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Why did many Indigenous groups away from Amazon River floodplains live in small dispersed communities?

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Map of South America and the Caribbean showing the distribution of Aboriginal cultural groups, with regions color-coded by cultural type including Andean, Central American, tropical forest, and various nomadic cultures such as aquatic nomads, forest hunters and gatherers, and shellfish gatherers. Major group names are labeled across the continent and surrounding islands. — South American forest Indian Distribution of aboriginal South American and circum-Caribbean cultural groups.

Indigenous groups living away from the Amazon River floodplains traditionally resided in small, widely dispersed communities primarily because of their reliance on hunting and gathering rather than intensive agriculture.1

Unlike the dense, sedentary populations found in the fertile floodplains—where annual silt deposits support intensive farming—the more elevated upland areas possess soils that are generally sandy, acidic, and of low natural fertility. Consequently, these groups practiced small-patch agriculture of low yield, which could not support large, concentrated populations. Instead, they relied on hunting large and small animals and gathering wild fruits, berries, and nuts across vast areas. This seminomadic lifestyle required groups to remain small and dispersed to effectively exploit the available natural resources within their environment.12