In his compact work, John H. Walker studies one case of intensive agriculture in the southwestern Amazon from two perspectives: historical ecology and landscape archaeology. The central-western Llanos de Mojos contains the largest, densest, and most diverse concentration of agricultural landscapes in the Amazon, evidencing a process of domestication of landscape over time. Walker proposes to read this landscape—an area of 10,000 km2 of the Bolivian Amazon—like a book, in which the ancestors’ lives, movements, and cultural activities were marked in three different types of material and temporal landscapes: forest islands, rivers, and raised fields. Walker scrutinized aerial and satellite photographs, complemented by pedestrian surveys, for his analysis of the construction of the anthropogenic landscape, mapping more than 40,000 fields along the Iruyañez, Omi, Yacuma, and Rapulo Rivers.
The author's most substantial contribution is determining the age and length of use of the raised fields through archaeological excavations and inquiring how they were integrated with society. Walker excavated five forest islands with very peculiar formal characteristics: San Juan, Cobamos, Estancita, San Francisco, and the impressive site of El Cerro, the only elevation in the center-west of Mojos, which is 40 m high and covers an area of 100 ha.
The author proposes an occupational chronology supported by 40 radiocarbon dates. He has previously published the results of his most extensive archaeological investigations of El Cerro and San Juan, located in the northern Llanos de Mojos, at the Iruyañez River. However, the integration of three additional forest islands further to the south, near the Yacuma River, enriches the spectrum in his present work, since they are associated with both field platforms and ring ditches with strong evidence of habitation. Unfortunately, the author does not present the archaeological material of these more recently investigated sites, which would have been important for understanding the cultural sequences.
He divides the occupational chronology into five phases. The weakly documented Early Phase (6000–4000 cal BC) is presumably associated with sporadic hunter-gatherer occupations. The San Francisco Phase (1200 cal BC–cal AD 200) shows ceramic evidence and the first constructions of raised fields toward the end of the phase, although without conclusive evidence. The San Juan Phase (cal AD 400–700) is characterized by its fine ceramic style, associated with large raised fields and forest islands. The phases Estancia I (cal AD 700–1000) and Estancia II (cal AD 1000–1200) present differences in the intensity of the use of space inside and outside the ring ditches. Finally, the Cerro Phase (cal AD 1200–1500) is strongly associated with areas of large raised fields.
In his book, Walker presents a comprehensive approach, in which he applies spatial analysis at different scales. At a small scale, the landscapes of raised fields of the center-west of the Llanos de Mojos directly interact with the forest islands. At a medium scale, he contextualizes raised fields with rivers and gallery forests in order to distinguish different functions of the agricultural landscape in different spaces. This reveals the spatial patterns of a set of specific landscape features that can be identified, mapped, and defined to form large units, such as neighborhoods, archipelagos, agropolis (large islands together with concentrations of fields), and buffer zones.
Finally, for large-scale analysis, Walker discusses spatial distribution patterns of raised fields and their relationship to six other cultural areas in the Llanos de Mojos between the Mamoré and Guaporé/Iténez rivers. This chapter highlights the chronological gaps in some poorly studied areas in Mojos, which make it difficult to elucidate the cultural connections of anthropogenic landscapes over time.
Walker applies Ingold's idea that the landscape is an experience of the movement of people. As a journey through time, Walker incorporates archaeological interpretations, ethnohistorical and ethnographic data, and even his own experiences to trace seven lines that are part of the “meshwork” in the production of space. These lines describe the “taskscapes” (arrays of activities of communities related in time and space), and they require organization and coordination among the community members. The set of activities, practices, or skills carried out in cycles of diverse movement and duration that—according to Walker—allowed the construction of the landscape in the center-west of the Llanos de Mojos were farming, constructions, hunting and fishing, water management, fire control management, and transportation.
The author doubts that the central-western Mojo agricultural landscapes were the product of some kind of centralized state bureaucracy, and he rigorously analyzes theories about agriculture, questioning the relationship between intensive agriculture and population density, and at the same time, the political role of resource management. He observes an underlying theoretical bias in favor of the state and against nonstate organization, mainly for societies with intensive agriculture. Walker's analysis allows the reader to have access to a variety of alternative agricultural practices associated with quite complex cultural processes and cultural diversity characteristic of the Amazon.
This work shows us that universal models or large-scale theorizations cannot be applied to an area like the Amazon, in general, or the Llanos de Mojos, in particular. Archaeological evidence breaks with the supposed homogeneity of the landscape and questions dichotomies between societies with “noble savage ecology” and societies with agricultural practices on a monumental scale. Any theory of Amazonian agriculture should include case studies conducted throughout the whole basin and incorporate knowledge from indigenous cultures. Further analyses of local conditions, political contexts, population movements, processes of domestication, and abandonment of landscapes in the Llanos de Mojos are still required.
Walker's book should definitely not be shelved. The Mojos has been and still is a cultural landscape threatened by extractive economy and deforestation. Archaeology makes it possible to show alternative models of well-being and indigenous wisdom. We should fight to preserve this diversity of landscapes.
