Ethnoarchaeology of Fisherpeople in the Lower Brazilian Amazon: Stability and Change of Riverine Practices

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Stability and Resilience in Zooarchaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the last two decades, archaeological science in the Amazon has recognized the complex human forest management systems that co-constructed a hyper-productive forest environment. The study of how protein procurement strategies, particularly fishing, were integrated into past Amazonian economies has also improved with excavations of a few sites with significant faunal assemblages. This research introduces an exploratory ethnoarchaeological project in the Floresta Nacional de Caxiuanã, Pará, Brazil (lower Amazon), aimed at continuing recent advancements in our knowledge of past Amazonian riverine resource management. I argue that combining the study of archaeological faunal assemblages with ethnographic research on current fishing practices of ribeirinho (riverine) communities can illuminate our reconstruction of sociocultural and environmental change in the Amazon. I present preliminary results describing the faunal assemblages excavated from two archaeological sites, Ibama and Forte, together with baseline data on today’s local fishing practices. Initial zooarchaeological and ethnographic results facilitate the development of hypotheses about past human-animal interactions and about changes in regional practices and dynamics. I propose directions for future archaeological and collaborative research in the Amazon to improve the investigation of past fishing practices so to create a more holistic understanding of Amazonian societies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Stability and Resilience in Zooarchaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37707.0