The Amazon Rainforest has been in existence nearly 55 million years. However, it was not always the vast, lush forest we know today. About 15million years ago the Amazon was just a large inland sea formed from the Andes blocking the rivers that flowed through that area. It eventually became a large swamp, fresh water lake shortly after, creating the vast fresh water animal population the Amazon hosts today. 10 million years ago waters began working the sandstone to the west, which prompted the Amazon to flow eastward, creating the Amazon rainforest. The Ice Age made sea levels drop, which turned the great Amazon Lake into a river. Other Ice Ages were thought to have cause the Amazon to revert back to savanna and montane forest. The savanna caused pieces of the forest to turn into islands, separating the forest long enough “to allow genetic differentiation”, contributing to the Amazon’s vast ecosystem, including animal, insect, and plant populations. Today, the forest is becoming smaller and less diverse due to human activity. The Amazon Jungle is the common name among English speaking countries, but in Spanish it is referred to as Amazonía.
The Amazon rainforest is home to many indigenous people, and the first settlements were thought to be established about 32,000 to 39,000 years ago. These “Amazon people” have integrated well into the lifestyle required to live in the Amazon. The Amazon people are also very spiritual, and they claim to get closer to the spirit world through usage of plants that contain certain hallucinogens. The shaman is the person who holds the knowledge of these plants and communicates with the spirit world to relay to the villagers what they need to do to reach this spiritual connection. The local game consists of whatever is found near the river, like fish, turtles, capybara and crocodiles. The Amazon people would form nomadic hunter-gatherer groups that would move around based on natural resource supply. However, current day Amazon settlements have been reduced to poor underdeveloped areas, forcing the indigenous people to become peasants.
Amazon people. (n.d.). WWF. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/people_amazon/
The Amazon Rainforest. (n.d.). The Amazon Rainforest. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://www.brazil.org.za/amazon-rainforest.html#.U1XGvl5bQjJ
The Amazon Rainforest. (n.d.).Mongabay.com. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/
Marissa Rojas
Brazil Environmental Issues 