Darien province, Panama, forming the landbridge between Central and South America, is an expanse of lowland tropical forest over 300 miles long and 100 miles wide about which little is known of its human or environmental history. The first palaeobotanical data from the region indicate a minimum date of 4000BP for the beginning of prolonged human habitation and prehistoric agriculture. Early systems of slash-and-burn cultivation included maize as a primary food plant and appear to have resulted in significant forest modification. An episode of forest regeneration shortly after 350 BP indicates indigenous population decline in the face of European influence, and suggests that the extant forest near the site is recent regrowth after long-term prehistoric occupation and agriculture.
Bartlett, A.S. and Barghoom, E.S.1973: Phytogeographic history of the Isthmus of Panama during the past 12000 years (a history of vegetation, climate and sea-level change) . In Graham, A., editor, Vegetation and vegetational history of northern Latin America. New York: Elsevier Scientific Publishing , 203-99.
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Bennett, C.F.1968: Human influences on the zoogeography of Panama . Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Bray, W. in press: Searching for environmental stress: climatic and anthropogenic influences on the landscape of Colombia. In Stahl, P.W., editor, Archaeology in the lowland American tropics: current analytical methods and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Bush, M.B., Pipemo, D.R. and Colinvaux, P.A.1989: A 6000 year history of Amazonian maize cultivation . Nature340, 303-305.
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Clark, J.S.1988: Particle motion and the theory of charcoal analysis: source area, transport, deposition, and sampling. Quaternary Research30, 67-80.
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Colinvaux, P.A.1992: Ecology 2. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Cook, R.G. and Ranere, A.J.1992: Prehistoric human adaptations to the seasonally dry forests of Panama. World Archaeology24, 114-33.
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Cruxent, J.M.1959: Informe sobre un Reconocimiento Arqueologico en el Darien (Panama). Lateria4, 1-107.
8.
Deevey, E.S., Jr., Rice, D.S., Rice, P.M., Vaughn, H.H., Brenner, M. and Flannery, M.S.1979: Mayan urbanism: impact on a tropical karst environment . Science206, 298-306.
9.
Fao1971: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Based on the work of Joseph Tosi. FO: SF Pan 6, Technical Report 2.
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Jones, J.1992: Pollen evidence of prehistoric forest modification in northern Belize. Paper presented at the 57th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh .
11.
Leyden, B.W.1987: Man and climate in the Maya Lowlands. Quaternary Research28, 407-14.
12.
Linares, O.F. and Ranere, A.J., editors, 1980: Adaptive radiations in prehistoric Panama. Peabody Museum Monographs 5. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.
13.
Linne, S.1929: Darien in the past: the archaeology of eastern Panama and north-western Colombia. Goteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag.
14.
Mora, S.C., Herrera, L.F., Cavelier, F.I. and Rodriquez, C.1991: Cultivars, anthropic soils and stability: a preliminary report of archaeological research in Araracuara, Colombian Amazonia. Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, University of Pittsburgh Latin American Archaeology Reports No.2.
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Piperno, D.R.1985: Phytolith taphonomy and distributions in archaeological sediments from Panama. Journal of ArchaeologicalScience12, 247-67.
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— 1988: Phytolith analysis: an archaeological and geological perspectiveSan Diego: Academic Press.
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— 1993: Phytolith and charcoal records from deep lake cores in the American tropics. In Pearsall, D.M. and Piperno, D.R., editors, Current research in phytolith analysis: applications in archaeology and paleoecology . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Museum, pp. 58-71.
18.
Piperno, D.R., Bush, M.B. and Colinvaux, P.A.1991a: Paleoecological perspectives on human adaptation in central Panama. I. The Pleistocene. Geoarchaeology6, 201-26.
19.
Piperno, D.R., Bush, M.B. and Colvinaux, P.A.1991b: Paleoecological perspectives on human adaptation in central Panama. II. The Holocene. Geoarchaeology6, 227-50.
20.
Piperno, D.R., Husum-Clary, K., Cooke, R.G., Ranere, A.J. and Weiland, D.1985: Preceramic maize in central Panama: evidence from phytoliths and pollen. American Anthropologist87, 871-78. Sauer, C.O.1966: The early Spanish main . Berkeley: University of California Press.
