An artificial landscape-scale fishery in the Bolivian Amazon

Historical ecologists working in the Neotropics argue that the present natu ral environment is an historical product of human intentionality and ingenu ity, a creation that is imposed, built, managed and maintained by the colle ctive multigenerational knowledge and experience of Native Americans(1,2). In the past 12,000 years, indigenous peoples transformed the environment, c reating what we now recognize as the rich ecological mosaic of the Neotropi cs(3-6). The prehispanic savanna peoples of the Bolivian Amazon built an an thropogenic landscape through the construction of raised fields, large sett lement mounds, and earthen causeways(7,8). I have studied a complex artific ial network of hydraulic earthworks covering 525 km(2) in the Baures region of Bolivia. Here I identify a particular form of earthwork, the zigzag str ucture, as a fish weir, on the basis of form, orientation, location, associ ation with other hydraulic works and ethnographic analogy.