1491- [PRO]

: Long thought to be a virgin rainforest, evidence shows it was a "human-made garden" featuring vast orchards and terra preta —nutrient-rich, man-made soil.

Prior to 1492, the Americas were home to tens of millions of people with a diversity of cultures that rivaled or exceeded those in Europe and Asia. Rather than living passively "at one" with nature, Indigenous societies were master engineers of their environments. : Long thought to be a virgin rainforest,

: This massive loss of life explains why later settlers encountered "empty" lands; they were seeing the graveyards of recently collapsed civilizations. : This massive loss of life explains why

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💡 : 1491 was not a blank slate, but a peak of human achievement in the Western Hemisphere.

: The sudden lack of human forest management led to a massive regrowth of trees, which some scientists argue pulled enough carbon from the atmosphere to contribute to the Little Ice Age . Legacy of 1491