Histoire de l'Amazonie

Description

The history of the Amazon, which has been inhabited for some 13,000 years, is still largely unknown in France. This immense region covering 7 million km2, which has been the scene of remarkable and unexpected human developments, has not yet revealed all its riches. Many decisive innovations originated there, such as the first ceramics on the American continent, the domestication of more than a hundred plants, and the construction of monumental structures and elaborate agricultural systems. But in the 16th century, this area suffered a brutal decline in its indigenous population with the arrival of Europeans, who marked the advent of extractivism in this melting pot of biodiversity. The Amazon then became a source of wood and minerals for Westerners. Now threatened with irreversible ecological imbalance, the Amazon has a history that is essential to retrace. Stéphen Rostain does just that in this book, drawing on the latest advances in archaeology, history and ethnohistory.