Historical ecology of landscape transformations and ceramic industries at the site of Cedro (Lower Tapajós) from pre-colonial to colonial times.

Summary

The presence of demographically dense indigenous societies in the Lower Tapajós River during AD 900-1600 is visible in the present day’s landscape through the existence of Amazonian Dark Earth (ADE), earthworks, and a distinctive ceramic industry. As demonstrated by recent archaeological surveys, landscape transformations and ceramic assemblages associated to the Tapajó chiefdom are widespread at the regional scale and attest to common cultural practices. Although these archaeological sites are found in diverse geographical settings, most of the archaeological research has focused on the site of Santarém, located at the mouth of the Tapajós River and interpreted as the “capital” of the Tapajó chiefdom. This paper aims to present a study of the Cedro site, located on the Belterra plateau (30 km away from the mouth of the Tapajós River) as a regionally significant socio-political center where indigenous people lived and gathered for large-scale ceremonies. For this purpose, it uses ethnohistorical and archaeological data within a historical ecology framework that emphasizes a long-term perspective. In the site of Cedro there are significant landscape transformations and diversity in ceramic industries that could call into question the hegemony of the site of Santarém as the exclusive socio-political center of the Tapajó chiefdom.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Multidisciplinary Approaches to Amazonian landscapes

Keywords

Spatial Coverage