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In Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902), Ebenezer Howard proposed a model of sustainable urban development, "garden cities." as an alternative to industrial urbanism. A forerunner of the urban green movement, he envisioned a type of galactic urbanism as an alternative to industrial urbanism. The model proposed tightly integrated networks of towns, each gravitating around a central public park, orbiting around a core town. Towns were linked by well-developed transportation and communication networks and the multi-centric form produced a more subtle gradient between urban and rural areas and coupled with well-developed transportation networks. Recent archaeology and indigenous history conducted in the Upper Xingu area has revealed small garden city-like clusters of settlements, composed of a central plaza settlement and four cardinally oriented satellite plaza settlements, tightly integrated by major roads and surrounded by mosaic countryside of fields, orchards, gardens, and forest. Far from stereotypical models of small tropical forest tribes, these patterns were carefully engineered to work with the forest and wetland ecologies in complex urbanized networks. Such multi-centric, networked forms were quite common, if not typical, in many parts of the pre-Industrial world, particularly major forest regions. This paper explores land-use and dynamic change in coupled human-natural systems, or bio-historical diversity, during the past millennium in the Upper Xingu. In particular, it examines how archaeology and historical memory not only provide means to consider what the Amazon was like 500 years ago but also have vital implications to urgent questions of sustainability and cultural heritage and rights in the face of rapid landscape change related to economic development in the southern Amazon, the "arc of deforestation." It promotes grounded or context-specific participatory approaches to sustainable development, which require robust collaboration between diverse stakeholders, each with very different social and cultural values and interests.
Michael Heckenberger. Tropical Garden Cities: Cultural Values and Sustainability in the Amazon's "Arc of Deforestation". Proceedings of The 2nd World Sustainability Forum 2012, 1 .
AMA StyleMichael Heckenberger. Tropical Garden Cities: Cultural Values and Sustainability in the Amazon's "Arc of Deforestation". Proceedings of The 2nd World Sustainability Forum. 2012; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael Heckenberger. 2012. "Tropical Garden Cities: Cultural Values and Sustainability in the Amazon's "Arc of Deforestation"." Proceedings of The 2nd World Sustainability Forum , no. : 1.
Recent studies in Amazonia historical ecology have revealed substantial diversity and dynamic change in coupled natural human systems. In the southern Amazon, several headwater basins show evidence of substantial pre-Columbian landscape modification, particularly in areas historically dominated by speakers of the Arawak language family. The headwater basin of the Xingu River, the easternmost of these areas occupied by Arawak-speaking peoples, has revealed such a complex built environment. This discussion examines settlement pattern and land-use, which have implications for understanding the dynamics of natural-human systems in the Upper Xingu basin and other areas across the transitional forests of the southern Amazon.
Michael Heckenberger. Biocultural Diversity in the Southern Amazon. Diversity 2009, 2, 1 -16.
AMA StyleMichael Heckenberger. Biocultural Diversity in the Southern Amazon. Diversity. 2009; 2 (1):1-16.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael Heckenberger. 2009. "Biocultural Diversity in the Southern Amazon." Diversity 2, no. 1: 1-16.
The archaeology of pre-Columbian polities in the Amazon River basin forces a reconsideration of early urbanism and long-term change in tropical forest landscapes. We describe settlement and land-use patterns of complex societies on the eve of European contact (after 1492) in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. These societies were organized in articulated clusters, representing small independent polities, within a regional peer polity. These patterns constitute a “galactic” form of prehistoric urbanism, sharing features with small-scale urban polities in other areas. Understanding long-term change in coupled human-environment systems relating to these societies has implications for conservation and sustainable development, notably to control ecological degradation and maintain regional biodiversity.
Michael J. Heckenberger; J. Christian Russell; Carlos Fausto; Joshua R. Toney; Morgan J. Schmidt; Edithe Pereira; Bruna Franchetto; Afukaka Kuikuro. Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon. Science 2008, 321, 1214 -1217.
AMA StyleMichael J. Heckenberger, J. Christian Russell, Carlos Fausto, Joshua R. Toney, Morgan J. Schmidt, Edithe Pereira, Bruna Franchetto, Afukaka Kuikuro. Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon. Science. 2008; 321 (5893):1214-1217.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael J. Heckenberger; J. Christian Russell; Carlos Fausto; Joshua R. Toney; Morgan J. Schmidt; Edithe Pereira; Bruna Franchetto; Afukaka Kuikuro. 2008. "Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon." Science 321, no. 5893: 1214-1217.