# People of the Rainforest ###### Outline ## Highlights ### q1 forest environments select for smaller humans > African forest people tend to be distinctly smaller than non-forest people, with the "Pygmies" being the most extreme example. Their small stature is thought to enable them to move about the forest more efficiently than taller peoples. Additionally, anthropologists have argued that their smaller body mass allows pygmies to dissipate their body heat better. ### q2 how nomadic forest-dwellers live > African forest peoples live in bands that range in size from 15-70 people depending largely on the availability of game, trading relationships with outside communities, the prevalence of disease, and the extent of forest area. These groups are traditionally nomadic, moving to new parts of the forest several times during the year and carrying all their possessions on their backs. Their nomadic lifestyle allows the group to move in response to resource availability. This approach, coupled with low population densities and lack of encroachment from outsiders, has traditionally allowed wildlife populations to recover after a group has abandoned an area. ### q3 how African forest camps work > When African forest peoples establish a temporary camp, they typically clear any undergrowth, small trees, and saplings, leaving the canopy-forming trees intact. Under the cover of the canopy, the forest dwellers are protected from the tropical sun and maintain habitat for honey-producing bees and game. By leaving the canopy intact, the area can quickly recover when they leave. Their huts superficially resemble Central Arctic Inuit igloos, with a domed latticework formed of saplings and walls of shingled tree leaves. ### q4 African nomads and villagers have symbiotic relationships > Most African forest people traditionally spend much of the year near a village where they trade bushmeat, honey, and labor for manioc, vegetables, metal goods, and fabric. According to anthropologists who've studied the dynamics between forest peoples and villagers, it's common for a forest family to establish a symbiotic relationship with a settled village family. These relationships between a single forest family and a single village family can persist for generations. ### q5 how net hunting works > The BaAka are perhaps the best known net hunters. BaAka men arrange the into a semi-circle to form a wall, up to one kilometer in length. BaAka women flush game into the nets where the men use spears to kill the animals. ### q6 the precolumbian Amazon was sustainably cultivated > The Amazon has a long history of human settlement. Contrary to popular belief, sizable and sedentary societies of great complexity existed in the Amazon rainforest [[**Amazon Civilization Before Columbus**](https://news.mongabay.com/2005/10/pre-columbian-amazon-supported-millions-of-people/)]. These societies produced pottery, cleared sections of rainforest for agriculture, and managed forests to optimize the distribution of useful species. The notion of a virgin Amazon is largely the result of the population crash following the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth century. Studies suggest that 11.8 percent of the Amazon's terra firme forests are anthropogenic in nature resulting from the careful management of biodiversity by Indigenous people. However, unlike those using current cultivation techniques, these Amazonians were attuned to the ecological realities of their environment from five millennia of experimentation, and they understood how to sustainably manage the rainforest to suit their needs. They saw the importance of maintaining biodiversity through a mosaic of natural forests, open fields, and sections of forest managed so as to be dominated by species of special interest to humans. - used for [[monocrop agriculture doesn't work in tropical ecosystems which makes centralization difficult]]