LATE PRE-COLONIAL CIRCULAR VILLAGES IN THE BRAZILIAN STATE OF ACRE

Summary

The archaeology of Acre has been widely drawing the attention of the scientific community due to the discovery of an ancient civilization building geometric earthworks labeled "geoglyphs". In the course of field surveys realized at the geoglyph sites other types of archaeological sites were documented as well, including sites consisting of small artificial earthen mounds arranged in a circular form. At first, the mound sites were also classified as geoglyphs, but through the recent fieldwork it became clear that they represented a distinct type of archaeological site, with features, contents, and functions differing noticeably from the geoglyphs. Initial surveys conducted at sites featuring circles of approximately 1,5 m high mounds around a central open space with a diameter of roughly 100 m, indicated a feasible residential use of the mounds for the late pre-Colonial period. Ethnographic circular villages are known in central Brazil and in southern Amazonia, and are associated with the Gê and Arawak ethno-linguistic groups. In these regions, as well as in central Amazonia, archaeological sites comprising vestiges of circular plaza settlements have been recorded, but until now they were not acknowledged in southwestern Amazonia.

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): 16788