This paper addresses a topic highlighted in recent arguments by Amazonian scholars: the extent to which forms of forest management in prehistory influenced the past and present composition of terra firme and riverine forests. New information on palm phytolith characteristics enabled phytolith analysis on soils sampled from underneath forests in western and central Amazon. We evaluated whether three major economic palms, Oenocarpus bataua, O. bacaba, and Euterpe precatoria, thought to have been significantly enriched by human activities, demonstrated such enrichment. All three palms are hyperdominant species today. We also examined expanded modern phytolith reference collections in a possible context of human management of other arboreal species that involved changes in overall forest structure and diversity during the past several thousand years. Results indicate little to no enrichment of the palms and largely stable forest structure and diversity in terra firme forests through time. Although much research remains, results of this study indicate that prehistoric human modification of Amazonian forest and creation of species hyperdominance was less influential than currently proposed by some Amazonian scholars. Findings contribute toward resolving questions concerning the temporal and spatial scale and characteristics of pre-Columbian human impacts across Amazonia. They also suggest cross-disciplinary insights surrounding the proposed new geological epoch of the Anthropocene.

本文讨论了亚马逊学者最近在争论中强调的一个话题：史前森林管理形式在多大程度上影响了土地和河流森林的过去和现在的组成。有关棕榈植石特征的新信息使得能够对亚马逊西部和中部森林下方采样的土壤进行植石分析。我们评估是否三大经济手掌，Oenocarpus bataua，Ö。bacaba和Euterpe precatoria，被认为已被人类活动显着丰富的东西，证明了这种丰富。如今，所有这三种棕榈都是优势种。我们还研究了在其他树栖物种的人类管理的可能环境下扩展的现代植物石器参考集，这些物种涉及过去几千年来总体森林结构和多样性的变化。结果表明一点没有手掌的丰富和基本稳定的森林结构和多样性千佛菲尔米穿越时空的森林。尽管仍然有很多研究，但这项研究的结果表明，史前人类对亚马逊河森林的改造和物种高支化的产生没有某些亚马逊河学者目前提出的影响力大。研究结果有助于解决有关亚马逊地区整个哥伦比亚前人类影响的时空尺度和特征的问题。他们还提出了围绕人类世新地质时代的跨学科研究。