When Traditions Are Manufactured, Used and Broken: examples from Tupian contexts in Amazonia.

Summary

One of the most insightful contributions recently put forward by Anthropology and Ethnoarchaeology is related to the concept of the "communities of practice". It is naturally connected to issues such as the relation between language and material culture, transmission, identity, persistence, structure as well as the limits of socially permitted restructuring of practices, and even the possible contingencies which might cause deep change and break the structure and, therefore, Tradition. The objective of this paper is to address these issues within Tupi speaking contexts (i.e. the Tupi-Guarani and other families of this language stock), from the Madeira and Tocantins Rivers, southern Amazonia. The vectors of this discussion are the Polychrome and Tupi-Guarani Traditions, both persistent and geographically broad styles on the pre-Colonial Tropical Forest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Connectivity and Communities of Practice in Lowland South America

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14728