Woody plants such as the cocoa plant and Brazil nut tree that were domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples dominate the Amazon, suggesting that these populations had a strong influence on the ecosystem.

Credit: Hans ter Steege

Carolina Levis at Wageningen University and Hans ter Steege at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, both in the Netherlands, and their colleagues looked at tree data from 1,170 Amazonian forest plots, and compared species prevalence with the locations of known archaeological sites dating to more than 500 years ago. They found that domesticated species such as the palm Mauritia flexuosa (pictured) were more common than other plants in and around such sites. The domesticated plants were also five times more likely to be highly dominant across the Amazon.

Measuring the prevalence of domesticated plants may help scientists to locate new archaeological sites, the authors suggest.

Science 355, 925–931 (2017)