Figure 1.--French Artists François-Auguste Biard spent two years in Brazil in the late-1850. He worked at Emperor Pedro II's court, but traveled widely, including the Amazon. He was one of the first artists to depict the reclusive Amazonian peoples. It is an image of lmodt lyric beauty. .

It has been common to think of the Amazonian Native Americans as a primitive people lost in time and providing a window to the stone age. Anthropolgists visting these recludive people provided portraits suggesting this view that the Amazonin basin in contrast to much of the Americas was was a cultural black hole. And respected anthropolgists proposed a theory explaining why this was the case -- the inherent ecological limitations of the tropical rain forest. They concluded that the environment was too hostile and the soil too poor to have sustained a large advanced civilization. This was understndable based on mofern agricvultural methods. Because of the tropical condsiction, there was no deep layer of top soil. Rather only small hunter gatherer populations were believe able to sustain sudtnce in the Amazon. Supplenented by primitive agriciltural tehbiques. This was the widely accepted view of the Amazon for many years. And there certinly was no monumental archetecture. And it was further confirmed by the primitive people found living here and the apparently virgin jungle. Spanish accounts from the 16th century desctibing a floruhing, advanced people were dismissed as mere fatrasy. Francisco de Orellana completed the first known navigation of the entire length of the Amazon River and reported large, highly producvtive villages engaged in intensive agriculture (1542). An Italiam reader comments, " The topic is very interesting and includes several aspects. We have also to consider that, when we interpret the data we have we are always influenced by our Weestern ideas of civilization and progress. Taking an example by a well known ancient civilization, the ancient Egyptians had a developed civilization and in their society there was an high wealthy class, but the symbols of their condition were different from those in nowadays Western societies. For example they went barefoot and let their children unclothed. These ones are signs of poverty only in our civilization."

Created: 2:37 AM 5/26/2022
Last updated:5:44 AM 5/26/2022