Land-use change and its impact on physical and mechanical properties of Archaeological Black Earth in the Amazon rainforest

•Archaeological black earth under native forest showed better soil structural properties.•Land-use change promotes soil compaction and increases the resistance to compression.•The greatest negative impacts on soil properties occurred for pasture than for pigeon pea.•Land-use change from native forest to pigeon pea promoted an increase in organic carbon.•The pigeon pea land-use has a lower tendency for additional compaction than the pasture. The intense pressure of anthropic actions to change the use and management can promote the degradation of anthropogenic soils with high natural fertility and high content of organic matter such as the Archaeological Black Earths of the Brazilian Amazon. Therefore, this study aimed to quantify the impact of land use and occupation in the Amazon biome on the physical and mechanical properties of Archaeological Black Earth. The research was carried out in the municipality of Novo Aripuanã, in the south of Amazonas State (Brazil), in a Chromic, Pretic, Acrisol with native forest, pasture, and pigeon pea. The soil properties of bulk density, mean weighted diameter, soil resistance to penetration, macroporosity, microporosity, particle size distribution (sand, silt, and clay), water-dispersible clay, flocculation index, total organic carbon, and preconsolidation pressure were assessed in the 0.0–0.1 and 0.1–0.2 m soil layers. Archaeological black earth under native forest showed better soil structural properties such as greater macroporosity and lower bulk density and resistance to penetration. The conversion to other uses promotes soil compaction and increases the resistance to compression. However, the greatest negative impacts on soil properties occurred when the land-use change was for pasture than for pigeon pea. The pigeon pea crop promoted the increase of soil total organic carbon in the 0.0–0.1 m layer. The soil mechanical behavior showed a greater load-bearing capacity in the native forest area for the surface layer than the subsurface layer. The preconsolidation pressure allowed to determine that the pasture land-use has a greater occurrence of compaction and might suffer additional compaction if the applied pressures on the soil during grazing are larger than the higher limit of the confidence interval of load-bearing capacity models when compared to the pigeon pea land-use.