Apresentação do arqueólogo Eduardo Góes Neves que é professor no Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE) da USP, onde ensina na Graduação e Pós-Graduação, e no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social da Universidade Federal do Amazonas (PPGAS/UFAM).
2. FAST FACTS ABOUT THE AMAZON
* 6,200,000 km2 of drainage covered by different
kinds of forests,
* Discharge of around 18% of the total flow of
fresh water to the world oceans,
* Average water discharge of more than 200,000
m3s-1,
* Sedimentary load oscillating between 1 and 2
billions of tons per year to 614 Mt year-1 at
Óbidos, close to the mouth (Meade, 1994;
Filizola and Guyot, 2009).
3.
4. Brazilian shield
Guiana shield
Amazon trough
Andes
Sub-andean
foreland
Precambrian
Precambrian
Terciary & Quaternary
Miocene
The geological setting of the Amazon Basin
(earth observtory.nasa.gov)
9. CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICA DIVERSITY IN
THE AMAZON BASIN
• ca. 8.500.000 sq. km (larger than the
continental US),
• Includes 9 different countries,
• Area of high biodiversity but also of large
cultural diversity among indigenous
populations,
• Cultural diversity in the present inferred by the
large numbers of languages and language
families,
• Language diversity emerged in the Holocene
without any major physical barriers.
12. SOUTH AMERICA AS A “LABORATORY”
EXCEPT POLYNESIA AND ANTARCTICA, THE LAST
CONTINET OCCUPIED BY H. SAPIENS,
INITIAL OCCUPATION IN THE LATE PLEISTOCENE BY
LIKELY BIOLOGICALLY RELATED AND SMALL FOUNDING
GROUPS,
RAPID SPREAD AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF
DIFFERENT LIFE STYLES.
13. THE “STANDARD MODEL”
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE ON AMAZIAN INDIANS
DEVELOPPED IN THE EARY 1800s THANKS TO
THE INFLUENCE OF VON HUMBOLDT AND
OTHER, MOSTLY GERMAN, SCIENTISTS OF THE
TIME,
CONTRAST BETWEEN THE LARGE LANGUAGE
DIVERSITY AND “BARBARIAN” LIFE STYLES,
F. A. VARNHAGEN (GENERAL HISTORY OF
BRAZIL, 1854): “FOR THESE PEOPLE, THERE IS
NO HISTORY, ONLY ETHNOGRAPHY”.
14. E. DA CUNHA’S TRIP TO THE PURUS RIVER
(1908)
“Nature is magnificent but incomplete. It is an
stupenduous construction lacking interior
decoration. One understands well the reason
why: the Amazon is maybe the youngest part
of the earth ... It has everything and it lacks
everything, because it misses such chain of
phenomena developped under a rigorous
rythm from which result, clearly, the truths of
art and science.”
29. HISTORICAL ECOLOGY
REVALUATION OF EARLY CHRONICLER’S REPORTING,
IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES AD,
LARGE POPULATION AGREGATES ALONG THE
AMAZON,
PRESENCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES IN AREAS
CURRENT COVERED BY MATURE OR “PRISTINE”
FORESTS,
AMAZON FOREST WITH A CULTURAL HISTORY AS
WELL AS WITH A NATURAL HISTORY.
30. HOW VISIBLE IS THE FOOTPRINT OF
ANCIENT AMAZONIANS?
BRIEF REVIEW OF CASE STUDIES:
1) DATA FOR EARLY OCCUPATION,
2) DATA FOR EARLY CERAMIC PRODUCTION,
3) FORMATION OF ANTHROPIC SOILS,
4) EXAMPLES FROM THE UPPER AMAZON,
CENTRAL AMAZON, SOUTHERN AMAZON,
MOUTH OF THE AMAZON AND FRENCH
GUIANA.
74. Aerial view of artificial mounds at the French Guiana
coast (Rostain 2010)
75. Raised fields and Mounds in the Kourou section,
French Guiana Coast (Rostain 2010)
76. SUMMING UP:
THERE WERE INDEED MANY PEOPLE IN THE AMAZON
BEFORE EUROPEAN COLONIZATION,
ANCIENT AMAZONIANS HAD DIFFERENT LIFE
STYLES(CULTURAL DIVERSITY), AND CREATED CULTURAL
LANDSCAPES,
DESPITE “MONUMENTAL EVIDENCE, THERE WERE NO
STATE-LIKE FORMATIONS,
AMAZONIAN ARCHAEOLOGY CAN MAKE AN IMPORTANT
THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE DISCIPLINE.
77. How have archaeologists conceptualized
agriculture in pre-colonial Amazonia?
Ethnographic projection of the “tropical
forest pattern” into the past,
Projection of a “mississipian-inspired”
model of intensification and corn-cultivation
in floodplains.
78. Slash and burn manioc farming, upland highly
mobile model (tropical forest pattern)
79. SO FAR, HOWEVER, THERE IS
SURPRISINGLY VERY FEW
PALEOBOTHANIC EVIDENCE FOR
WIDESPREAD CULTIVATION OF
MANIOC IN THE AMAZON, ALTHOUGH
IT WAS ALREADY MANAGED IN THE
RIO PORCE AREA OF COLOMBIA BY
CA. 6.000 BC.
80. IN THE SAME WAY,
AGRICULTURAL
SYSTEMS WERE
PROBABLY LESS
MOBILE IN THE
PAST, AT LEAST
BECAUSE OF THE
USE OF STONE
AXES.
82. PALMS AS PROXIES FOR MANAGEMENT.
THE ONLY FULLY DOMESTICATED PALM
IN THE AMAZON IS THE PEACH PALM
(Bactris gasipaes),
SEVERALL OTHER PALMS ARE
ECONOMICALLY AND CULTURALLY
IMPORTANT BUT NOT DOMESTICATED.
86. I
IT IS IMPORTANT TO ESTABLISH A
DISTINCTION BETWEEN
DOMESTICATION AND AGRICULTURE,
DOMESTICATION IS VERY OLD IN THE
AMAZON BUT IT IS A PROCESS THAT
DOES NOT NECESSARILY LEADS TO
AGRICULTURE.
87. BECAUSE DOMESTICATION IS A CO-
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS (RINDOS 84),
MAYBE THERE WERE FEW SELECTIVE
PRESSURES FOR AGRICULTURE TO EMERGE,
TIME TO ABANDON THE WORD “INCIPIENT”,
RESOURCES WERE ABUNDANT AND WIDELY
DISTRIBUTED.
90. SUMMING UP:
WHAT LOOK LIKE “TRADITIONAL
PATTERNS” CAN BE QUITE RECENT,
FARMING IS AN IDEOLOGICAL
IMPOSITION,
THE VALUE OF BEING “LAZY”.
91. “TROPICAL” IS NOT A NATURAL CONCEPT
HISTORICALLY IDENTIFIABLE AS WITH THE
CASE OF TROPICAL DISEASES:
MALARIA,
YELLOW FEVER,
DENGUE,
MAYBE AIDS IN THE FUTURE.
92. PRESSURES ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, THE ENVIRONMENT
AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE
(INSTITUTO SOCIOAMBIENTAL 2009)