The unique functioning of a pre-Columbian Amazonian floodplain fishery
Blatrix, Rumsaïs (Université de Montpellier)
Roux, Bruno (L'Avion Jaune)
Béarez, Philippe (Sorbonne University)
Prestes-Carneiro, Gabriela (Sorbonne University)
Amaya, Marcelo (Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado)
Aramayo, Jose Luis (Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado)
Rodrigues, Leonor (Université de Montpellier)
Lombardo, Umberto (Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Departament d'Humanitats)
Iriarte, Jose (University of Exeter)
De Souza, Jonas Gregorio (University of Exeter)
Robinson, Mark (University of Exeter)
Bernard, Cyril (Université de Montpellier)
Pouilly, Marc (Institut de recherche pour le développement)
Durécu, Mélisse (Université de Montpellier)
Huchzermeyer, Carl F. (African Parks Network)
Kalebe, Mashuta (Zambia Agricultural Research Institute)
Ovando, Alex (National Centre for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters)
McKey, Doyle (University of Montpellier)

Data:	2018
Resum:	Archaeology provides few examples of large-scale fisheries at the frontier between catching and farming of fish. We analysed the spatial organization of earthen embankments to infer the functioning of a landscape-level pre-Columbian Amazonian fishery that was based on capture of out-migrating fish after reproduction in seasonal floodplains. Long earthen weirs cross floodplains. We showed that weirs bear successive V-shaped features (termed 'Vs' for the sake of brevity) pointing downstream for outflowing water and that ponds are associated with Vs, the V often forming the pond's downstream wall. How Vs channelled fish into ponds cannot be explained simply by hydraulics, because Vs surprisingly lack fishways, where, in other weirs, traps capture fish borne by current flowing through these gaps. We suggest that when water was still high enough to flow over the weir, out-migrating bottom-hugging fish followed current downstream into Vs. Finding deeper, slower-moving water, they remained. Receding water further concentrated fish in ponds. The pond served as the trap, and this function shaped pond design. Weir-fishing and pond-fishing are both practiced in African floodplains today. In combining the two, this pre-Columbian system appears unique in the world.
Ajuts:	European Commission 703045 European Commission 616179
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Publicat a:	Scientific reports, Vol. 8 (April 2018) , art. 5998, ISSN 2045-2322

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-24454-4
PMID: 29662075

16 p, 4.0 MB

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