Pre-Hispanic fishing practices in interfluvial Amazonia: Zooarchaeological evidence from managed landscapes on the Llanos de Mojos savanna.

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests the existence of Pre-Hispanic fisheries in savanna areas of the Amazon basin. How these fisheries may have functioned is still poorly known. Although many studies have drawn attention to how Pre-Hispanic inhabitants of these savannas managed to deal with excess water, little attention has been paid to understanding how large and permanent populations were sustained during long periods of drought. In the Llanos de Mojos, one of the largest savannas in South America, the landscape is greatly affected by the impacts of annual, seasonal flooding and inundations, alternating with a dry period that can last 4-6 months. The fishing practices in this area were studied on the basis of analysis of more than 17,000 fish remains recovered at Loma Salvatierra, a monumental mound located in an interfluvial area 50 km from the Mamoré River and occupied between 500 and 1400 AD. In Loma Salvatierra, a network of circular walled ponds connected to a system of canals has been identified, raising questions about a possible use of these structures for fishing. The exceptional conservation of the bone material has enabled precise taxonomic identification of more than 35 taxa, the richest fish spectrum thus far documented in the Mojos region. The dominant fish, swamp-eels (Synbranchus spp.), armored catfishes (Hoplosternum spp.), lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa), and tiger-fish (Hoplias malabaricus) are characteristic of shallow and stagnant waters. Our work documents the first zooarchaeological evidence of a dryland, interfluvial fishing system in the Bolivian Amazon that incorporates distinct species and fishing practices, demonstrating that these regions contain year round resources. Research is taking its first steps toward understanding landscape modifications, fish environments, and specific cultural technologies employed on this and other lowland neotropical savannas that differ from those for fishing in open waters and rivers.