In this episode of Urban Nature, Eduardo Góes Neves and Gabriel Kozlowski discuss how archaeology can be a means to understand change in human–natural systems over long timescales. Neves elaborates on the connection between ancient Amazonian societies with large-scale transformations of the natural environment. He emphasizes that what see as pristine forests are, most of the times, anthropic landscapes and, therefore, new attention should be given to the historical human factor in forest settings, which has the power to offer us alternatives models for the development of tropical societies.