When was the Amazonian period?
Amazonian (Mars)
The Amazonian is a geologic system and time period on the planet Mars characterized by low rates of meteorite and asteroid impacts and by cold, hyperarid conditions broadly similar to those on Mars today. The transition from the preceding Hesperian period is somewhat poorly defined. The Amazonian is thought to have begun around 3 billion years ago, although error bars on this date are extremely large (~500 million years). The period is sometimes subdivided into the Early, Middle, and Late Amazonian. The Amazonian continues to the present day.
Amazon River
Early scientific, zoological and botanical exploration of the Amazon River and basin took place from the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century.
Pre-Columbian era
By the first millennium, South America's vast rainforests, mountains, plains, and coasts were the home of millions of people. Estimates vary, but 30–50 million are often given and 100 million by some estimates. Some groups formed permanent settlements. Among those groups were Chibcha-speaking peoples ("Muisca" or "Muysca"), Valdivia, Quimbaya, Calima and the Tairona. The Muisca of Colombia, postdating the Herrera Period, Valdivia of Ecuador, the Quechuas and the Aymara of Peru and Bolivia were the four most important sedentary Amerindian groups in South America. From the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil, supporting Spanish accounts of a complex, possibly ancient Amazonian civilization.
Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen
The aulacogen underwent crustal shortening and inversion sometime in the Mississippian Period to the Early Permian Period, roughly 330–280 million years ago. This coincides with the closing of the Iapetus spreading zones and the overthrusting of the Ouachita uplift over the Anadarko Basin, forming the Wichita Mountains. This also resulted in the reactivation of Cambrian rift faults, often becoming reverse or listric thrust faults. Anticlines formed in the sedimentary rock layers of the basin, contributing to the formation of the deep hydrocarbon reservoir of the Anadarko Basin. The formation of these listric faults and anticlines indicates that the crustal shortening was significant, up to 10–15 km or more.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
At one time Amazon River flowed westward, perhaps as part of a proto-Congo (Zaïre) river system from the interior of present-day Africa when the continents were joined as part of western Gondwana. Fifteen million years ago, the Andes were formed by the collision of the South American Plate with the Nazca Plate (eastern Pacific oceanic) plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river and caused the Amazon to become a vast inland sea. Gradually this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater. For example, over 20 species of stingray, most closely related to those found in the Pacific Ocean, can be found today in the fresh waters of the Amazon.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
The state achieved a very great population growth in the early 20th century, due to the golden period of rubber, and after installation of the Industrial Pole of Manaus, in the 1960s. The state still maintains population rates above the national average. In the 1950s the state had a population growth of 3.6% per year, while Brazil has maintained a growth of 3.2%. In the period between the years 1991 and 2000, Amazon grew by 2.7% per annum while the national average remained at 1.6%. For 2018, the estimate is 4,080,611 inhabitants.
Purus várzea
The Purus várzea (NT0156) is an ecoregion of seasonally flooded várzea forest in the central Amazon basin. It is part of the Amazon biome.
The ecoregion is home to a vegetation adapted to floods of up to that may last for eight months.
There is a great variety of fish and birds, but relatively fewer mammals. 
Ground-dwelling mammals must migrate to higher ground during the flood season.
Threats include logging, cattle farming, over-fishing and mercury pollution from gold mining.
Source of the Amazon River
Attention turned to the headwaters of the Apurímac River as early as 1935 when Lake Vilafro (-15.203, -71.880, in elevation) was identified as the source of the Amazon. Several other places in that vicinity were named in the decades that followed with the Carhuasanta River, flowing down from Mismi mountain, first identified as a possible ultimate source in 1969 by Carlos Peñaherrera del Aguila. In 1971, Loren McIntyre led a National Geographic Society expedition to this remote area, frequented only by llama and alpaca herders. On the northern slopes of Mismi, at the headwaters of the Carhuasanta, McIntyre identified a small pond as the source of the Amazon. He named the pond Lake McIntyre and later it appeared on maps as Laguna Bohemia. It is located at -15.512 Latitude and -71.702 Longitude at an elevation of .
Amazonian languages
The Europeans invaded the region in the 16th century, quickly taking control of the coastal areas and the main rivers as far as they were navigable. The indigenous population began to drastically diminish around 1900; it is estimated that the population was only a 10th of what it had been in 1500 (estimated at between 2 and 5 million). The majority of this loss of life was involuntary, due to European diseases the native Amazonian population didn't have immunity to. The Europeans also used the native Amazonians as slaves. There are testimonies of the Europeans navigating upriver from the mouth of the Amazon, capturing entire tribes and carrying them downriver to the plantations where they worked under difficult conditions, dying in a few years. The Europeans, due to their superior weapons, were able to take whatever piece of land they wanted. Previously the incursions of the colonists were motivated by the possession of resources like rubber or certain minerals, that frequently were preceded by violent actions against the indigenous Amazonians.
Amazonian pop art
Amazonian pop art (also known as Amazon pop art or wild naive) is a contemporary art movement that emerged in late 1990 in Iquitos. The movement has an intense chromaticism with a great representation of ayahuasca experience psychedelic —a delirious artistic style that is seen strongly in the non-Amazonian pop art works of Pablo Amaringo. Originally, it is a mural art that blends prominently the colorful amazonian culture, European motifs and commercial characters, which could be influenced by American pop art when the era of cable television came to the city, like MTV.
Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch is a nonprofit organization Founded in 1996, and based in Oakland, California, it works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. It partners with indigenous and environmental organizations in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability and the preservation of the Amazon's ecological systems.
Hafit period
The Hafit period defines early Bronze Age human settlement in the United Arab Emirates and Oman in the period from 3200 to 2600 BC. It is named after the distinctive beehive burials first found on Jebel Hafit, a rocky mountain in the region of Tawam, which is composed of the UAE city of Al Ain and the adjacent Omani town of Al-Buraimi, and borders the Rub Al Khali desert. Hafit period tombs and remains have also been located across the UAE and Oman in sites such as Bidaa bint Saud, Jebel Al-Buhais and Buraimi.
Agenian
The Agenian age is a period of geologic time (23.8—20 Ma) within the Miocene used more specifically with European Land Mammal Ages. It follows the Orleanian age and overlaps the Aquitanian and Burdigalian ages.
Lake Tauca
Increased precipitation during the Tauca phase was probably triggered by the southern movement of the ITCZ and the strengthening of the South America monsoon, possibly caused by chilling in the northern hemisphere. Combined with a southern shift of high pressure zones, increased moisture during late glacial times would have flowed from the Amazon. This change, which occurred from 17,400–12,400 years or 18,000–11,000 BP, is recorded in Bolivian Chaco and Brazilian cave records. The Tauca phase may have been triggered by the southern shift of tropical atmospheric circulation. Although another theory posits that vegetation changes and lake development would have decreased the albedo of the Altiplano, resulting in warming and moisture advection of moisture towards the Altiplano, but such positive feedback mechanisms were considered questionable in a 1998 study. Persistent La Niña climatic conditions may have contributed to the lake's filling. Conversely, a global climatic warming and a northward shift of the monsoon occurred around 14,500 years ago. The ideal conditions for the development of paleolakes in the Altiplano do not appear to exist during maximum glaciation or warm interglacial periods.
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest
In the pre-Columbian era, parts of the Amazon Rainforest were a densely populated open agriculture. After the European colonization in the 16th century, with the hunt for gold, Western diseases, slavery and later the rubber boom, the Amazon Rainforest was depopulated and the forest grew larger.
Amazon Theatre
The Amazonas Theatre was built during the Belle Époque at a time when fortunes were made in the rubber boom. Construction of the Amazon Theatre was first proposed in 1881 by a member of the local House of Representatives, Antonio Jose Fernandes Júnior, who envisioned a "jewel" in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Amazon Basin (sedimentary basin)
The Amazon Basin is a major large sedimentary basin located roughly at the middle and lower course of the Amazon River, south the Guiana Shield and north of the Central Brazilian Shield. It is bound to the west by the Púrus Arch, separating the Amazon Basin from the Solimões Basin and in the east by the Gurupá Arch, separating the basin from the Marajó Basin. The basin developed on a rift that originated possibly about 550 million years ago during the Cambrian. Parts of the rift were reactivated during the opening of the South Atlantic.
Ecuador
In the early part of the 20th century Ecuador made an effort to peacefully define its eastern Amazonian borders with its neighbours through negotiation. On May 6, 1904, Ecuador signed the Tobar-Rio Branco Treaty recognizing Brazil's claims to the Amazon in recognition of Ecuador's claim to be an Amazonian country to counter Peru's earlier Treaty with Brazil back in October 23, 1851. Then after a few meetings with the Colombian government's representatives an agreement was reached and the Muñoz Vernaza-Suarez Treaty was signed July 15, 1916, in which Colombian rights to the Putumayo river were recognized as well as Ecuador's rights to the Napo river and the new border was a line that ran midpoint between those two rivers. In this way Ecuador gave up the claims it had to the Amazonian territories between the Caquetá River and Napo River to Colombia, thus cutting itself off from Brazil. Later a brief war erupted between Colombia and Peru, over Peru's claims to the Caquetá region, which ended with the Peru reluctantly signing the Salomon-Lozano Treaty on March 24, 1922. Ecuador protested this secret treaty, since Colombia gave away Ecuadorian claimed land to Peru that Ecuador had given to Colombia in 1916.
Paleontology in Alabama
The same erosional and depositional processes continued on through the ensuing Silurian period. During the Devonian period the local seas deepened and their oxygen levels dropped. Fossils from this time period are rare in Alabama because the low oxygen conditions excluded most life forms from the local waters. Life became abundant once more in the local waters during the Mississippian epoch of the Carboniferous period. The name Carboniferous means "coal-bearing". This period has been nicknamed the "age of amphibians" or the "age of coal swamps". During the Mississippian, carbonate rocks were being deposited in the state that would preserve many contemporary life forms as fossils. The Mississippian marine life of Alabama included blastoids, brachiopods, bryozoans, corals, and crinoids. Alabama was as swampy as the nickname of the Carboniferous period would suggest from the Late Mississippian into the Pennsylvanian. During the ensuing Pennsylvanian epoch the same sediments eroded from the mountains had formed an expansive coastal plain. The Black Warrior Basin of Alabama preserves evidence for ancient Carboniferous swamps. The rich plant life of these swamps would be preserved in great detail and abundance in the northern part of the state. Early trees and plants resembling ferns grew there. This vegetation left behind great coal deposits. This region also has the largest and most diverse fossil tracksites from this time period in the world. Sediments were eroded away from Alabama rather than deposited during the Permian period, so there are no local rocks from this time period.
Grão-Pará Ecological Station
The Grão-Pará Ecological Station is in the Amazon biome.
It has a tropical monsoon climate.
Temperatures range from and are usually between .
Average annual rainfall is from , with heaviest rains on the December–May period when monthly precipitation is . 
Even in the driest months rainfall is above .
The unit contains parts of two sub-basins of the Amazon River, the Nhamundá-Trombetas basin and the Cuminapanema-Maicuru sub-basin.
The main rivers of the unit have combined lengths of .
History of South America
For a long time, scholars believed that Amazon forests were occupied by small numbers of hunter-gatherer tribes. Archeologist Betty J. Meggers was a prominent proponent of this idea, as described in her book "Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise". However, recent archeological findings have suggested that the region was densely populated. From the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land dating between 0–1250 AD. Additional finds have led to conclusions that there were highly developed and populous cultures in the forests, organized as Pre-Columbian civilizations. The BBC's "Unnatural Histories" claimed that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by man for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening.
History of Vermont
Native Americans inhabited and hunted in Vermont. From 7000 to 1000 BC was the Archaic Period. During that era, Native Americans migrated year-round. From 1000 BC to 1600 AD was the Woodland Period, when villages and trade networks were established, and ceramic and bow and arrow technology were developed. The western part of the state became home to a small population of Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Mohican and Abenaki peoples.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
From at least the time of the Tordesillas Treaty in 1494 until the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, the region of the upper Amazon was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru (Viceroyalty of New Granada after 1717). Everything north of the Amazon (Solimões) and west of the Nhamundá River (Yamundá, in Spanish), an affluent of the left bank of the Amazon that forms the boundary of Amazonas with Pará, was known as Spanish Guyana.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
From the mid-19th century, the territory began to receive migrants from the northeast seeking a better life. Attracted by the rubber boom, they settled in important Amazonian cities such as Manaus, Tabatinga, Parintins, Itacoatiara and Barcelos, the first capital of Amazonas.
The state had an era of splendor in the 1890s, at the peak of the rubber boom. However, the economic gains were largely the result of great human suffering: untold thousands of enslaved Amerindian seringueiros (rubber tappers) died through disease and overwork.
Americo Makk
In 1958, the Makks, including 8 year-old A.B. with pet ocelot "Cica" (Hungarian for "cat"), accompanied by guides and a Catholic missionary priest, embarked on their expedition to study the flora, fauna and inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest. The expedition began in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, and the heart of the Amazon jungle. The trip spanned over 1,000 miles of travel by foot, river boat, canoe, small plane and helicopter; there were no roads. They planned to meet guides at designated checkpoints, who were considered friendly Indians of various tribes. Travel was difficult due to frequent rains that turned to floods washing away landmarks. With high humidity and rain, the Makks described suffering frequent bites from small black insects, called "piums". Some tribes they met along the way believed that to have their image painted would result in their souls being stolen, thus simple sketches were made in those regions.
Antediluvian
As mapping of the geological strata progressed in the early decades of the 19th century, the estimated lengths of the various sub-periods were greatly increased. The fossil rich Secondary Pre-Adamitic period was divided up into the Coal period, the Lias and the Chalk period, later expanded into the now-familiar geologic time scale of the Phanerozoic. The term "Antediluvian" was used in natural science well into the 19th century and lingered in popular imagination despite increasingly detailed stratigraphy mapping the Earth's past, and was often used for the Pleistocene period, where humans existed alongside now extinct megafauna.
Permian
The Permian is a geologic period and system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic period 251.902 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic era; the following Triassic period belongs to the Mesozoic era. The concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the city of Perm.
History of South America
For a long time it was thought that the Amazon rainforest was only ever sparsely populated, as it was impossible to sustain a large population through agriculture given the poor soil. Archaeologist Betty Meggers was a prominent proponent of this idea, as described in her book "Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise". She claimed that a population density of is the maximum that can be sustained in the rainforest through hunting, with agriculture needed to support a larger population. However, recent archaeological findings have suggested that the region was actually densely populated. From the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land dating between 01250CE, leading to claims about Pre-Columbian civilisations. The BBC's "Unnatural Histories" claimed that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by man for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening. Recent anthropological findings have suggested that the region was actually densely populated. Some 5million people may have lived in the Amazon region in 1500CE, divided between dense coastal settlements, such as that at Marajó, and inland dwellers.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
The project was implemented by the Brazilian military government, at first, the benefits of this project was extended to the Western Amazon, formed by the States of Amazonas, Acre, Rondônia and Roraima. On August 20, 2008, the free trade area of Macapá, which was included in the Council of Manaus by Free Zone Superintendence (Suframa) and thus, the Amapá received the same benefit given for other Amazonian Brazilian States. The creation of the Manaus free trade zone aimed at promoting the occupation of this region population and raise the level of security to maintain your integrity in addition, brake deforestation in the region and recoup the preservation and sustainability of biodiversity present in the state. In its years of existence, the story of the Manaus Free Trade Zone is divided into four phases: the first, from 1967 to 1975, characterized the reference in the country's industrial policy for the import substitution of final goods and formation of the internal market; the second, from 1975 to 1990, was characterized by the adoption of measures promoting the domestic industry inputs, especially in the State of São Paulo (largest consumer at the time); the third, in 1991 and 1996, came into force on new Industrial policy and foreign trade, marked by the opening of the Brazilian economy, reducing the import tax for the rest of the country and emphasis on quality and productivity, with the implementation of the Brazilian policy quality and productivity (PBPQ in Portuguese) and Industrial competitiveness program; and the fourth and last, of the 1996-2002, marks its adaptation to a globalized economy scenarios and the adjustments demanded by the effects of the Real plan, as the movement of privatization and deregulation.
Geology of the Appalachians
By about 300 million years ago (Pennsylvanian Period) Africa was approaching the North American craton. The collisional belt spread into the Ozark-Ouachita region and through the Marathon Mountains area of Texas. Continent vs. continent collision raised the Appalachian-Ouachita chain to a lofty mountain range on the scale of the present-day Himalaya. The massive bulk of Pangea was completed near the end of the Paleozoic Era (Permian Period) when Africa (Gondwana) plowed into the continental agglomeration, with the Appalachian-Ouachita mountains near the core.
Caiman wannlangstoni
"C. wannlangstoni" lived through a major climatic and ecological shift in South America during the Middle to Late Miocene. The oldest fossils of the species come from the Pebas Formation, which was deposited during the Middle Miocene about 13 million years ago (Ma) over a vast area of Amazonia called the Pebas mega-wetland. The Pebas mega-wetland developed at the start of the Neogene, coincident with the main phase of uplift of the Andes Mountains and the formation of a massive (>1 million square kilometers) drainage basin that extended from the Andes to the Caribbean Sea. During this time "C. wannlangstoni" would have inhabited oxygen-poor marshes and swamps, feeding on thick-shelled molluscs alongside other caiman species with crushing dentitions like "Gnatusuchus pebasensis" and "Kuttanacaiman iquitosensis". Beginning around 10.5 Ma, continued uplift of the Andes separated the Pebas region into three smaller basins: the Magdalena, Orinoco and Amazon basins. The youngest remains of "C. wannlangstoni" come from the Urumaco Formation, which was deposited during the Late Miocene around 6 to 9 Ma in the early Orinoco basin. At this time "C. wannlangstoni" would have lived in more energetic and oxygen-rich river environments. It occurs alongside several other caiman species, including "Caiman brevirostris" and "Globidentosuchus brachyrostris", that also had crushing dentition. This assemblage of crushing-dentition caimans is similar to the earlier caiman assemblage from the Pebas Formation, but is not found in either the Magdalena or Amazon basins during the Late Miocene, suggesting that the Orinoco basin could have been the last refuge for these types of caimans before they became extinct.
Americas
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early Modern period. The term "Pre-Columbian" is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and the Maya) and the Andes (Inca, Moche, Muisca, Cañaris).
Amazon basin
Politically the basin is divided into the Brazilian Amazônia Legal, the Peruvian Amazon, the Amazon region of Colombia and parts of Bolivia, Ecuador and the Venezuelan state of Amazonas.
Amazon rubber boom
During the same period, the northeast part of Brazil had suffered a devastating drought and an unprecedented crisis for its farmers. Brazil decided to recruit new rubber workers from that region. The Estado Novo in 1943 ordered the compulsory enlisting of workers in the "Serviço Especial de Mobilização de Trabalhadores para a Amazônia" (SEMTA; "Special Service of Mobilization of Workers for the Amazon"), based in the northeast, in Fortaleza. Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas reduced the problem of the economic blight and at the same time increased colonization of the Amazon Basin.
Amazons
Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel depicted the Battle of the Amazons around 1598, showing many attributes of Renaissance-styled paintings. Amazons also appear in the Rococo period in another painting titled "Battle of the Amazons" by Johann Georg Platzer. As a part of the Romantic period revival, German artist Anselm Feuerbach painted the Amazons as well. His paintings “engendered all the aspirations of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion in an idealized past.”
Manaus
The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. Wet tropical forests are the most species-rich biome, and tropical forests in the Americas are consistently more species rich than the wet forests in Africa and Asia. As the largest tract of tropical rainforest in the Americas, the Amazonian rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. More than one-third of all species in the world live in the Amazon Rainforest.
Muisca Confederation
The Herrera Period is a phase in the history of Colombia. It is part of the Andean preceramic and ceramic, time equivalent of the North American pre-Columbian formative and classic stages and age dated by various archaeologists. The Herrera Period predates the age of the Muisca people, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca and postdates the lithic formative stage and prehistory of the eastern Andean region in Colombia. The Herrera Period is usually defined as ranging from 800 BCE to 800 AD, although some scholars date it as early as 1500 BCE.
Indigenous territory (Colombia)
As late as 1959 the Amazon region was considered uninhabited and was declared a natural reserve.
The agrarian reform of 1961 recognized the need to define indigenous territories and to confirm as reserves ("resguardos") the titles the Spanish crown had granted to the indigenous people.
The first reserves were in the Amazon, the Vaupés reserve in 1982 with and the Vichada reserve in 1986–87 with .
The government of Virgilio Barco Vargas between 1986 and 1990 gave titles to another in the Amazonas and Guainía departments, forming a continuous indigenous territory of covering 50% of the Colombian Amazon.
Caverna da Pedra Pintada
American archaeologist Anna C. Roosevelt rediscovered the cave and excavated it extensively from 1990 to 1992. The excavations were supported by the Field Museum and the University of Illinois, Chicago, with which she is affiliated. The lowest levels of the cave were radiocarbon dated and Thermoluminescence dated to ca. 11,200 to 10,000 years ago. The early dates of these finds have affected the interpretation of human settlement in the Amazon Basin. Roosevelt believes that the cave's evidence supports a theory that the Amazon Basin was settled much earlier than formerly believed.
Amazonsaurus
Fossils of "Amazonsaurus", including some back and tail vertebrae, ribs, and fragments of the pelvis, are the only dinosaur remains identifiable at the generic level from the Itapecuru Formation of Maranhão. This geologic formation dates back to the Aptian through Albian epochs of the Early Cretaceous Period, or about 125 to 100 million years ago. "Amazonsaurus" was recovered in sediments which are interpreted by geologists as floodplain deposits near a river delta.
Óbidos, Pará
Óbidos was the scene of the sinking of in September 1981, one of the worst maritime tragedies in the history of the Amazon River. The riverboat was making its weekly trip between Santarém and Manaus and was claimed to be overcrowded when it sank in Óbidos harbour. It is assumed over 300 people died in the disaster, with hundreds of bodies and body parts never identified. In 2014, British angler Jeremy Wade went to Óbidos to investigate the role that local fish species may have played in the loss of life during this disaster; his findings were documented in the "River Monsters" episode entitled "Amazon Apocalypse."
Spanish Empire
The majority of the territory of today's Brazil had been claimed as Spanish when exploration began with the navigation of the length of the Amazon River in 1541–42 by Francisco de Orellana. Many Spanish expeditions explored large parts of this vast region, especially those close to Spanish settlements. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish soldiers, missionaries and adventurers also established pioneering communities, primarily in Paraná, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo, and forts on the northeastern coast threatened by the French and Dutch.
As Portuguese-Brazilian settlement expanded, following in the trail of the Bandeirantes exploits, these isolated Spanish groups were eventually integrated into Brazilian society. Only some Castilians who were displaced from the disputed areas of the Pampas of Rio Grande do Sul have left a significant influence on the formation of the gaucho, when they mixed with Indian groups, Portuguese and blacks who arrived in the region during the 18th century. The Spanish were barred by their laws from slaving of indigenous people, leaving them without a commercial interest deep in the interior of the Amazon basin. The Laws of Burgos (1512) and the New Laws (1542) had been intended to protect the interests of indigenous people. The Portuguese-Brazilian slavers, the Bandeirantes, had the advantage of access from the mouth of the Amazon River, which was on the Portuguese side of the line of Tordesillas. One famous attack upon a Spanish mission in 1628 resulted in the enslavement of about 60,000 indigenous people.
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest
The annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon region dramatically increased from 1991 to 2003. In the nine years from 1991 to 2000, the total area of Amazon rainforest cleared since 1970 rose from , comparable to the land area of Spain, Madagascar or Manitoba. Most of this lost forest was replaced by pasture for cattle.
Amazon River
The proto-Amazon during the Cretaceous flowed west, as part of a proto-Amazon-Congo river system, from the interior of present-day Africa when the continents were connected, forming western Gondwana. Fifteen million years ago, the main tectonic uplift phase of the Andean chain started. This tectonic movement is caused by the subduction of the Nazca Plate underneath the South American Plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river and caused the Amazon Basin to become a vast inland sea. Gradually, this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater. For example, over 20 species of stingray, most closely related to those found in the Pacific Ocean, can be found today in the freshwaters of the Amazon.
Asselian
In the geologic timescale, the Asselian is the earliest geochronologic age or lowermost chronostratigraphic stage of the Permian. It is a subdivision of the Cisuralian epoch or series. The Asselian lasted between and million years ago (Ma). It was preceded by the Gzhelian (the latest or uppermost subdivision in the Carboniferous) and followed by the Sakmarian.
Amazon natural region
Amazonía region in southern Colombia comprises the departments of Amazonas, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Putumayo and Vaupés, and covers an area of 403,000 km², 35% of Colombia's total territory. The region is mostly covered by tropical rainforest, or jungle, which is a part of the massive Amazon rainforest.
Mesoamerican Archaic period
The Archaic period, also known as the preceramic period, is a period in Mesoamerican chronology that begins around 8000 BCE and ends around 2000 BCE and is generally divided into Early, Middle, and Late Archaic periods. The period is preceded by the Paleoindian (or Lithic) period and followed by the Preclassic period. Scholars have found it difficult to determine exactly when the Paleoindian period ends and the Archaic begins, but it is generally linked with changing climate associated with the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epochs, and absence of extinct Pleistocene animals. It is also generally unclear when the Archaic period ends and the Preclassic period begins, though the appearance of pottery, large-scale agriculture, and villages signal the transition.
Dry season
New data shows that in the seasonal parts of the South American Amazon forest, foliage growth and coverage varies between the dry and wet seasons—with about 25% more leaves and faster growth in the dry season. Researchers believe that the Amazon itself has an effect in bringing the onset of the wet season: by growing more foliage, it evaporates more water. However, this growth appears only in the undisturbed parts of the Amazon basin, where researchers believe roots can reach deeper and gather more rainwater. It has also been shown that ozone levels are much higher in the dry than in the wet season in the Amazon basin.
Amazon rubber boom
The Amazon Rubber Boom ( , 1879 to 1912) was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related to the extraction and commercialization of rubber. Centered in the Amazon Basin, the boom resulted in a large expansion of European colonization in the area, attracting immigrant workers, generating wealth, causing cultural and social transformations, and wreaking havoc upon indigenous societies. It encouraged the growth of cities such as Manaus, Porto Velho, and Belém, capitals within the respective Brazilian states of Amazonas, Rondônia and Pará; as well as the expansion of Iquitos in Peru. The rubber boom occurred largely between 1879 and 1912. There was heightened rubber production and associated activities from 1942 to 1945 during the Second World War.
Amazon Symphony
Sinfonia Amazônica, or Amazon Symphony, was Brazil's first animated feature-length film, produced entirely by Anélio Latini Filho over five years and finished in 1951. Like Disney's "Fantasia," it tells several folk stories over orchestral music. The Brazilian television show "Animania" broadcast several clips of the film. It is currently in the process of restoration.
Pre-Columbian era
Also known as the Omagua, Umana and Kambeba, the Cambeba are an indigenous people in Brazil's Amazon basin. The Cambeba were a populous, organized society in the late Pre-Columbian era whose population suffered steep decline in the early years of the Columbian Exchange. The Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana traversed the Amazon River during the 16th century and reported densely populated regions running hundreds of kilometers along the river. These populations left no lasting monuments, possibly because they used local wood as their construction material as stone was not locally available. While it is possible Orellana may have exaggerated the level of development among the Amazonians, their semi-nomadic descendants have the odd distinction among tribal indigenous societies of a hereditary, yet landless, aristocracy. Archaeological evidence has revealed the continued presence of semi-domesticated orchards, as well as vast areas of land enriched with terra preta. Both of these discoveries, along with Cambeba ceramics discovered within the same archaeological levels suggest that a large and organized civilization existed in the area.
Herrera Period
The region of the Herrea Period and later Muisca Confederation, the Altiplano Cundiboyacense; high plateau of the central Colombian Andes has been inhabited since 12,400 years BP. The earliest evidence for inhabitation (lithic tools) are found in El Abra and Tequendama. This lithic period is roughly defined as from 12,400 to 1000 BCE. Later sites are Aguazuque and Checua.
Amazon River
On 31 July 1867 the government of Brazil, constantly pressed by the maritime powers and by the countries encircling the upper Amazon basin, especially Peru, decreed the opening of the Amazon to all countries, but they limited this to certain defined points: Tabatinga – on the Amazon; Cametá – on the Tocantins; Santarém – on the Tapajós; Borba – on the Madeira, and Manaus – on the Rio Negro. The Brazilian decree took effect on 7 September 1867.
Amazon River
The Amazon River originated as a transcontinental river in the Miocene epoch between 11.8 million and 11.3 million years ago and took its present shape approximately 2.4 million years ago in the Early Pleistocene.
Amazon rainforest
There is evidence that there have been significant changes in Amazon rainforest vegetation over the last 21,000 years through the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and subsequent deglaciation. Analyses of sediment deposits from Amazon basin paleolakes and from the Amazon Fan indicate that rainfall in the basin during the LGM was lower than for the present, and this was almost certainly associated with reduced moist tropical vegetation cover in the basin. There is debate, however, over how extensive this reduction was. Some scientists argue that the rainforest was reduced to small, isolated refugia separated by open forest and grassland; other scientists argue that the rainforest remained largely intact but extended less far to the north, south, and east than is seen today. This debate has proved difficult to resolve because the practical limitations of working in the rainforest mean that data sampling is biased away from the center of the Amazon basin, and both explanations are reasonably well supported by the available data.
North America
North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge approximately 40,000 to 17,000 years ago. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago (the beginning of the Archaic or Meso-Indian period). The Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended in 1492, and the transatlantic migrations—the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the Early Modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kinds of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants.
Central Amazon Ecological Corridor
The Central Amazon Ecological Corridor connects a number of conservation units in the central Amazon region with a combined area of .
The corridor covers parts of the Solimões and Negro river basins, mostly in the state of Amazonas but with a small portion in the state of Pará.
The main urban centers in the corridor are the cities of Manaus, Manacapuru and Tefé.
If indigenous territories are included, over 70% of the corridor was contained in protected areas in 2005.
Archaic period (North America)
In the classification of the , the Archaic period or "Meso-Indian period" in North America, taken to last from around 8000 to 1000 BC in the sequence of North American pre-Columbian cultural stages, is a period defined by the "archaic stage" of cultural development. 
The Archaic stage is characterized by subsistence economies supported through the exploitation of nuts, seeds, and shellfish. As its ending is defined by the adoption of sedentary farming, this date can vary significantly across the Americas.
Amazon Defense Coalition
The Amazon Defense Coalition (Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia) is an Ecuadorian non-governmental organization created on May 16, 1994 and approved by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Social Welfare on June 4, 1998 under ministerial reference #535.
Amazon (1999 TV series)
The drama series focused on the six survivors of a crashed airline flight in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. The group soon comes into contact with a hostile indigenous tribe, the Fierce Ones. They are taken in by a mysterious tribe called the Chosen, who descended from 16th century British colonists who were lost in the rainforest. Relations with the Chosen are tenuous at best. Most of the group escapes the Chosen only to stir up a hornets nest with the cannibalistic Jaguar People, led by an insane Canadian woman bent on domination of all the local tribes. The first season ended in a cliff-hanger, and a second season was never produced. The series retained sufficient interest that it was released on DVD in 2011.
Francisco de Orellana
The indigenous dominated the area close to the Amazon River. When Orellana went down the river in search of gold, descending from the Andes in 1541, the river was still called Rio Grande, Mar Dulce or Rio de Canela ("Cinnamon"), because cinnamon trees were once thought to be located there. The story of the fierce ambush launched by the Icamiabas that nearly destroyed the Spanish expedition was narrated to the king, Charles I, who, inspired by the Greek legend of the Amazons, named the river the Amazon.
Amazon rainforest
In 2010, the Amazon rainforest experienced another severe drought, in some ways more extreme than the 2005 drought. The affected region was approximate of rainforest, compared to in 2005. The 2010 drought had three epicenters where vegetation died off, whereas in 2005, the drought was focused on the southwestern part. The findings were published in the journal Science. In a typical year, the Amazon absorbs 1.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide; during 2005 instead 5 gigatons were released and in 2010 8 gigatons were released. Additional severe droughts occurred in 2010, 2015, and 2016.
Amazon basin
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
Barriles
The Aguas Buenas Period was preceded by the Tropical Forest Archaic (4600-2300 B.C.), which is known from rockshelter sites found outside of the valley. The Concepción Phase (roughly 300 BC to AD 400) was associated with the earliest ceramic using populations in the area, and evidence suggests that populations were low and spatially dispersed, though more sites are known from lower elevations. The Aguas Buenas Period was associated with the development of settlement system containing large villages and small farmsteads. The subsequent Chiriquí Phases (AD 900-1500) witnessed the dissolution of the previous villages, and populations returned to ephemeral and spatially dispersed patterns. This suggests that major population reorganization during the sequence may have been associated with the political and ceremonial rise and decline of Barriles.
Amazon parrot
The genus "Amazona" (to which amazons belong) was established by René Lesson in 1830. It was a Latinized version of the name "Amazone" given to them in the 18th century by the Comte de Buffon, who believed they were native to Amazonian jungles.The taxonomy of the yellow-crowned amazon ("Amazona ochrocephala" complex) is disputed, with some authorities only listing a single species ("A. ochrocephala"), while others split it into as many as three species ("A. ochrocephala", "A. auropalliata" and "A. oratrix"). The split is primarily based on differences related to extension of yellow to the plumage and the colour of bill and legs. Phylogenetic analysis of mtDNA do not support the traditional split.
Amazonas Department
The department name comes from the name of the Amazon River. The river was named by the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana (1511 - 1546), who, on his voyage of exploration, said he was attacked by "fierce females" looked like Amazons of the Greek mythology, however, the existence of a female warrior tribe in that time hasn’t been demonstrated and it is possible that they were long-haired Native American warriors who impressed the conqueror who called the jungle and the river with the name of Amazon.
Amazon rainforest
Following the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the wetter climate may have allowed the tropical rainforest to spread out across the continent. From 66–34 Mya, the rainforest extended as far south as 45°. Climate fluctuations during the last 34 million years have allowed savanna regions to expand into the tropics. During the Oligocene, for example, the rainforest spanned a relatively narrow band. It expanded again during the Middle Miocene, then retracted to a mostly inland formation at the last glacial maximum. However, the rainforest still managed to thrive during these glacial periods, allowing for the survival and evolution of a broad diversity of species.
Amazonas Region
The Amazonas Region has a millennial history. There are some testimonies exhibited on rocky walls dated from the most remote times. Such is the case of the rock paintings of Chiñuña-Yamón and Limones-Calpón in the province of Utcubamba. A part of these haughty pictorial samples was made by people that had a hunting economy. These people perhaps left their trace 6 or 7 thousand years ago. At the times in which the formation of Peruvian civilization was consolidated, it appeared a type of ceramics mainly identified in Bagua.
Amazon River
There is ample evidence that the areas surrounding the Amazon River were home to complex and large-scale indigenous societies, mainly chiefdoms who developed large towns and cities. Archaeologists estimate that by the time the Spanish conquistador De Orellana traveled across the Amazon in 1541, more than 3 million indigenous people lived around the Amazon. These pre-Columbian settlements created highly developed civilizations. For instance, pre-Columbian indigenous people on the island of Marajó may have developed social stratification and supported a population of 100,000 people. In order to achieve this level of development, the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest altered the forest's ecology by selective cultivation and the use of fire. Scientists argue that by burning areas of the forest repetitiously, the indigenous people caused the soil to become richer in nutrients. This created dark soil areas known as "terra preta de índio" ("Indian dark earth"). Because of the terra preta, indigenous communities were able to make land fertile and thus sustainable for the large-scale agriculture needed to support their large populations and complex social structures. Further research has hypothesized that this practice began around 11,000 years ago. Some say that its effects on forest ecology and regional climate explain the otherwise inexplicable band of lower rainfall through the Amazon basin.
Heriberto Gil Martínez
On 1. September 1932 in the early morning hours, Peruvian soldiers took the Colombian town of Leticia, located within the Amazon called Trapeze, which was established by the Treaty of Limits and Navigation "Salomon-Lozano" signed between the two States on March 24, 1922 = and then invaded Tarapacá. This violation of Colombian sovereignty began the war with Peru, better known as the "Conflict Amazon.
Cambeba
The Cambeba people (also known as the Omagua, Umana, and Kambeba) are an indigenous people in Brazil's Amazon Basin. Their territory, when first in contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century, was on the Amazon River upstream from the present-day city of Manaus extending into Peru. They speak the Omagua language. The Cambeba exist today in small numbers, but they were a populous, organized society in the late Pre-Columbian era. Their population suffered steep decline, mostly from infectious diseases, in the early years of the Columbian Exchange.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
In 1541, Spanish "conquistadores" Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana, from Quito, Ecuador, crossed the Andes Mountains and explored the course of the river to the Atlantic Ocean. The indigenous people called this river the "Conoris". The myth of women warriors on the river has spread in the accounts and books, without any popular scope, still making those regions to receive names of warriors of Greek mythology, the Amazons — among them the largest river in the region that became known as the Amazon River. Early publications, as was the style of the day, called the river after its European explorer, the "Orellana".
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
About ten million years ago, waters worked through the sandstone to the west and the Amazon began to flow eastward. At this time the Amazon rainforest was born. During the Ice Age, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake rapidly drained and became a river. Three million years later, the ocean level receded enough to expose the Central American isthmus and allow mass migration of mammal species between the Americas.
Mantaro River
In 1971, an expedition led by the National Geographic Society cited the Apurímac River as the designated headwaters of the Amazon River, with a follow-up expedition in 2000 confirming the connected Lake Ticlla Cocha as the furthest upstream Amazon extension. The definition for the distinction used at the time of survey was based on absolute length which the tributary added to the river, given a continuous and year-round flow of water. With the Tablachaca Dam built in 1974, a portion of the Mantaro River suffers a dry spell for five months of the year, previously excluding it from the list of source eligibility. However, research published in 2014 challenged this existing definition, and used advanced imaging and topographic data to establish the Mantaro as the true longest upstream source feeding into the Amazon Basin. The new measurements add approximately 75–92 km to the original Amazon River length.
Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon
In 1851 William Lewis Herndon, through his cousin, Matthew Fontaine Maury and his connections, was ordered to head an expedition exploring the Valley of the Amazon -- a vast uncharted area. Departing Lima, Peru, 21 May 1851, Lieut. Herndon, Lieut. Lardner Gibbon, and a small party of six men pressed into the wild and treacherously beautiful jungles. They split up and took different routes to gather even more information on this vast area. After a remarkable journey of 4,366 dangerous miles, which took Herndon through wilderness from sea level to heights of 16,199 feet, Herndon reached the city of Pará, Brazil on 11 April 1852. On 26 January 1853 Herndon submitted an encyclopedic and profusely illustrated 414-page report to the Secretary of the Navy John P. Kennedy. The report was later published as "Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon".
Great American Interchange
The occurrence of the interchange was first discussed in 1876 by the "father of biogeography", Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace had spent 1848–1852 exploring and collecting specimens in the Amazon basin. Others who made significant contributions to understanding the event in the century that followed include Florentino Ameghino, W. D. Matthew, W. B. Scott, Bryan Patterson, George Gaylord Simpson and S. David Webb. The Pliocene timing of the formation of the connection between North and South America was discussed in 1910 by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
Amazon river dolphin
The species "Inia geoffrensis" was described by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1817. Originally, the Amazon river dolphin belonged to the superfamily Platanistoidea, which constituted all river dolphins, making them a paraphyletic group. Today, however, the Amazon river dolphin has been reclassified into the superfamily Inioidea. There is no consensus on when and how they penetrated the Amazon basin; they may have done so during the Miocene from the Pacific Ocean, before the formation of the Andes, or from the Atlantic Ocean.
George Simon (artist)
In 2009, Simon, Whitehead, Heckenberger and David Steadman (curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History) undertook a pilot archaeological study of four occupation sites along the Berbice River. Testing of ceramic and organic materials from the sites gave a radiocarbon date of ca. 5000BP (3,000 years BCE). These dates placed the materials among the oldest recovered in the greater Amazonia region. As such, Whitehead explained that the Berbice Archaeology Project (ongoing) promised to "substantially change" current understanding of "long-term human occupation in the tropics, and particularly the important role that Arawakan peoples may have played in that process". Michael Mansoor, chairman of the ANSA Awards' Eminent Persons Panel, said that the project "might cause history books about the pre-Columbian past of the Americas to be radically rewritten".
Amazons
Amazons continued to be discussed by authors of the European Renaissance, and with the Age of Exploration, they were located in ever more remote areas. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River ("Amazonas" in Spanish), naming it after a tribe of warlike women he claimed to have encountered and fought on the Nhamundá River, a tributary of the Amazon. Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon ("Amazônia" in Portuguese, "Amazonía" in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh. Famous medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book:
Herrera Period
The Herrera Period is a phase in the history of Colombia. It is part of the Andean preceramic and ceramic, time equivalent of the North American pre-Columbian formative and classic stages and age dated by various archaeologists. The Herrera Period predates the age of the Muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca and postdates the prehistory of the region in Colombia. The Herrera Period is usually defined as ranging from 800 BCE to 800 CE, although some scholars date it as early as 1500 BCE.
Universal history
The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system. In this system, it follows the Neolithic Age in some areas of the world. In the 24th century BC, the Akkadian Empire was founded. The First Intermediate Period of Egypt (c. 22nd century BC) was followed by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt between the 21st to 17th centuries BC. The Sumerian Renaissance also developed c. 21st century BC. Around the 18th century BC, the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt began. By 1600 BC, Mycenaean Greece developed, the beginning of the Shang Dynasty in China emerged and there was evidence of a fully developed Chinese writing system. Also around 1600 BC, the beginning of Hittite dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean region is seen. From the 16th to 11th centuries BC the New Kingdom of Egypt dominated the Nile Valley. Between 1550 BC and 1292 BC, the Amarna Period developed.
Timeline of Amazon history
This is a timeline of Amazon history, which dates back at least 11,000 years ago, when humans left indications of their presence in Caverna da Pedra Pintada.
Amazon River
During what many archaeologists call the "formative stage", Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of South America's highland agrarian systems. The trade with Andean civilisations in the terrains of the headwaters in the Andes, formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of the higher altitude civilisations of among others the Muisca and Incas. Early human settlements were typically based on low-lying hills or mounds.
Amazon Defense Coalition
The Amazon Defense Coalition was formed in 1994 after a group of 75 indigenous people and farmers brought an environmental clean-up lawsuit against Texaco (consolidated into Chevron Corporation in 2001) in the name of 30,000 Amazonian residents in a region the size of Rhode Island. The case was initially heard in a U.S. court in New York City and then moved to Nueva Loja, Ecuador in 2003. With a 2011 judgement of $18 billion against the oil giant, confirmed in 2013 by the Ecuador Supreme Court, it is potentially the biggest environmental litigation ever brought against a multi-national corporation.
Pará
Cabanagem, a popular and social revolt during the Empire of Brazil, in the Amazon region, was influenced by the French Revolution. It was mainly due to extreme poverty, hunger and disease that devastated the Amazon at the beginning of the period, in the former province of Grão-Pará, which included the current Amazonian states of Pará, Amazonas, Amapá, Roraima and Rondônia. The revolt spread from 1835 until January 1840, due to the process of independence of Brazil (1822), which did not occur immediately in the province due to political irrelevance to which the region was relegated by Prince Regent Pedro I. After independence, the strong Portuguese influence remained stable, giving political irrelevance in this province to the Brazilian central government.
Edmund Bielawski
Edmund Bielawski (or Edmundo Bielawski) was a Polish explorer and documentary film maker. In 1961 during an expedition to American Cordillera, searching for the beginning of the Amazon River, he captured footage of the human headshrinking rituals by the Shuar people. He also made a film about the Amazon River ("Bezkresne horyzonty Amazonii").
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
The Ice Ages caused tropical rainforest around the world to retreat. Although debated, it is believed that much of the Amazon reverted to savanna and montane forest. Savanna divided patches of rainforest into "islands" and separated existing species for periods long enough to allow genetic differentiation (a similar rainforest retreat took place in Africa. Delta core samples suggest that even the mighty Congo watershed was void of rainforest at this time). When the ice ages ended, the forest was again joined and the species that were once one had diverged significantly enough to be constitute designation as separate species, adding to the tremendous diversity of the region. About 6,000 years ago, sea levels rose about 130 meters, once again causing the river to be inundated like a long, giant freshwater lake.
Amazonas Region
With a landscape of steep river gorges and mountains, Amazonas is the location of Kuelap, a huge stone fortress enclosing more than 400 stone structures; it was built on a mountain about 3,000 meters high, starting about 500 AD and was occupied to the mid-16th century. It is one of Peru's major archeological sites.
Amazon River
Eleven to ten million years ago, waters worked through the sandstone from the west and the Amazon began to flow eastward, leading to the emergence of the Amazon rainforest. During glacial periods, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake rapidly drained and became a river, which would eventually become the world's largest, draining the most extensive area of rainforest on the planet.
Professor Challenger
In July 1908 Malone joined Challenger, the 66 year-old Mr Summerlee (c.1842-1925), Professor of Comparative Anatomy, and the explorer and mountaineer Lord John Roxton, third son of the Duke of Pomfret and then in his mid-forties, on an expedition to the Amazon Basin, where Challenger claimed to have observed creatures from the Jurassic Age two years previously. On reaching the mouth of the Amazon River in Pará state the expedition hired local guides and servants Mojo, José, Fernando, Gomez, Manuel and Zambo. From Manaus the expedition continued up-river to reach an unnamed tributary, which they followed by canoe until by late August the explorers arrived in the Guiana Highlands and the great table-top mountain (tepui) that was The Lost World. The expedition camped at the foot of the basalt cliffs of the tepui, which they named Maple White Land in honour of the plateau’s discoverer some four years earlier. The isolated plateau was home to numerous prehistoric animals, previously known only from the fossil record, including pterodactyls, allosaurids, iguanodon and an early species of hominid. A group of indigenous people also occupied the plateau and the explorers aided them to subjugate the predatory ‘ape-men’. The expedition returned to London, bringing with them diamonds worth £200,000. Professors Challenger and Summerlee presented their findings to the Zoological Institute on 7 November 1908 at the Queen’s Hall, Regent Street, London. They claimed to have discovered over 150 new species, some dating from the Early Jurassic.
Amazonian manatee
The Amazonian manatee is a seasonal breeder with a gestational period of 12–14 months and a prolonged calving period. Most births take place between December and July, with about 63% between February and May, during a time of rising river levels in their native region. After the calf is born, it will begin to eat while staying with its mother for 12 – 18 months.
Acre (state)
Since the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land in Acre dating between 0–1250 AD, leading to claims about Pre-Columbian civilizations. The BBC's "Unnatural Histories" claimed that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by man for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening. Ondemar Dias is accredited with first discovering the geoglyphs in 1977 and Alceu Ranzi with furthering their discovery after flying over Acre.
Amazon rubber boom
The South Amerindians first discovered rubber; sometime dating back to 1600BC. The Amerindians in the Amazon rainforest developed ways to extract rubber from the rubber tree ("Hevea brasiliensis"), a member of the Euphorbiaceae family.
John Hemming (explorer)
His experience on the Iriri River expedition led to a heightened interest in Brazilian indigenous peoples. On various expeditions he visited 45 tribes throughout Brazil – four of them (Surui, Parakana, Asurini and Galera Nambikwara) at the time that Brazilian teams made the first-ever face-to-face contact. Over the following 26 years he completed a three-volume history of the indigenous peoples and exploration of Brazilian Amazonia: "Red Gold" (1978), which covers the period 1500–1760; "Amazon Frontier" (1985), covering the period 1760–1910; and "Die If You Must" (2004), which describes their changes during the 20th century. The three volumes add up to over 2,100 pages.
Amazonas (Brazilian state)
There are accounts of Portuguese Carmelite missionaries active in the Solimões area, upstream of the Rio Negro, as early as the 1620s, but permanent settlements weren't established for another 80 years, so the records are nebulous.
The first documented Portuguese foray into upper Amazonia was the expedition of Portuguese explorer and military officer Pedro Teixeira, who followed the great river from the Atlantic Ocean to Quito, Equador with 70 soldiers and 1,200 Indians in forty-seven great canoes (1637–1639). He returned by the same route, arriving back in Belem in 1639. According to the Portuguese, Pedro Teixeira placed a possession marker at the upper Japurá River in 1639. Soon after that the Portuguese "bandeirante" António Raposo Tavares, whose "bandeira", leaving the captaincy of São Vicente travelling overland, reached the Andes, and following the Amazon River, returned to Belém, visiting a total of about , between 1648 and 1651.
Arikareean
The Arikareean North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 30,600,000 to 20,800,000 years BP, a period of . It is usually considered to overlap the Oligocene and Miocene epochs. The Arikareean is preceded by the Whitneyan and followed by the Hemingfordian NALMA stages.
Peruvian Amazonia
The lowland jungle (in Spanish "Selva Baja") is also known as "Omagua region", "Walla", "Anti", Amazonian rainforest or Amazon basin. This ecoregion is the largest of Peru, standing between 80 and 1,000 meters above sea level. It has very warm weather with an average temperature of 28 °C, high relative humidity (over 75%) and yearly rainfall of approximately . Its soils are very heterogeneous, but almost all have river origins. Because of high temperatures and high rainfall, they are poor soils with few nutrients.
Brazil socio-geographic division
Northern Brazil, largely covered by the Amazon rainforest, is the Brazilian region with the largest Amerindian influences, both in culture and ethnicity. Inhabited by diverse indigenous tribes, this part of Brazil was reached by Portuguese and Spanish colonists in the 17th century, but it started to be populated by non-Indians only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exploitation of rubber used in the growing industries of automobiles, has emerged a huge migration to the region.
National Institute of Amazonian Research
The National Institute of Amazonian Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia or INPA) is a public educational and research institution headquartered in Manaus, Brazil. It was founded in 1952, with the purpose of furthering scientific knowledge of the Brazilian Amazon Region. Most of INPA's research focuses on tropical forest management, ecology, molecular ecology, zoology, botany, tropical agriculture and tropical pisciculture. The institution also maintains important vertebrate, invertebrate, and vascular plants research collections.
Alonso de Alvarado
Alonso de Alvarado was the precursor of the expeditions that penetrated the Amazon Basin: he departed from Trujillo, Peru and, crossing the Andes, came in 1535 to the land of the Chachapoyas, where a few years later the city that today is the capital of the department of Amazonas was founded.
Amazonas Region
The Chachapoyas culture developed during the Inca age; these people strongly opposed the Incan conquest and repelled the first Inca attempts to incorporate the region to their empire in the 15th century.