Amazonian Wetland Domestication: A Spatial Analysis of Pre-Columbian Fish Weirs in Lowland Bolivia

Charlotte Robinson, PhD Student

Anthropology
Mentor: Frances Hayashida

Recent archaeological studies show that pre-Columbian communities began modifying Southwestern Amazonia approximately 3,500 years ago.

Previous research within lowland Bolivia has primarily focused on the fields and forest islands that populations built to elevate themselves and their crops from seasonal flooding.

However, a series of zigzag earthworks (termed “fish weirs”) found in the 1990s indicate that ancient communities may have harnessed floodwaters to catch fish.

This study collects and analyzes spatial data from other similarly identified zigzag features in the West Central Llanos de Mojos (WCM), demonstrating that these earthworks form potential wetlands with the capacity to affect water flow and accumulation for over 600 m2 of land.

Large-scale environmental transformations of this kind would increase the duration and scale of wetlands, including riparian habitats and resources that ancient communities could have exploited.