Quotes About Raised fields

As archaeologists have recently learned, the first inhabitants of the western Amazon created a swath of earthworks that stretches between the Beni in southeastern Bolivia and Acre in western Brazil—a seven-hundred mile swath of raised fields; canal-like water channels; tall settlement mounds; circular pools; permanent, zigzag fish weirs; mile-long, raised causeways; and hundreds of earthworks

In a broad reach of savanna, the Beni's original inhabitants built raised fields—artificial platforms of soil that lift crops above the floodwaters. Like the raised beds in temperate-zone gardens, they promote drainage and increase the amount of topsoil available to plants. The few carbon dates available suggest that the fields date from about three thousand years ago to about five hundred years ago—roughly the time the conquistadors arrived, bringing European diseases.