“10,800 years ago, Early Humans Planted Forest Islands in Amazonia’s Grasslands“
Much in this article is speculation, like the idea that there was an 8,000-year gap between people planting gardens and “full-blown agriculture” (whatever that is). Also, as always, the exact dates.
But this does seem to support the general picture that has been building … namely, that people got to the Americas a very long time ago, traversed them very quickly, and started gardening almost immediately … or perhaps already knew about agriculture before they got there, even if they had abandoned it for a generation or two while traveling. Or, as we like to say around here … (drumroll) … ancient people were already very sophisticated in the earliest records we find of them.
Out of Babel 
Good one Jen!
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So, the idea is that they created gardening mounds by hauling in compost as fill? Or is it that the mounds were gradually created by all the human activity over a long period of time? In any case, the title of the article seems misleading, since it makes it seem like they were planting trees, but the trees came later because the mounds were dry, right?
You gotta love the line “Rather than wrecking the environment, the artificial forest islands enhanced biodiversity,” as though we should assume that any impact humans have on their environment would wreck it.
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I think it’s the latter. Yes, headlines are like that. This is far from the only offender. They try to cram so much into a headline that it ends up telescoping events and confusing causation.
How about that? People can take care of the earth and actually improve it? And animals can sometimes damage it? And all of this is very complex? Well well well … 😉
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