Shark Remains in Brazilian Coastal Settlements

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Past Human-Shark Interactions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Precolonial Brazilian coastal sites are rich in shark centra and teeth. They are frequently found inside the sediment matrix or as funeral deposits. The presence of shark teeth has been approached from zooarchaeological and ethnohistorical perspectives along with experimental archaeology and use-wear analysis. The Rio do Meio site was used as a study case. The combined methods allow us to infer data about shark fishing techniques and objectives used by native groups, the extraction of shark teeth through the use of heat from flames or hot water, the use of shark teeth as tools, the discard of fragile shark teeth unsuitable for manufacturing objects, the use of shark teeth as projectile tips. Finally, the study of the remains allowed us to reflect on the place and the fishing techniques as well as the processing of shark carcasses and their transport.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Past Human-Shark Interactions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37823.0