From the First to the Last Amazonian Dark Earths: The Longue-Durée of Landscape Management at the Teotônio Site, Upper Madeira River, SW Amazonia
Author(s): Jennifer Watling; Myrtle Shock; Martín Torres Castro; Eduardo Góes Neves
Year: 2018
Summary
The Teotônio site, situated on the right bank of the Madeira river near Porto Velho, Rondônia, is a key location for understanding the deep history of human-environment interactions and landscape management in southwest Amazonia. Its archaeological record stretches back to the early-mid Holocene and includes vestiges of 6,000-year old Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) belonging to the Massangana Phase, hypothesised as marking the beginning of widespread landscape transformations in the Upper Madeira region. From around 3,000 BP, more intense occupations are visible with the arrival of ceramic-producing groups, while the accumulation of darker ADEs packed with ceramics from ca. 1,000 BP may reflect a peak in site occupation during this period. In this paper, we present new data from on-site and off-site archaeobotanical and palaeoecological analyses currently underway at Teotônio and discuss their preliminary implications for subsistence, land use and climate-vegetation dynamics throughout the site´s rich history.
Cite this Record
From the First to the Last Amazonian Dark Earths: The Longue-Durée of Landscape Management at the Teotônio Site, Upper Madeira River, SW Amazonia. Jennifer Watling, Myrtle Shock, Martín Torres Castro, Eduardo Góes Neves. Presented at The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Washington, DC. 2018 ( tDAR id: 443647)
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Keywords
Geographic Keywords
South America: Amazonia and Orinoco Basin
Spatial Coverage
min long: -76.289; min lat: -18.813 ; max long: -43.594; max lat: 8.494 ;
Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 20817