It Happened Centuries Ago: Using GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques to Map the Quilombo dos Palmares

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Remote Sensing in Historical Archaeology (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In Brazil, the largest escaped slave community in the Americas incorporated multiple settlements into a united federation. This was Palmares, named for the palm forests where they sheltered in the Captaincy of Pernambuco. Encompassing nine individual villages at its height in the mid-1600s, this community’s only known settlement has been extensively studied by archaeologists. The remaining eight have not been definitively located. Through using extensive historiography, spatial analysis, and remote sensing techniques, the eight unknown sites of Palmares may be patterned using geographic information science (GIS). Introducing spatial analysis into the current body of Palmares literature will offer new insights and further assist in the archaeological study of subaltern agency and communities. Incorporating qualitative historical and archaeological documentation into quantitative geographic research methods illuminates the potential for integrative archaeological work to impact the study of escaped slave communities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Remote Sensing in Historical Archaeology (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology