous way of life with the prospect of exploiting the use of the soil, in the production of monoculture that weakens and eliminates the fertility of the Amazonian land.

What is the monoculture agribusiness based on? On absolute control, on standardization. They are totalitarian crop systems in a way, because they are based on massification. There are very few varieties that are planted.

For Neves, the mode of production of the traditional peoples and that of monoculture agribusiness are “almost two totally different galaxies.”

Our friends, our riverside dwellers, indigenous partners, they really do value, they like the difference for the sake of difference. Sometimes a plant that serves no purpose, a guy will bring it home. This idea of valuing difference is very strong in the Amazon.

REPORTING Fábio Zuker TEXT E EDITING Carolina Dantas PHOTOS Luis Ushirobira / InfoAmazonia VISUAL IDENTITY Clara Borges ASSEMBLY Luiza Toledo

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