Revisiting the Archaeology of a Small Harbor: Cananéia (São Paulo, Brazil), Nineteenth–Twentieth Centuries

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The presentation discusses the results of the author’s PhD dissertation on nineteenth- and twentieth-century harbor sites in Cananéia, São Paulo State, Brazil, a period when the capitalist economy was introduced in the region. From the mid-nineteenth century until 1950, the harbors experienced a subtle but significant transformation that expresses the economic and political changes derived from Brazil’s modernization. These coastal and underwater archaeological contexts herein focus—one stone wharf, a wreck site of a paddlewheel steamship, and two shipyards—have been delimitated with mapping, registering, and extensive surveying using an approximation to Westerdahl’s methodology and the reflection of J. Herrera and M. Chapanoff. This approach is especially important because it includes not only the analysis of ruined, abandoned, and buried remains as archaeological resources but also meanings, beliefs, land/seascapes, structures, equipment, and buildings that are still present in the current social context as active elements. The result of the research was the understanding that two main changes have transformed the economic dynamics of the region: the transition from the boat building and commercial agriculture to industrial fishing and tourism, and the substitution of maritime transportation, first by multimodal river navigation and railroad, and then by road transportation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40043.0