Institute of Archaeology, University College London

MA Archaeology Dissertation

Research question:

What can ceramic decoration tell us about the pre- and post- colonial past on the

Upper Tapajós River?

Bruna Cigaran da Rocha

Supervisors: Dr. José Oliver, Dr. Manuel Arroyo-Kalin

Degree Coordinator: Dr. Karen Wright

September 2012

i

DECLARATION

This dissertation is the result of my own work. Work done in collaboration is

specifically indicated in the text. Excluding title page, contents pages, lists of

figures and tables, abstract, acknowledgements, bibliography, captions and

contents of tables and figures, appendice, the main text of the dissertation

consists of 15,134 words.

Unless otherwise stated in the reference list, all translations into English were

undertaken by myself. Unless otherwise stated, all photographs were taken by

Vinicius Honorato de Oliveira or by myself. Unless otherwise indicated, all

illustrations are my own.

ii

What can ceramic decoration tell us about the pre- and post- colonial past on

the Upper Tapajós River?

Bruna Cigaran da Rocha

Abstract

The aim of this research, conducted in an as yet little known area of the Brazilian Amazon, is

to provide a first step in inserting the archaeology of the Upper Tapajós River, in the

southwest of Pará state, into the wider regional context. Its focus is on the analysis of ceramic

decoration from pottery collected from sites worked on, and its subsequent comparison to that

of adjacent areas and to the wider region. Following an overview of theoretical concepts and

tendencies pursued in the Brazilian Amazon, two distinct traditions are identified through

comparisons of pottery from other areas and consultation of historical accounts, and

interactions between their producers are postulated. This opens up a series of questions to be

investigated in the future.

Key words: Amazonian Archaeology, Tapajós River, Mangabal, Pimental, forest peoples,

Incised Punctuate tradition, Munduruku indians.

iii

Acknowledgements

This dissertation is the product of a trajectory that began six years ago. The project was made

possible because of the help of many individuals. I only hope to do justice to their efforts.

Eduardo Góes Neves welcomed me into his team and has been an unwavering source of

optimism and encouragement, providing me with intellectual guidance and the motivation to

“make indigenous history” throughout the years I have known him. I cannot thank him

enough.

I will always be grateful to Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, who recommended I study

archaeology, and who I admire for her commitment to the cause of the rights of forest

peoples in Brazil.

I thank friends of the Central Amazon Project and Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,

who introduced me to Amazonian Archaeology in practice and shared experiences with me

that will always be cherished: Carla Gibertoni, Tereza Parente, Helena Pinto Lima, Marcos

Brito, Fernando Costa, Bernardo Lacale, Márcio Castro, Thiago Trindade, Jaqueline Belletti,

Eduardo Kazuo Tamanaha, Márjorie Lima, Leandro Camilo, Guilherme Mongeló and Agda

Sardinha.

The staff at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology’s Library at the University of São

Paulo, in particular Hélio Rosa de Miranda and Eleuza Gouveia, always bent over backwards

to help me.

Marcos Brito Castro digitalised our excavation profile drawings beautifully. Vinicius

Honorato created the other maps used here. Denise Gomes allowed me to reproduce images

from her book, Cotidiano e Poder na Amazônia Pré-Colonial, for which I am most grateful.

Klaus Hilbert assisted me immensely by scanning and sending me Peter Hilbert’s articles.

Francisco Pugliese was generous with his time and advice. Fernando and Dani, thank you for

your help in so many ways. Malu Camargo, I really appreciate your assistance. Daniel

Frechoso, thank you for rescuing my dissertation from the computational void!

I greatly value Fabíola Andrea Silva’s and Francisco Noelli’s encouragement and support of

our research on the Tapajós. You have set a high intellectual and ethical standard to be

followed.

Moving to the Tapajós, I am eternally indebted to Maurício Gonsalves Torres, our very own

Rei da Selva, who has dedicated his life to justice for forest peoples. Thank you for taking us

to Mangabal and providing us with the logistical support, good humour and critical

perspective we needed. This project wouldn’t have existed without you.

Eduardo Neves and Fernando Ozorio de Alemeida, thank you for agreeing to coordinate the

Projeto Alto Tapajós. Thank you to those who made up the team: Eduardo Kazuo Tamanaha,

Márjorie Lima, Leandro Camilo, and Gilmar Henriques. I am extremely grateful to Rosanna

Delellis and to Alfixit for pledging to support the project. Natália Guerrero kindly revised our

first report to the IPHAN.

iv

The people of Mangabal and Pimental who received and fed us, and took us to the sites in

their territories will forever be in my thoughts. Two strong women of the Tapajós, Odila

Braga and Gabriela Maria Bibiana da Silva symbolise the dignity of forest peoples and a way

of life that must be fought for. Pedro Braga da Silva, Raimundo Colares dos Santos,

Francisco Firmino da Silva, Solimar Ferreira dos Anjos, Josué Lobato Cirino and Teófilo

Braga Cirino took us to archaeological sites in 2010, when we stayed with Nildete Cardoso,

Raimundo Colares and at the Machado community. In 2011 we stayed with Dona Odila,

Pedro, Conceição, Odon and Tayrine at Sapucaia in Mangabal, and Pedro worked with us at

the Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site, to where he transported us every day.

Edmilson Ribeiro Azevedo and his son Dedê, Eudeir Francisco da Silva Azevedo, worked

with us on some days at the Pajaú site, introduced us to their grandmother and took us to the

historic site of the rubber period near Pimental, where we stayed with Marinildo de Sousa

Robertino, his wife Bete and their family. Geizy Carla Ribeiro Azevedo donated the

projectile point her son found among the rocks to us: thank you.

I am beholden to Denise Pahl Schaan for support in Santarém, by allowing the material we

collected to be stored, washed and analysed at the Curt Nimuendaju lab, whose team made

our stay so productive and enjoyable. Márcio Amaral, thank you for the friendly reception

and exchange of ideas. I hope this is just the beginning of a long collaboration. I similarly

thank Gizelle Morais and Cristiane Martins for the goodwill shown.

Still in Santarém, our good friends Anne and Claide helped us in every possible way they

could; I hope we can one day return their generosity. Rogério Andrade dos Santos dedicated

time and care to the analysis of the pottery, with Claide’s help, making all the difference to

this research. I am thankful to Ítala Nepomuceno and Cândido Neto da Cunha for the

hospitality. Muito obrigada.

In Itaituba, our stay was made infinitely more interesting and comfortable by Juan Doblas

Prieto, Maite Guedes, Bárbara Campello Silva and Leidiane Brusnello.

In London, the Institute of Archaeology’s Master’s Award made a huge financial difference.

My lecturers during the MA course were fantastic: Arlene Rosen, Bill Sillar, Todd Whitelaw,

Karen Wright, Norah Moloney and Patrick Quinn. José Oliver and Manuel Arroyo Kalin, my

supervisors at the Institute, have given me all the support, reassurance, guidance, critique,

ideas, suggestions, comments and good humour I could possibly hope for, and more. I am

privileged to have you as my orientadores. Gracias, professores!

And finally, my overwhelming expression of gratitude is to my family. My brother and sister,

Camilo and Ali, have constantly cheered me on and believed in me, along with my sister-in-

law, Juliana. Thank you to Lourdes for your care and affection. To my parents-in-law, Lúcio

and Hulda, I greatly appreciate your endorsement and encouragement. To my parents Jan and

Plauto, I am grateful for the love, support and sense of what is right. To Vinicius – husband,

friend and companion who has accompanied me from the beginning of my archaeological

career, and who partook in every stage of this project – which is yours as much as it is mine –

the biggest thank you of all.

v

Contents

1. Introduction 1

Portuguese and Brazilian Colonisation of the Tapajós River 3

Background to archaeological research in the area 5

2. The role of ceramics in Amazonian Archaeology 8

Horizons, traditions, phases and related concepts used to determine cultural units 11

The Incised Punctuate Tradition 12

Decoration vs. form 13

Justification for focus of research 14

3. Beiradeiros, cachoeiras and terra preta 16

Introduction 16

Characterisation of the area 17

Methodology: survey, site delimitation and excavation 19

Montanha and Mangabal 20

Ponta do Jatobá archaeological site 23

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site 24

Survey along the Transamazon highway 26

Boa Vista archaeological site 27

Cocalino archaeological site 27

Pimental 28

Pajaú archaeological site 30

The Aracy-Paraguaçu museum in Itaituba 30

Conclusion 31

4. Pottery from the Upper Tapajós and beyond 32

Methods of ceramic analysis 32

Results 34

Terra Preta do Mangabal pottery 34

Pajaú pottery 36

Cocalino pottery 37

Discussion 38

Comparisons to ceramic decoration from the wider region 39

The pottery of Parauá, Lower Tapajós 39

The Tapajós-Trombetas area 40

Santarém pottery 40

Pottery from the Madeira basin 44

Pottery from the Xingu basin 45

Pottery from the Orinoco basin 47

Interpretation of results 48

Pajaú and Cocalino 48

Terra Preta do Mangabal 49

5. Conclusion 52

Bibliography 54

Appendix Annexes 1-11

Plates 1-9

vi

List of figures

1 Advert by Queiroz Galvão 3

2 Agate arrowhead found on the beach at Itaituba by Barbosa Rodrigues 5

3 Funerary urns from the Cururú River 6

4 Arrowheads from the Upper Tapajós 6

5 Map showing rivers mentioned in text 7

6 Nimuendaju’s Ethno-historical map 8

7 Distribution of sites representing the four horizon styles 10

8 Examples of the Incised Puntuate Tradition according to Lathrap 13

9 Pedro taking Vinicius and I to work on the Terra Preta do Mangabal site in his boat 16

10 Odila Braga in her kitchen with some of the ground stone axes she had collected 20

11 Pedro carrying a paneiro loaded with bananas 20

12 Josué preparing his roça to be planted with manioc 20

13 Sites identified in Montanha and Mangabal in 2010 21

14 Ceramic vessel found in the river by a diving gold miner 21

15 Josué and Bruna observe the surface of a campo area integrating the TPM site 21

16 Galdino: Francisco examines pottery fragments strewn in front of his home 21

17 Maloquinha: contrast between anthropogenic soil containing pottery and natural soil 22

18 Maloquinha: detail of rim within anthropogenic soil 22

19 Maloquinha: Francisca da Silva scrutinises ceramic pots buried in front of her house 22

20 Mangueira: ground stone axe and pottery 22

21 Buried urn (?) and ceramic fragments at Praia Chique 23

22 Buried urn (?) and ceramic fragments at Os Quirino 23

23 The Ponta do Jatobá community and archaeological site 24

24 Auger hole at The Ponta do Jatobá 24

25 Terra Preta do Mangabal: view to Tapajós River 24

26 Terra Preta do Mangabal: view from the campo area to Mangabal rapids 24

27 Terra Preta do Mangabal: the steep ascent up to the site 25

28 Terra Preta do Mangabal: marking out the grid 25

29 Terra Preta do Mangabal: midden/mound 26

30 Terra Preta do Mangabal: auger hole 26

31 Terra Preta do Mangabal: drawing one of the profiles of unit N1000 E1074 26

32 Boa Vista: Vinicius augering with Tapajós in background 27

33 Boa Vista: auger hole 27

34 Cocalino: general view of the site 27

35 Cocalino: auger hole 27

36 Pimental: Dona Gabriela and descendants 28

37 Pimental: view to the community from the river 28

38 Pimental: Geizy Carla Ribeiro Azevedo's son and siblings with biface 28

39 Bifacial lance head by Claide de Paula Moraes 28

40 Pimental port, with view to Bananal Island 28

41 Vinicius and Marinildo augering dark earth area 29

42 Non-anthropogenic? dark earth 29

43 Pottery located on Bananal Island, in front of Pimental 29

44 The barracão seringueiro at Pimental 29

45 View to Pajaú site 30

46 Pajaú: Edmilson cuts back thick vegetation so that the site can be delimited 30

47 Pajaú: yellow flags mark pottery fragments on the surface 30

48 Aracy-Paraguaçu museum: wooden anthropomorphic artefacts 31

vii

Cont.

49 Aracy-Paraguaçu museum: polished and ground stone axes and adzes 31

50 Aracy-Paraguaçu museum: silex projectile point 31

51 Lower Tapajós: Pottery from the Lago do Jacaré site, Parauá 39

52 Ceramic vessels from Santarém collected by Nimuendajú for Gothenburg Museum 41

53 Nhamundá-Trombetas: Pottery from the Erepecurú River and Sapuquá Lake 41

54 Nhamundá-Trombetas: Typical elements of Konduri style decoration 42

55 Hollow rims in profile 44

56 Madeira: Pottery from the Itapirema archaeological site 45

57 Xingu: Decorated rims & Arauquinoid-like adorno 46

58 Xingu: Sherd from Lower Iriry and rim found in Altamira 47

59 Orinoco: Pottery from the Valloid series 47

60 Hércule Florence watercolours of the Munduruku 49

61 Incised decoration on sherd found at the TPM site 49

62 Map produced by William Chandless (1862) 50

63 Engraving of Munduruku tattoos 50

List of tables and charts

Percentages of pottery from each site 33

Quantities of pottery from TPM 34

Quantities of pottery from Pajaú 36

Quantities of pottery from Cocalino 37

Overall characteristics of pottery analysed 39

Comparison between Santarém and Konduri pottery 43

1

What can ceramic decoration tell us about the pre- and post- colonial

past on the Upper Tapajós River?

1. Introduction

Archaeology has a vital, urgent role to play in constructing an alternative idea in the popular

imaginary about Amazonia, its people, and their past. Written records for the area under

investigation – the Upper Tapajós River, south-western Pará state in the Brazilian Amazon –

only began after two centuries of conquest, by which time the demographic collapse of

Amerindian populations was well underway (Denevan 1992). This dissertation is an initial

step in what we hope will be a long term archaeological research project in this region. As

such, more questions will be asked than answered.

On travelling to Montanha and Mangabal on the Upper Tapajós River in March 2010, our

expectation was to find pottery similar to the painted wares identified by Almeida (2008) in

south-eastern Amazonia, associated by him to Tupian groups. Linguistic and archaeological

theories postulate that groups belonging to the Tupi language stock would have traversed the

Upper Tapajós region from their centre of origin – thought to lie around the upper reaches of

the Madeira basin (Miller 1983) –, towards the east (Almeida 2008, Brochado 1984, Urban

1992). However, what we have found instead – so far – is quite different, and apparently

much more recent (I say apparently because we have yet to date the sites worked on).

In this dissertation I will attempt to relate the pottery of these sites, located in the

municipality of Itaituba, to a wider context by comparing the decorative patterns found on

their ceramics to those of adjacent areas (fig. 5). My justification for this can be found in the

following chapter, where I will situate this research within a wider theoretical framework

related to the role of ceramics in Amazonian archaeology. In the second chapter I will narrate

the two field expeditions undertaken and present their findings. Chapter three will present the

pottery collection analysed and compare its decorative patterns to those of adjacent regions,

after which I offer an interpretation of my findings; ethnohistorical literature has also been

consulted towards this end. Following this, some concluding remarks will be made.

2

We originally reached Montanha and Mangabal thanks to our friend Maurício Torres – a

geographer working for local communities’ land rights in the Brazilian Amazon.1 Maurício’s

research had been focussed on proving the beiradeiros (“riverbank dwellers”) of Mangabal

had legitimate claim to their territories, which they had historically occupied since the

nineteenth century (Torres 2008), but from which they were being threatened with expulsion

by landgrabbers from the south of the country. He demonstrated the longevity of the

communities in the area through their profound knowledge of their territories and its

environment, inherited from their Amerindian forebears; he also scoured historical

documents that could have recorded names of the present beiradeiros’ ancestors. Although

the beiradeiros are still there, their way of life is now being threatened by a far more

powerful force: the Brazilian Federal Government and a yet-to-be-defined consortium of state

and privately owned companies, which plan to build a series of hydroelectric dams on the

Tapajós.

1. The advert to the left, published in 1971, announces the “first”

birth of a child “in that brave new world we are helping to build…

in the greatest green space on the planet. Where only forests

existed. And legends. Myth and fear”. The then military

government’s program of “integration” of the Amazon, to be

facilitated by the opening up of the Transamazon Highway,

promised "a land without people for people without land" (Torres

et al. 2005).

The child, Transamazônico, was born “exactly where we are

beginning. Or rather, where Brazil is being discovered again”.

In: Torres 2008, 287.

There is something in common between the assumptions of the landgrabbers and of the

government; they are based on the premise that this is an empty space, a place without history

(fig. 1). Forest peoples are perceived to be impoverished and uncultured, people who do not

1 Hereafter, Montanha and Mangabal will be collectively referred to as Mangabal.

3

have a past, a stock of reserve labour waiting for “development” to turn them into workers, if

they are lucky. This situation, a re-edit of the last 500 years of Brazilian history, is repeated

along similar lines throughout the Amazon today.

Before I proceed, some background on the colonial history of the area in question is needed,

followed by a summary of the archaeological research conducted near the Upper Tapajós to

date.

Portuguese and Brazilian Colonisation of the Tapajós River

Up until the nineteenth century, sources referring to indigenous groups around the Lower

Tapajós River were invariably written by missionaries or colonial officials. Irrespective of

their Christian, European and male perspective, their observations provide us with glimpses

of this period and the Amerindian peoples with whom they engaged. These and later sources

suggest a high demographic density for the Lower Amazon and Tapajós, given the great

quantity of ethnonyms recorded (Menèndez 2006 [1992] 281).

In the sixteenth century, Gaspar de Carvajal’s (1941 [1546]) account of the expedition led by

Francisco de Orellana in 1541-2 introduces us to the female warriors who would give the

Amazon River its name, near the mouth of Nhamundá River, and describes the volley of

poisoned arrows that greeted the explorers – one of whom died within 24 hours of being

struck – fired by the Tapajó, thought to be the producers of the famous ceramics from

Santarém.

The following century is represented by a greater number of written sources. The missionary

João Felipe Bettendorf (1910 [1693-1699]) located several indigenous groups along the

banks of the middle Amazon River, and depicted their subsistence practices and interethnic

contact and trade (Menèndez 2006 [1992], 294). Visiting the Tapajó in 1661, the Jesuit

required a translator to communicate with them: this indicates that, unlike many of their

neighbours, their language did not belong to the Tupi language stock, since Bettendorf spoke

the língua geral based on Tupi (In: Nimuendaju 1952, 6). Another aspect of note relates to

observed burial practices. Narrating his travels with Pedro Teixeira two decades on, the judge

Heriarte (1662) wrote that the Konduris on the north bank of the Amazon had similar forms

of government, analogous ceremonies and worshipped the same “idols” as the Tapajó (In:

Guapindaia 2008, 14). He also noted that the Tapajó practiced endocannibalism, consuming

the ashes of their deceased (In: Nimuendaju 1952, 7).

4

It appears that the Tapajó and their neighbours, the Tupinambaranas, were expanding their

dominion along the Lower Tapajós until the mid-seventeenth century (Menèndez 2006, 282).

Contact with Europeans however resulted in “subjection, slavery and movement of groups”

(Menèndez 2006, 282); the Tupinambaranas were extinct by the end of that century. Ruthless

Portuguese colonial agents forced the Tapajó to raid other groups for captives (see Acuña

1894 [1641]). Portuguese violence allied to devastating Old World diseases meant it was only

a matter of time before the Tapajó were also wiped out. Living with members of other groups

in mission settlements, survivors would lose their identities. “Some being captive, others

having fled, the rest having been led to death, this beautiful tribe was extinguished, leaving its

memory perpetrated in the name of the Amazon [Valley’s] most beautiful river”, the

naturalist Barbosa Rodrigues lamented a century later (1875, 130).

Just as the Tapajó had been feared along the Lower Tapajós, upstream, the Munduruku2

“headhunters” (Murphy 1958) terrorized other ethnic groups and Christian missions

downstream from the 1770s (Ribeiro Sampaio 1825 [1775] In: Menèndez 2006 [1992], 284).

The Munduruku language family belongs to the Tupi language stock. Barbosa Rodrigues

(1875, 130) writes that the dwindling Tapajó could not resist their incursions. From this we

can infer a degree of interaction between them. This also demonstrates how the demographic

collapse downstream resulted in greater mobility of groups such as the Munduruku (F. Noelli,

pers. comm. 30/08/2011).

The upper course of the Tapajós River was to remain terra incognita to the white man until

the eighteenth century (Menèndez 2006 [1991], 286), only being navigated in its entirety by a

member of colonial society (a miner called João Sousa de Azevedo) in 1748 (Tocantins 1877,

76). It is still difficult to ascertain the degree to which the effects of colonisation – in the form

of disease, warfare and slave raiding – were felt further upstream following conquest. The

Munduruku today have in memory the first approach made by a white man into their

territories in the hinterland campinas (grasslands). The man was Antônio Gonçalves

Tocantins, who visited the Munduruku in 1875 and published a report of his expedition,

detailing his trajectory and Munduruku customs (1877). In 2004 a Munduruku man was

recorded stating that “Antonio Tocantins was the first white [to come]. He left salt, machetes,

hoes, [metal] axes. The Munduruku would take these things and grow to like them. Then they

2 Their self-denomination is in fact Wuy jugu. The name Munduruku comes from the eighteenth century, when

the Parintintins, their enemies, called them Munduruku: “red ants”, because of their aggressive raids against

rivals. (Ramos 2003. In: http://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/povo/munduruku/794)

5

became very ill. The white man brought measles and many people died” (In: PPTAL 2008,

40). By the late nineteenth century, a number of Europeans and Brazilians were navigating

the Tapajós, which would have resulted in the spread of diseases to hinterland areas.

This increased Euro-Brazilian presence along the river was due to the arrival of the

Portuguese Court in Brazil. Having fled from the Napoleonic wars, the monarch Dom João

VI opened Brazilian ports to friendly nations, thus unleashing a wave of scientific expeditions

throughout the territory. Some of these would travel down the Tapajós, navigating its entire

length from its tributaries in Mato Grosso. Through the watercolours of Hércule Florence, the

Russian Empire’s Langsdorff expedition (1820s) would deliver a fascinating register of the

places passed, its people and plants. The explorer William Chandless (1862) would describe

the peoples he encountered, their economic activities and other geographical and botanical

aspects of interest. Coming from the other end of the river, Barbosa Rodrigues (1875) got as

far as Montanha in 1872, before ill health forced him to return to Itaituba. The

aforementioned Tocantins (1877) left Belém with the express motive of visiting Munduruku

territories. Henri Coudreau (1895) was commissioned by Lauro Sodré, the state of Pará’s

Governor, to undertake a scientific survey along the river. By this time, occupation of the

area by national society was underway, and the extraction of latex from rubber trees had

become a profitable enterprise for rubber barons, who exploited the labour of northeastern

migrants lured to the area with promises of wealth, only to be exposed to conflict with

Amerindian groups and treated as slave labour. The account by Raimundo Pereira Brasil

(1910), one of the rubber lords of the Tapajós, elucidates the fast changes underway at the

time. He remarks how Munduruku indians living the Bacabal mission further upstream

“…were made to work. They died in great numbers” (1909, 62).

Background of archaeological research in the area

2. Agate arrowhead found on the beach at Itaituba. Reproduced from Barbosa Rodrigues

1876, Plate II.

The Brazilian naturalist Barbosa Rodrigues (1876) observed that the rocks along the river

near the port of Boburé had been used as “workshops” in the fabrication of ground stone

6

axes; he also found an arrowhead made of agate (fig. 2), on the beach in front of the village

of Itaituba (1876, 111-112).

In the 1920s Nimuendaju (2004, 124) noted remains of funerary urns “in the square of the

intendancy at Itaituba”; where he also collected some sherds (2004, Plate 177). In the 1950s,

Protásio Frikel, a Franciscan friar stationed at the São Francisco do Cururú mission on the

Upper Tapajós, disinterred ceramic funerary urns and sent them to archaeologist P. Hilbert at

the Goeldi Museum in Belém (fig. 3). They were found within a dark earth layer without an

apparent pattern in their disposition (Hilbert 1957, 3). The Munduruku indians with whom

the friar conversed stated that the urns were pariwat tï a – pots belonging to other, “foreign”

indians; the Munduruku do not practice secondary burial (1957, 11).

3. “Funerary urn with lid improvised by three pot sherds, used to bury a child”; “Composite funerary urn: A,

the urn proper; B and C: base sherds used as lids; D: pot fragments substituting base”. Adapted from Hilbert

1957, 4-5.

In 1976, Simões would publish a brief description of two arrowheads donated to geologists

travelling along the river (fig. 4). Roosevelt et al. (1996) would revisit these projectile points

twenty years on, although they incorrectly attributed their provenance to the Lower Amazon

(1996, 375).3 They wrote that their morphology and the technique used in their manufacture –

“continuous pressure retouching, well-articulated stems, and down-turned wings” linked

them to late Pleistocene triangular points of eastern South America (1996, 375).

4. A: hyaline quartz arrowhead found on Upper Tapajós’ left margin, below Chacorão rapid; B: silex arrowhead

found at cassiterite mine called “Grota do Caçaba” located at headwaters of Tucano stream, which flows into

the Mutum, a tributary on the right margin of the Upper Tapajós. (Adapted from Roosevelt et al. 1996, 373).

3 The locations at which the arrowheads were found are in the Upper Tapajós area.

7

Under the National Program of Archaeological Research of the Amazon Basin

(PRONAPABA), Celso Perota surveyed sites along the Transamazon Highway in the late

1970s between Itaituba and Jacareacanga (Simões 1978-1982, 57-60). Near Itaituba he found

anthropogenic dark earth and pottery decorated with polychrome painting, incisions and

excisions. Other sites contained funerary urns and lithics. He attributed some of the pottery to

the Incised Punctuate Tradition. However, no further details have been located about these

finds.

Sites have also been registered along the Transamazon Highway to the east of the Tapajós,

containing anthropogenic dark earth (Kern 2003, 63). More recently, the Federal University

of Pará’s Centre for Archaeology has also been working along the Transamazon (Martins

2010, 2012 and forthcoming) under the coordination of Denise Schaan, in the municipalities

of Itaituba and Rurópolis. It is hoped that we will be able to compare data in order to begin

building a fuller panorama of the region’s Amerindian past.

5. Rivers referred to in the text. Map by Vinicius Honorato, adapted from Natural Earth online

website: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

8

2. The role of ceramics in Amazonian Archaeology

The culture historical framework has dominated the study of Amazonian archaeology during

the twentieth century, and still does today, albeit with increasing revision and critique. The

inescapable fact that languages belonging to the same stock or family have dispersed

throughout lowland South America is evidence of communication networks or migration

having taken place in the past, as can be seen in Nimuendaju‟s 1944 ethno-historical map

below (fig. 6).

6. Reproduced from Nimuendaju 1944.

9

Edited by Julian Steward, the Handbook of South American Indians (1940-1947) is a

testament to this approach. Based on technology and perceived socio-political complexity,

the volumes addressed the “Marginal Tribes”; the “Tropical Forest Tribes”, the “Circum-

Caribbean Tribes” and the “Andean Civilizations”. In volume 3, Robert Lowie (1948)

outlined the characteristic traits of “The Tropical Forest Tribes”: cultivation of tropical root

crops (in particular, bitter manioc); effective river craft; the use of hammocks; and the

manufacture of pottery (1948, 1).

This understanding of culture as “a structurally and functionally stable entity with „hard‟

spatial boundaries (i.e., the concept of culture area)” has been surpassed in recent decades (J.

Oliver, pers. comm. 11/09/2012). Projections into the past based on ethnographic

observations (the direct historical approach) of Amerindian groups who, in effect, were

survivors of unparalleled demographic collapse (Denevan 1992) are likewise untenable. In

spite of these acknowledged problems and shortcomings, vols. 1 and 3 were and can still be a

useful starting point for anthropologists and archaeologists working in Amazonia.

The theme of environmental determinism would permeate discussions on human adaptability

in the Amazon for decades to come (e.g. Lathrap 1970; Meggers 1971; Roosevelt 1980).

Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans of the Smithsonian Institution favoured Leslie White‟s

(1949) materialist approach in particular. Because they headed Brazil‟s National Program of

Archaeological Research in the Amazon Basin (PRONAPABA) and trained a generation of

Brazilian archaeologists, this theoretical approach would set the agenda of Brazilian

archaeology for decades to come.

Borrowing the Horizon-Style concept Kroeber (1944) had applied to the Andean area,

Meggers, Evans and associates compiled a panorama of Amazonian archaeology based

primarily on ceramic decoration (Meggers and Evans 1961, 373). They interpreted their

results as demonstrating four distinct and successive cultural influences (1961, 381), all of

which originated outside Amazonia.

10

7. Distribution of sites representing the four horizon styles. 1: the zoned-hachure horizon style; 2: the incised-

rim horizon style; 3: the polychrome horizon-style; 4: the incised-and-punctuate horizon style. The arcs

designate the postulated area of origin and the arrows show the suggested direction of spread (Adapted from

Meggers and Evans 1961, 375-380).

From oldest to most recent, the horizons defined (fig. 7) were:

1) the Zoned Hachured Horizon Style, dated at approximately 500 BC (Meggers and

Evans 1961, 382) in which “the use of broad line incision to outline areas that are

filled with fine, parallel strokes or crosshatching” was often combined with painting

“in the form of a red band at the rim or bands on the body of the vessel” (Meggers and

Evans 1961, 375);

2) the Incised Rim Horizon Style, dated from around Anno Domini (1961, 382). Its

diagnostic elements were “a broad, flat-topped rim produced by interior thickening,

giving a heavy, trianguloid cross section… [the] rim surface is usually decorated,

typically with rather broad, incised lines… red paint or red slip was used to cover the

exterior and/or interior surface of some vessels (1961, 378);

3) the Polychrome Horizon style, dating from c. AD 600 (1961, 382), identified by “a

white slip and polychrome (red-and-black-on-white) painting… [and] relatively

complex techniques”, such as “excision, incision retouched with red or white before

firing, and grooving. Incision or excision on a red slipped or white slipped surface is

also characteristic, whereas in all the other horizon styles the decorated surface is

typically unslipped” (1961, 379), and finally;

4) the Incised and Punctuate Horizon Style, dating from AD 1000 (1961, 382),

characterised by “the use of incision, punctuation and modelling in several consistent

1 2

3

4

11

ways and for convenience it has been named for the most universal trait, a

combination of incision and punctuation as alternating elements” (1961, 381).

Horizons, traditions, phases and related concepts used to determine cultural units

It was contemplated that the aforementioned traits had been rapidly diffused, which is why

they were named horizons. Twenty years later however, Meggers and Evans would be

referring to “traditions” instead of “horizons” (1983 [1978]), recognising that there had been

greater time-depth involved in the spread of traits than they had originally postulated. They

used Willey and Phillips (1958) definition of a tradition as “a (primarily) temporal continuity

represented by persistent configurations in single technologies or other systems of related

forms” (1958, 37, italics in original). Meggers and Evans (1983 [1978], 290) equated

“traditions” with the “series” concept first employed in Venezuela and the Caribbean by

Cruxent and Rouse (1958).

At the other end of the temporal and geographical scale, a “complex” was the local

chronological unit (Boomert 2000, 4), often referred to as “phase” in Brazil. Willey and

Phillips defined a “phase” as “an archaeological unit possessing traits sufficiently

characteristic to distinguish it from all other units similarly conceived… spatially limited to

the order of magnitude of a locality or region and chronologically limited to a relatively brief

interval of time” (1958, 22, italics in the original). Given the requirement of relatively short

temporal spans, phases were defined by the PRONAPABA by means of Fordian seriation

methods (Ford 1954). Temper was the principal attribute in developing their taxonomic

classification.

The creation of new phases seems almost to have become an end in itself; Schaan (2007)

writes that phases would become a “straight jacket, stopping other relevant questions beyond

pottery from being studied” (2007, 78). It was often assumed that phases equated

ethnolinguistic groups. Migration from external locations became the automatic explanation

for perceived change in pottery characteristics (Schaan 2007, 78).

Notwithstanding, Meggers and Evans‟ so-called “Experimental Formulation” is still with us

today and continues to provide a guiding framework for archaeologists working in the region,

although phases and traditions established by the PRONAPABA are being revised throughout

the Brazilian Amazon. For instance Schaan exemplifies how, by allying data on ceramic

12

decoration to other factors – settlement patterns and technological attributes – she was able to

reach a different conclusion about cultural changes on the island of Marajó (2007, 2004),

which were not solely a result of migration from outside Amazonia. Similarly, Lima (2008)

has argued for contextualising ceramic data – which does not mean scrapping everything that

came before. Lima‟s contextualisation in fact drove her to split the Manacupuru phase

established by P. Hilbert (1968) into two phases, Manacupuru and Açutuba (2006), the latter

being found deeper in the stratigraphy, prior to the formation of dark earth. Classification is

integral to scientific activity, so that patterns and groupings can be understood (Schaan 2007,

87-88). The creation of typologies and groupings are a means to an end, instruments to aid us

in reconstructing historical contexts (2007, 88). However, Lima (2008) herself has proposed a

flexibilisation of these categories, acknowledging that the limits of such archaeological units

will never be reached, because the mechanisms involved in the establishment, maintenance or

change and spread of technological traditions are varied and dynamic (2008, 160).

The Incised Punctuate Tradition

Much of the focus of this work is with the last of the four traditions defined by Meggers and

Evans (1961, 1983 [1978]), the Incised Punctuate Tradition, seen to be distributed along the

Orinoco and Amazon basins, British Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá. Following on

from Cruxent and Rouse (1958), Lathrap (1970) correlated the Incised-Punctuate Tradition

with the expansion of Carib speakers from the northeast quadrant of the Amazon Basin

(1970, 164-165). Although the archaeological equivalent to the Carib expansion has at times

seemed elusive, nonetheless, certain elements are “sufficiently coherent for them to be

perceived as a ceramic tradition, but it is a tradition that cross-cuts several of the other

horizons and traditions recognized” (1970, 165). Among these diagnostic traits (fig. 8)

Lathrap identifies

“…thin, deep incision, executed with a sharply pointed stylus… This mode of V-

shaped incised lines is almost always organized into rectilinear designs… By far the

most common germinal motif in all of the fine-line incised styles is a continuous band

of contiguous isosceles triangles” (Lathrap 1970, 165).

The “peculiar use of appliqué” was another distinctive characteristic: “The total effect could

well be simulated by using the ribbon of cake icing exuded from a pastry tube” (Lathrap

1970, 168). He also made the link between the use of cauixí temper and Carib speakers

(1970, 165).

13

8. Examples of the Incised Puntuate Tradition according to Lathrap (1970), from left to right: “Matraquero

Style, Middle Orinoco, Venezuela”; “Apostadero Style, Apostadero site, Lower Orinoco, Venezuela”;

“Arauquín Style, Lower Rio Aruaca, Llanos de Orinoco, Venezuela”. (Adapted from Lathrap 1970, 165-166).

The Incised-Punctuate Tradition was related to the dissemination of the Arauquinoid series

from Venezuela to Amazonia:

“The Incised and Punctuate tradition expanded down the Amazon and up the southern

tributaries. The most flamboyant member is the Santarem culture, which flourished at

the mouth of the Rio Tapajos until European contact. The evenly spaced, parallel

incisions terminating in punctuates or alternating with areas containing rings or

punctuates, which are diagnostic of this tradition, became widely disseminated during

the final centuries prior to the discovery of America” (Meggers and Evans 1983

[1978], 324).

Zucchi (1985) would refine this scenario, establishing three stages of occupation for makers

of cauixí-tempered pottery in the Middle Orinoco, from AD 400-500 (early stage), to AD

500-1000 (middle stage) and finally to AD 1000-1400 (third or “domination” stage) (Zucchi

1985, 25-39).

Decoration vs. form

This dissertation is centred on the observation of the ceramic decoration of the samples

collected and a comparison to those of adjacent areas; where possible, contextual and

technological data have also been considered. The term “decoration” is not ideal, because it

can imply an embellishment that does not have any further meaning – something that cannot

be assumed. However, it has been chosen because it is an overarching term that encompasses

varied techniques and motifs, and in order to keep the same terminology as is used in the

literature.

Roe (1976) demonstrates that neither surface decoration (contrary to Meggers‟ and Evans‟

argument [1961]) nor vessel form (as Lathrap [1970] proposed) is necessarily the paramount

indicator of cultural continuity and comparability. The main variables to identify include “the

14

degree to which either component partakes of social identification, e.g., ethnicity, or, the

degree to which emphasis is placed on form or decoration along a behavioural and cognitive

continuum between art and craft in the culture of the group involved” (1976, 85). He further

states that “from an information theory point of view a nonliterate culture has the capacity to

store, retrieve and recombine fewer data bits than one possessing writing”, and that “the art of

nonliterate peoples will be characterized by slow, incremental changes of circumscribed

magnitude” (1976, 88, ft. 39). However, Roe acknowledges that “shape is not so central to

identity, partaking as it does of a higher degree of technological utility” (1976, 82).

Justification for focus of research

I believe that as a starting point in an unknown area, the study of ceramic decoration is highly

profitable. Brazilian anthropologists and archaeologists have long considered that “…in pre-

industrial societies, the ambition of art is to signify, not simply represent” (Vidal & Lopes da

Silva, 2007 [1992], 281). Writing on the current Asuriní, Silva (2008) explains that “pottery

is an essential item in preparation of daily food preparation and ritual performance, in

addition to being one of their primary supports for graphic art, expressing fundamental

principles of this population‟s world view” (Silva 2008, 222). Meggers (1997) further argues

that “The most reliable evidence for historical relations can be obtained by the observation of

characteristics that are not susceptible to environmental or technological limitations, in

particular, decorative methods and motives” (1997, 11). Van der Leeuw (1993) postulates

that “not nature but culture is the main constraint of technique”; “The choices, rather than the

materials and tools, are crucial in determining the nature and shape of… [the potter‟s]

product” (1993, 241).

If recurrent decorative patterns are found, they may indicate a common grammar (Roe 1976)

being shared by peoples of a region. Although it is important to bear in mind Sassaman‟s

(1998, 96) recognition that to base an idea of identity upon limited material traits or

behaviours is “nothing more than an archaeological construct”, ethnographic examples

support linkages between language group and material culture in Amazonia. Along the

Uaupés River in the central northwest Amazon, Chernela (1992) found a system of craft

monopoly in which “differences in design repertories and artifact form are greater between

adjacent settlements of different language group affiliations than among members of the same

affiliation, despite vast distances between them” (1992, 118). This is because “artifact

manufacture is (with language) the most salient feature identifying social groups and

15

distinguishing one group from another” (1992, 121). This observation opens up various

possibilities for us to consider in correlating similar or disparate ceramic decorative patterns,

which will be turned to later, following the comparison between decorations found by us and

those from other locations.

Similar to Lima‟s (2008) application of the interaction sphere model in the Central Amazon

(as utilised by Boomert [2000] for Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco River), I will

favour this idea in my interpretations, because it allows for the contemplation of

developments as influenced by local and external forces, and can help us to escape a

normative view of culture (Sassaman 1998, 94) by encouraging a consideration of

archaeological units as fluid, flexible entities.

16

*(Riverbank dwellers, rapids and anthropogenic dark earth)

3. Beiradeiros, cachoeiras, terra preta*

9. Pedro taking Vinicius and I to another day's work on the Terra Preta do Mangabal site in his boat, on the

Tapajós river; in the background, an illegal gold mining river dredge.

Introduction

“…as soon as [the Island of] Goiana is passed, immediately above the Island of

Lauritânia, the first currents of the Maranhãzinho rapid are reached. From then on,

there is nothing but rapids [and] cascades… up until its limits, and even up until the

heart of Mato Grosso. Below the two islands, the river is free, accessible to steamers;

upstream, the river is obstructed, it leaps from fall to fall, runs from rapid to rapid.

Downstream is the Amazon Valley; upstream lies the Brazilian Central Plateau”

(Coudreau 1977 [1897], 24).

Henri Coudreau’s lyrical depiction of the geological encounter between the Amazon Valley

and Brazil’s highland shield is culturally recognised today by the denominations Alto

(“Upper”) and Baixo (“Lower”) Tapajós. The Upper Tapajós stretches for over 400km, from

the south-western portion of the state of Pará up to its tributaries, the Juruena and Teles Pires,

which delimit the borders of the states of Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Pará. The difficulty of

navigation Coudreau so beautifully encapsulates is partly responsible for this area being largely

ignored scientifically, in contrast to the Lower Tapajós. The stretch of the river along which we

17

worked begins at the town of Itaituba and follows the river southwards until the Missão and

Rato igarapés (“streams”), where the territory of Mangabal ends.

Two field expeditions have so far been undertaken for this project by Vinicius Honorato and I.

In 2010 we conducted a surface survey at Mangabal, a territory situated on the left margin of

the Tapajós, 120km south of the town of Itaituba. Upon return we wrote a report about the

expedition (Rocha & Honorato 2011) and under the coordination of Eduardo Neves and

Fernando Ozorio de Almeida of São Paulo University applied to Brazil's National Institute of

Historic and Artistic Heritage (Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional -

hereafter, IPHAN) for authorisation to work in the area, conducting sub-surface excavations

and collecting samples. Upon obtaining permission, Vinicius Honorato and I spent two months

on the Tapajós, from July to September 2011. We initially chose to look for sites along the

Transamazon Highway, around the environs of the town of Itaituba, imagining this would be a

cost-effective strategy. We would soon give up on this however, realising that two people

"navigating" the Transamazon in a 1.0 engine car in search of sites was somewhat unrealistic.

We opted for leaving Itaituba to go and stay with communities along the river, where sites

would be better preserved and our ability to work consistently was greater (fig. 9).

In Mangabal we worked on the Terra Preta do Mangabal (TPM) and Ponta do Jatobá sites,

delimiting both and excavating a 1m2 unit in the former. Downstream, close to the

aforementioned geological encounter described by Coudreau, we delimited and dug a 1m2 unit

at the Pajaú site, on the river’s right margin; we chose this area because its pottery would

provide us with a counterpoint to what we found upstream at Mangabal. Samples were taken

from five sites in all (TPM, Pajaú, Cocalino, Ponta do Jatobá and Boa Vista). The following

section will not be organised chronologically; following a general discussion of the physical

setting and social context of the area, the methodology employed will be outlined and

subsequently, the places worked in will be focussed on.

Characterisation of the area

The river’s crystalline water and its sandy soils result from long erosive processes and testify to

the Tapajós’ greater geological age and poverty of nutrients when compared to watercourses to

its west, engendered in the Andes (Morais 2008). Several geomorphological units are

traversed; excepting the Amazon floodplain around the vicinity of Itaituba, the landscape is

hilly or table land, often rising abruptly, close to the water’s edge. Dense tropical submontane

18

forest prevails, although the landscape is also peppered with grassland areas, known locally as

campos da natureza. The width of river in the stretch we covered varies from around four

kilometres just south of Itaituba to almost three at Mangabal. The dry season lasts for

approximately two and a half months every year and annual rainfall is on average 1700mm.

Much of the Tapajós River lies in what can be regarded a frontier area, where the historical

absence of the state has left a vacuum filled easily by organised crime (Arbex Jr. 2005, 40-62).

Social conflict is commonplace, as large scale capital interests – for which the Amazon region

is a repository of natural resources to be extracted at minimum cost and maximum gain – clash

with those of forest peoples (Amerindian communities, riverine dwellers, extractivists, among

others) who inhabit the region. Forest peoples see the landscape as their living space, from

where they draw sustenance and their histories are etched; they have been the most effective

agents in impeding the advance of deforestation.

The Upper Tapajós is where one of the planet’s greatest concentrations in biodiversity can be

found. A mosaic of conservation areas decreed by the federal government over the past few

decades1 have been a mixed blessing, however, because in some cases – such as with the

Amazon National Park – local people were violently expelled. This represents an elitist

environmentalist view that understands nature as pristine and local people as a hindrance

(tourists would be welcome, though) (Torres & Figueiredo 2005, 354-391). The Park’s borders

were later changed to accommodate mining interests.

The push by agribusiness interests – linked to land grabbing, deforestation, cattle ranching and

slave labour – is facilitated by the notorious Transamazon Highway (Torres et al. 2005). The

planned construction of several hydroelectric dams on the Tapajós basin has now heightened

social tensions further. The Tapajós basin also hosts the country’s largest gold province;

widespread wildcat gold mining activities have routinely generated violence, prostitution and

mercury pollution in the water and food chain. It is estimated that over half of the 110 thousand

goldminers spread throughout the Amazon are active here (Borges 2012).2

1 A number of these conservation units have recently been arbitrarily reduced by the government to pave the way

for the construction of hydroelectric dams. 2 http://www.valor.com.br/brasil/2765302/garimpo-invade-bacia-do-tapajos

19

Methodology: survey, site delimitation and excavation3

Archaeological sites are often part of living landscapes in Amazonia. Terras pretas de índio are

considered a legacy left by pre-colonial indigenous peoples to the Amazonian farmers of today

(Peterson, Neves & Heckenberger 2001); their location is usually known because of their

enhanced fertility. Practically all the sites were reached because of local knowledge of them.

This is a particularly useful way to begin surveying unknown places of difficult access, where

there is dense vegetation, sparse habitation and resources are limited – factors that make

random sampling (Orton 2000) impracticable – and is called levantamento oportunístico

("opportunistic" survey) in Portuguese. One of the drawbacks of this strategy is a bias towards

dark earth areas close to the river’s edge; however, bearing our limited time and resources in

mind, it proved an effective way of recording the maximum number of sites in the short time

available.

Once a site is selected, a point named N1000 E1000 is established – this way, it is unlikely

negative coordinates will be reached in any direction. Using a compass and metric tape, points

are then staked out at regular intervals and augered. Augering provides for a low-impact way to

assess the presence and density of remains below the surface (Neves 2000). For each1m-deep

hole, which is dug in arbitrary 20cm levels, a form is filled in detailing soil colour, type (or

lack) of archaeological material, etc.4 All the material collected is given a provenience number

that links it to its vertical and horizontal location on the site (see Annex 3).

Based on the results of augering, we choose a location to open up a 1m2 unit, which is named

according to its North East quadrant. It is dug in arbitrary 10cm levels and charted according to

x, y, and z (depth) coordinates. Each 10cm level is accounted for on a separate form, which

registers type of archaeological material found, its characteristics and quantity; soil texture,

colour (according to the Munsell soil chart) and compactness, and any other relevant

characteristics or observations.5 All soil extracted from the pit is sieved and archaeological

materials collected, again receiving provenience numbers. Photographs and drawings are used

to record the base of every level and any other occurrence of interest. Following the absence of

archaeological material for 20cm, an extra meter is dug with an auger, and provided no

archaeological material is found, the excavation is terminated. Profiles are then examined so

3 The methodology employed is derived from that developed by the Central Amazon Project.

4 See Annex 1.

5 See Annex 2.

20

that we can determine archaeological layers, which we document with photographs, drawings

and a detailed description. After this, the unit is closed.

Montanha and Mangabal

The people of Mangabal are descended from indigenous women and northeastern rubber

tappers and can be defined as forest peasants (Torres 2008, Ch. 2.2). They are extractivists who

rely on forest resources and “through the generations, have developed complex behaviours and

codes of conduct to administer these resources in such a way as to guarantee a balance between

use and the environment’s capacity to regenerate itself”; they practice itinerant agriculture;

their articulation to markets is weak and their technologies are low-impact (Torres &

Figueiredo 2005, 321-394) (figs. 10-12).

Clockwise from top: 10. Odila Braga in her kitchen with some of the ground stone axes she had collected. This

demonstrates a relationship with archaeological heritage by a social groups whose memory is oral. 11. Pedro

carrying a paneiro loaded with bananas. 12. Josué preparing his roça to be planted with manioc.

We first arrived here in March 2010; during this sojourn we covered a thirty kilometre stretch

along the river's left margin and identified 24 archaeological sites, from the Ilha da Montanha

up to the Cachoeira do Peruano rapid (fig. 13). At this stage we did not yet have authorisation

from the IPHAN to conduct sub-surface exploration through test holes or pits, nor to collect

21

samples. We could however photograph the locations and archaeological remains we could see,

describe these and annotate GPS references, the estimated size of sites, altitude, vegetation,

proximity to the water, and any other relevant characteristics.

13. Sites identified in Montanha and Mangabal in 2010. Map by Vinicius Honorato. 14. At the Vilhinha

community (and site), we are shown a ceramic vessel found in the river by a diving gold miner. 15. Josué and

Bruna observe the surface of a campo area integrating the Terra Preta do Mangabal site. 16. Francisco examines

pottery fragments strewn in front of his home, at the Galdino community and site.

22

Clockwise from left: Maloquinha site – 17 & 18. a cut made through the soil by a tractor exposes the contrast between

anthropogenic soil containing pottery and natural soil below; 19. Francisca da Silva scrutinises ceramic pots buried in front

of her house; 20. ground stone axe and pottery located on the Mangueira site.

Archaeological remains strewn over the surface, differences in soil colour and exposed soil

profiles were observed; we were shown ethnographic and archaeological artefacts found by

gold miners at the bottom of the river. We left Mangabal convinced of its high potential for

archaeological research (Rocha & Honorato 2011). The observations we made can be

summarised under three main points. Firstly, we noticed a pattern in settlement areas: although

archaeological remains were often found under current communities along the river's edge, the

larger sites containing ADEs were invariably located on bluffs, which offered larger flat areas

where a greater number of dwellings could have been built, safe from the high water mark

during the annual rise of the river. The larger sites found are named Apuí, Cabeceira da

Montanha, Itapel, Terra Preta do Mangabal, Sapucaia, Veia Teté and Ponta do Jatobá. Closer to

the river, where the beiradeiros live today, we still found lithic flakes, sherds, stone axes, and

buried pots, but not in the same density as on the bluffs. The contemporaneity of these remains

(by the water’s edge and in higher areas) is a matter for future research.

A second observation is related to buried vessels, seen closer to the water’s edge, which appear

to be funerary urns. If this is found to be the case, it points to a significant difference in

mortuary customs between these past peoples and what has been recorded for the Tapajó,

Konduri and Munduruku. The former two were thought to practice endocannibalism by

23

drinking the ashes of their deceased (Heriarte 1662 In: Nimuendaju 2004, 124).6 The

Munduruku, on the other hand, practice primary burial, putting their dead straight in the

ground. It therefore appears that there is greater similarity between buried pots (possible urns)

found in Mangabal (figs. 21 & 22) to what Friar Protásio Frikel at the São Francisco do Cururú

Mission recorded further upstream in the late 1950s (Hilbert 1957, 4-5; see Introduction).

Above: buried urn (?) and ceramic fragments at 21. Praia Chique (left) and 22. Os Quirino (right) sites.

Thirdly, all the pottery we saw was undecorated and coarse-tempered, usually with quartz sand.

The apparent lack of surface embellishments may be due to erosion; another possibility was

that it could have been made by “displaced persons”: Lathrap (1970, 129) writes how people

forced from the floodplain onto older alluvium in the Upper Amazon “could be expected to

lose the more complex aspects of their social and religious life, and there would be far less time

for non-functional embellishments of ceramics” (1970, 129). This is a possibility as the knock-

on effects of European conquest further downstream were felt; on the other hand, maybe time

was devoted to embellishing basketry or body ornamentation, invisible to us today.

Ponta do Jatobá

When we returned to Mangabal a year later, we revisited the Ponta do Jatobá archaeological

site, which extends from the shore line where a current community is established up to the

higher bluff area (altitude is approximately 90m above water level in August, which is a dry

month) (fig. 23). It is located approximately 150m west from the river, covered by a grass

patch recently used for pasture. Termite mounds and babaçu palms (Attalea speciosa) abound.

6 Recent discoveries at the Porto site in Santarém indicate that the Tapajó may in fact have used burial urns, as

pots decorated with stylised human forms were found containing pulverised bones (M. Amaral, pers. comm.,

20/08/2011; Martins et. al 2010, 138). The Tapajó are also recorded as having practiced mummification.

24

We delimited it digging nine test holes with an auger at 50m intervals (fig. 24).7 However,

pottery was only encountered in the first 20cm on three occasions, along the eastern portion of

the level area. Anthropogenic dark earth spread further than pottery horizontally and was found

in up to 40cm below the surface. We decided not to dig a 1m2

unit here due to the low density

of remains, which have not been included in the analysis.

23. The Ponta do Jatobá community and archaeological site. 24. Archaeological remains – pottery and lithics –

were found strewn along the water's edge, as well as on the higher land behind the present community in 2010; top

40cm are composed of anthropogenic earth.

Terra Preta do Mangabal (TPM)

25. View to TPM site from Tapajós River. 26. View from the sites’s campo area to Mangabal rapids.

Located on a steep bluff (±110m) overlooking the Mangabal rapid (Cachoeira do Mangabal),

this site contains anthropogenic dark earth, pottery and lithics (figs. 25 - 27). The estimated

dimension of the site is one hectare.8 It encompasses an area of successional vegetation

7 See Annex 1 for form used.

8 See Annex 4.

25

including a number of palm species (such as Astrocaryum murumuru and Attalea speciosa), a

recently-used planting area and an area known as a campo da natureza. In 2010 we identified

what appeared to be a mound or midden here and an abundance of archaeological remains. We

decided to delimit and excavate a 1m2 unit here. Due to recent anthropogenic activity, there

was dense undergrowth, which greatly hampered our work; we were unable to delimit the

whole site (fig. 28).

Fourteen test holes were dug with an auger at intervals of 25m, and pot sherds, lithic flakes and

dark earth were found in considerable amounts.9 Overall, there is a 40cm layer of

anthropogenic dark earth that covers the central area we augered. The colour of the soil below

40cm varied over different parts of the site, and the darker soil could “dip” to lower depths

after intervals at which it was shallower. This can suggest areas of differential activities,

intensity of occupation or even reoccupation; in some cases, it may be a result of post-

depositional events, such as agricultural activities. We often found small pottery and lithic

fragments at 100cm depth; however these frequently seemed to be related to bioturbation by

burrowing organisms. At this point it is not possible to affirm whether the site is

unicomponential or multicomponential. At the N1000 E975 point, the dark earth (10YR 2/1)

was not surpassed at 120cm depth, on what appeared to be the higher part of a mound or

midden. We chose to open up a 1m2 unit at the point E1000 N1074; the top of the

midden/mound was avoided because of the possibility of stratigraphic inversion.

9 See Annex 5.

27. The steep ascent up to the site. 28. Marking out the grid.

26

Clockwise from left: 29. Vinicius and Pedro act as scales to illustrate the midden/mound. 30. Auger hole showing

20cm levels from left to right. 31. Bruna and Vinicius draw one of the profiles of unit N1000 E1074 (photograph

by Pedro Braga da Silva).

We found that the layer that lies from zero to approximately 30cm depth has been impacted by

recent agricultural activities, causing pottery sherds to be smaller. The most clearly defined

archaeological layer lies between approximately 30-60cm depth, where the soil is greyer and

the largest quantity of pottery was encountered, alongside ground stone axes, arenite and quartz

lithic flakes and thermal flakes, as well as cobble-sized stones. A curious flake, resembling a

rudimentary arrowhead, was found associated to the pottery. Below, the soil becomes more

yellowish and compact, with few archaeological remains, which seem to be associated to

bioturbation.10

Survey along the Transamazon Highway

We knew that under the auspices of the PRONAPABA Celso Perota had found sites along the

highway in the late seventies and early eighties (Simões 1978-1982). We headed out along the

Transamazon, stopping at farmsteads and communities over a number of days, and in some

cases dug 1m test holes with an auger. The points dug were referenced to GPS locations.

10

See Annex 6.1 and 6.2.

27

Boa Vista archaeological site

The Boa Vista community is established by the Transamazon Highway’s (BR 230) 26th

kilometre south of Itaituba. Its residents told us about buried pots under one of the buildings.

Eight holes were dug with an auger at intervals of 25m, but the sandy soil only rendered one

pot sherd at 20-40cm depth. A few other sherds, including a couple of rims (see Plate 9), were

collected from the surface. This site, close to the water’s edge, was heavily impacted by the

recent community and its proximity to the Transamazon. We decided not to return.

Boa Vista: 32. Vinicius augering with Tapajós in background; 33. 20cm layers dug, clockwise from left.

Cocalino archaeological site

Located near the boundaries of the Parque Nacional da Amazônia (Amazon National Park,

hereafter, PARNA), this site, lying in a currently occupied area, contains a dark earth layer and

much pottery. Three test holes were dug using an auger at 25m intervals. It was not possible to

return to this site for more intensive work because of transport difficulties. However, the

sample collected was analysed because of its diagnostic design elements.

34. General view of the site, with dwelling in the background and abundance of palm trees; 35. Bruna registers

test hole showing anthropogenic soil for first 40cm, with a lighter colour in the deeper levels.

28

Pimental

Above: 36. Dona Gabriela surrounded by some of her many descendants; 37. view to community from the river.

Below: 38. Playing among rocks, Geizy Carla Ribeiro Azevedo's son (pictured) found the bifacial lance head he is

holding in the photograph. 39. The bifacial point, snapped at its proximal end (drawing by Claide de Paula

Moraes), was found at (40.) the community's port where we later found other lithics (view of Bananal island).

In 1923 Nimuendaju stayed at the Pimental community, on the right bank of the Tapajós, just

above its last rapids. Following his discovery of Santarém ceramics, he intended to travel

upstream to visit the Munduruku, but had to give up and search for Maué Indians instead

because his boat was not fit to cross the rapids (2001 [1929-1932], 190). In 2011, we met

Gabriela Maria Bibiana da Silva, 104, who may have seen the German ethnologist. She arrived

at Pimental in 1917, when she was eight years old; her parents were going to tap rubber in the

western state of Acre, but they missed their boat and instead came to the Upper Tapajós. She

told us of terrible conflicts with Amerindian groups and the harshness of life at the time; she

remembers the rubber baron, Pereira Brasil.11

Her descendants are many. Edmilson Ribeiro

11

Interview with Gabriela Maria Bibiana da Silva, 24/08/2011.

29

Azevedo, Dona Gabriela’s fifty-year-old grandson, took us to a site of the rubber period, where

the latex sent from upstream used to be stored for shipment to Itaituba. Dona Gabriela and her

progeny were anxious about the threatened construction of the São Luiz do Tapajós dam; if it

goes ahead, the community will go underwater.

Our host Marinildo took us to a dark earth area that apparently is not anthropogenic – we found

no pottery after augering eight holes at 50m intervals. Later we received a donation of a

silicified sandstone projectile point with invasive bifacial retouch. We identified a large flake

and a lithic core near to where it was found, at the community’s port. This suggests ancient

occupation in this area, possibly linking it to early Holocene/late Pleistocene occupations

identified by Roosevelt et. al (1996) and Simões (1976), when the climate was drier and the

vegetation was closer to open woodland (Rossetti 2004).

Above: 41. Vinicius and Marinildo digging holes with an auger in (non-anthropogenic?) dark earth area. Below:

42. dark earth (without pottery); 43. pottery located on Bananal Island, in front of Pimental; 44. the barracão

seringueiro, where an energy turbine was once brought from the Cururú River Fransciscan mission (where Friar

Protásio Frikel found the ceramic urns). Rubber shipped from upstream used to be stored here before being sent

to Itaituba.

30

Pajaú archaeological site

The Pajaú site is located near the Pimental community, on a bluff at approximately 85m above

water level.12

It is currently covered with successional vegetation; the area is used for hunting

by some of the locals. We had the good fortune to be helped by Edmilson and his son on some

days here.

45. View to Pajaú site; 46. Edmilson cuts back thick vegetation so that the site can be delimited; 47. yellow flags

mark pottery fragments on the surface.

The site contains a layer of dark earth that varies from 5-40cm in depth.13

Below this,

archaeological material – pottery sherds and lithic fragments, flakes and larger stones –

dwindles drastically. Due to its shallowness, it appears that the site may be unicomponential,

although this still needs to be confirmed. Twenty-three holes were dug with an auger at 25m

intervals. Following this, the point N1000 E1071 was selected for the opening of a 1m2 unit,

because this was near to where the greatest quantity of pottery was extracted from augering.

Two main archaeological layers were identified, from approximately 5-20cm depth and from

20-40cm, although the limit between them was diffuse.14

The upper layer yielded the greatest

amount of archaeological material (pottery, flakes and thermal flakes and charcoal). Below

40cm, archaeological vestiges dropped abruptly and the soil colour changed. At the end of the

excavation another 1m was dug with an auger to confirm absence of archaeological remains.

The Aracy-Paraguaçu Museum in Itaituba

Although the museum’s objects generally lack provenance (many donations were found

underwater) and need better conditions, the collection includes fascinating artefacts that

demonstrate the area’s rich archaeological record. The wooden anthropomorphic (male and

12

See Annex 7. 13

See Annex 8. 14

See Annex 9.

31

female) figures in particular stand out for their singularity. I cannot say what their intended

function would have been.

Donations to the Aracy-Paraguaçu museum, Itaituba. Clockwise from left: 48. Wooden anthropomorphic artefacts

found by a gold mining dredge on the Tapajós River. Carvings on their bodies may represent body painting (M.

Amaral, pers.comm., 22/02/2012); 49. polished and ground stone axes and adzes; 50. silex projectile point.

Conclusion

The Upper Tapajós is a region rich in history, most of which is scarcely known. We were only

able to find the sites we did because of the help and hospitality of local inhabitants. Besides the

pottery found, which will be focussed on in the following chapter, anthrosols, lithics and

botanic remains present possible avenues for further exploration. The relationship between

current inhabitants of the places we visited, whose collective memory is oral and reliant on

place, and the archaeological remains located in their territories, is a subject deserving of

greater attention, having the potential to challenge conceptions of heritage and its guardianship.

32

4. Pottery from the Upper Tapajós and beyond

Following the collection of pottery and lithics from the Upper Tapajós, we loaded the material onto

a steam boat in Itaituba and took it to the Curt Nimuendajú lab in Santarém, where it is presently

housed. We were able to wash most of the pottery and some of the lithics collected and photograph

some of the diagnostic sherds. Diagnostic sherds were considered thus either because of the part of

the vessel they came from (rim, handle or base) or because they presented decorative (plastic or

painted) elements. The sherds came from three archaeological sites1.

This chapter will present the analysis of the diagnostic pottery collected, compare its decoration to

those of ceramics from nearby areas and the wider region and finally offer an interpretation of what

we might infer from this. Absolute dates are not yet available, so our chrono-

stylistic interpretations are necessarily based on a comparison to the ceramics of other sites in the

region that have been dated, or that through seriation have been assigned to traditions (and therefore

time frames) established for the region; ethnohistorical evidence has also been used to this end.

Methods of ceramic analysis

Diagnostic sherds have been analysed for a number of attributes, the selection of which was related

to the information they could render in relation to technological practices, vessel form and their

1 The Boa Vista site also rendered a few sherds.

Terra Preta do Mangabal

47%

Pajaú 33%

Cocalino 17%

Boa Vista 3%

no. of sherds

33

decoration/design.2 The objective was to reconstruct a basic sequence involving the preparation of

the paste, the forming of the vessel, its decoration and firing. Signs of use-wear (e.g. fire clouds) or

post-depositional features, such as weathering or erosion, were also noted, but will not be

emphasised here. The focus of this work is on ceramic decoration; however, if we can associate this

to specific practices, it may represent a first step towards posterior modal analyses, by giving us

some indication of attributes or combinations of attributes that recur. Our comparisons with pottery

from the wider region may also be stronger if we compare sets of attributes, although this was not

the primary focus of the work. I based my choice of attributes on the Central Amazon Project‟s

pottery analysis form; some dimensions were altered to correspond to the specific characteristics of

the pottery, particularly in relation to decorative dimensions.

The technological attributes3 looked for include temper, its roundness/angularity (a BEL Photonics

binocular microscope with 45x magnification was used); firing atmosphere (indicated by core

colour)4

and surface treatment (i.e. smoothing, burnishing, or polishing). Formal attributes,

including measurements of sherd thickness (using a standard caliper) and estimated diameter of

vessel mouths and bases (using a rim chart) were noted, along with points of inflection, vessel

contour and base and lip shape (when possible). Finally, I analysed the decorative attributes and

techniques of the collection by viewing photographs of each sherd.

The decoration analysis contemplated the following criteria: decorated surface (internal/external),

type of decoration, slip colour, type of painting, paint colour, lip finish, plastic decoration tech-

niques and designs present. “Absent” or “not identified” categories were always listed as an option.

The location and type of decoration was then observed. Plastic decoration techniques looked for

include clay displacement (incision, ungulation, impression, perforation, modelling) and clay addi-

tions. When relevant, these categories were then split further into specific decorative patterns. Inci-

sions (“fish spines”, straight parallel lines, zoned-hachured lines, parallel curved lines); impressions

– divided into punctuation (with rectilineal instrument or round stylus) and cord or fibre impres-

sions –; perforation; and modelling were subsumed under “clay displacement” techniques. Clay ad-

dition was subdivided to specify whether fillets or “blobs” had been applied. I then attempted to ob-

serve the state of paste when the plastic decoration was executed (undetermined, wet/damp, leather

2 Annex 10 displays the lists of attributes considered in the analysis.

3 Technological and formal analyses were conducted by Rogério Andrade dos Santos at the Curt Nimuendajú Lab in

Santarém, supervised by Claide de Paula Moraes. 4 See Annex 11 for reference diagram used for determining firing environment through the examination of cross-section

of vessel walls.

34

hard/dry, post firing, pre slip, post slip). The results of these analyses were entered into a Microsoft

Word Excel spread sheet.

The order in which attributes observed will be referred to aims to reflect the different stages of the

pottery production process. Before the presentations of the results of the ceramic analyses of the

Terra Preta do Mangabal, Pajaú and Cocalino sites, some remarks will be made about the main dec-

orative techniques employed. Due to the small size of the collections analysed, I have given approx-

imate indications of quantities, since providing exact percentages may mislead the reader into a

false sense of security: that the trends observed from such figures are statistically meaningful. The

emphasis here is on qualitative rather than quantitative analysis.

Results

Terra Preta do Mangabal pottery

Pottery analysed from this site comes from the test pit N1000 E1074, from the two main

archaeological levels identified between 10 and 60cm depth.5 Level 0-10cm presented diminutive

sherds, as did the levels below 60cm, after which the change in soil characteristics suggests the

beginning of occupation at the site; sherds found below 60cm may be attributed to the effect of

bioturbations. I identified no obvious differences in attributes to mirror this distinction, so

characteristics from these different layers have been summarised together. Ninety sherds were

analysed from this site.

Rim sherds* 61

Point of inflection 1

Body sherds 28

Total 90

The predominant non-plastic is quartz sand, found on its own or together with cauixí (each of these

was found in a third of the sample).6 Cauixí, caraipé and quartz sand in conjunction were found to

temper just over ten per cent of the sample. The rest of the collection contained the following

mixtures: caraipé and quartz sand; cauixí and grog; quartz and quartz sand; charcoal and quartz

sand; cauixí, charcoal and quartz sand; cauixí, caraipé and grog; cauixí, caraipé, grog and quartz

sand; and cauixí, grog and quartz sand. The shape of the inclusions was mostly rounded.

5 Except from one rim sherd (Plate 3, fig. a).

* One rim sherd belonged to a griddle, so it was also a base sherd (see Plate 1, fig. b). 6 See Annex 11 for a description of cauixí and caraipé.

35

The information we have on form is as yet inconclusive, since morphological attributes were often

not discernible. Thickness of sherds ranged from 15mm to 4mm, although most frequently

thickness was 5mm. Rim diameter varies from 10cm to 47cm, averaging 27cm. Simple

(approximately 10%) and composite (<10%) vessel contours are present. Unrestricted and restricted

shapes were found in almost equal number, in a third of the sample. Rounded and acute inflections

were encountered infrequently (the small size of sherds hampered most identifications). Over half

of the rims examined are direct, while the remainder are everted. Almost half of the rims had flat

lips, followed by rounded lips (approximately a third), pointed lips (over a tenth) and thinned lips

(in approximately five per cent of cases).

Smoothing on both internal and external surfaces predominates, while burnishing and polishing are

rare exceptions. A few fragments were eroded making surface treatment difficult to discern. Plastic

decoration – incision, modelling, impressions (nail) and appliqué – prevails. It was invariably

performed on the exterior of vessel bodies or on rims. Rim lips were frequently nicked (a sixth of

the sample – see Plate 4) and sometimes carved to produce a “serrated” effect (see Plate 5, figs. a-

d). The remainder were flat, rounded or undetermined (a sixth of the sample). One rim – which

seems to be an outlier, possibly made elsewhere – has a modelled lip (see Plate 3, fig. a).

A particular design stands out at this site. It is made up of incised lines, which are cross-hatched at

acute angles forming lozenge (or diamond) shapes (see Plate 1, figs. a-e and Plate 2). Other incised

designs include straight parallel lines (Plate 1, figs. g, j, k).7 Applied vertical fillets were identified

in conjunction with incision, rim nicking and modelling (Plate 2). A wider range of decorative

practices was hinted at by rare specimens. These include a curved incised design (Plate 1, fig. j);

fingernail impressions (e.g. Plate 5, fig. e); fibre impression (followed by coating with a white slip –

Plate 3, fig. b). Modelling was detected only sporadically (Plate 3, figs. a, d, e). Painted decoration

appears to be rare: just two examples were identified. One consists of a dark (probably black)

horizontal line following a straight rim; the second is of reddish/orangey colour whose limits cannot

be defined. White, red and orange slip was recognised (see Plate 3).

Almost ninety per cent of the sherds analysed had oxidised pastes; one ninth of the collection

evidenced a reduced firing environment, while the rest only had reduced nuclei/were incompletely

oxidised.

7 However, because of the small size of the fragments the parallel lines may be misleading.

36

Pajaú pottery

The sherds included here came from the first two levels (0-10 and 10-20cm) of the 1m2 unit (save a

couple of fragments collected from the surface); the remainder were too small and associated to

bioturbations. Two thirds of the sample analysed was decorated.

Rim sherds 37

Body sherds 26

Handle 1

Total 64

Approximately a third of the sherds were tempered solely with quartz sand. Quartz sand mixed with

cauixí was the second most common temper, followed by quartz and quartz sand, and cauixí,

caraipé and quartz sand. Fewer specimens possessed a mixture of cauixí, charcoal and quartz sand,

or grog, cauixí and quartz sand; other variations of these same non-plastics were uncommon but not

absent.

Measurements of sherd thickness ranged from 4mm to 16mm, but most frequently thickness was

7mm. Simple (¼ of sample) and composite (one sixteenth of sample) vessel contours were detected.

A third of the sample was determined to represent unrestricted or restricted vessels. A handle was

found (Plate 6, fig. h); it is likely to have been part of a pair. Rims were either direct or everted. Rim

diameter varied from 14cm to 49cm, 21 to 23cm being the most frequent measures. Lips are mostly

rounded or flat shape (a few pointed and bevelled examples were also recognised).

Smoothing of surfaces was the norm, with polishing rarely identified. Slipping seems to have been

occasional. Decoration – plastic and painted – was observed on exterior vessel walls, on the interior

of everted rims and on lips. Rim and lip decoration seems to have been a relatively common

practice; lips were carved to produce a “serrated” effect (see Plate 7, figs. a, j, k) and everted rims

punctuated (e.g. Plate 7 fig. a). Punctuations are also present on the interior of an inverted rim (Plate

7, fig. i). A distinctive decorative feature present on three sherds consists in the application of clay

fillets, which are subsequently punctuated perpendicularly to the vessel using a rounded or

rectilinear tool (Plate 6, figs. a, b and e). In the three examples found, the fillets were applied

horizontally. Lines of punctuations applied straight onto the vessel surface also occur (Plate 7 figs.

b, c). Incisions are common. The “fish spine” design (Hilbert 1955a) (see Plate 6 fig. c and Plate 7

fig. e) and similar variations (Plate 7, fig. g) can be noted. Parallel incisions also occur, but less

frequently. A single example of a “T”-shaped incision was found (Plate 7, fig. f) but the small size

37

of the sherd means it is not possible to view the whole design. One specimen displays a

combination of rectilinear punctuation and a possible “fish-spine” incision (Plate 7, fig. d). Painting

is not uncommon. Red paint was the most frequently observed (Plate 6, figs. b-d, f, g, and i),

applied in bands which were often curved. One sherd with parallel, curved black lines was collected

(Plate 6, fig. j – this may be an example of resist paint).

The majority of sherds had been fully oxidised (reduced firings were identified in approximately a

sixth of the sample). A few sherds were incompletely oxidised.

Cocalino pottery

Thirty three sherds were analysed from this site. The sample is small and the stratigraphic

provenience of the pottery is imprecise (it was collected from the surface or extracted by digging

auger holes), but the decoration present is worthy of mention.

Rim sherds 17

Body sherds 13

Base sherds 3

Total 33

Almost half of the sample was tempered with cauixí and quartz sand, closely followed by sherds

tempered with quartz sand only. Mixtures of quartz sand, cauixí and caraipé, and caraipé and

quartz sand made up a tenth of the sample each; a single sherd had quartz and quartz sand temper.

Sherd thickness varied from 5mm and 13mm; the most frequent measure was 8mm. The three bases

found are ring shaped. Vessel contour proved difficult to distinguish; it was found to be simple in a

third of the sample and inflected on three occasions. Rim diameter varied from 7cm to 35cm,

although diameters of 22cm to 27cm were more common. Most rims were direct; four were everted.

Just under half of the rims had a rounded lip; flat lips were less common.

All of the fragments had smoothed surfaces. Twenty-one sherds were decorated on exterior vessel

walls, the interior surface of everted rims and on lips. Seventeen sherds have incisions; these could

cover the upper body right up to the rim‟s edge on direct rims (Plate 8 figs. a) or the internal face of

everted rims (Plate 8, fig. b). Parallel incised lines are the most common motif (Plate 8, figs. b and

e).8 Fish spine designs (Plate 8, fig. a) and what appear to be converging isosceles triangles (Plate 8,

8 However, due to the small size of some of the sherds, this may be a misrepresentation in some cases, where designs

that may have been “fish spines” only seem to be parallel.

38

figs. c and d) were also encountered. A small sherd (Plate 8, fig. f) displayed a fragment of what

appears to be a cross-hatch design similar to what was seen at Terra Preta do Mangabal.

Punctuation is apparently rare, being found on one lip (Plate 8, fig. h) as well as on carelessly

applied fillets (Plate 8, fig. g). Although the techniques employed in these instances may be similar

to those employed at the Pajaú site, the final effect is different.

Two thirds of the sherds were fired in an oxidising environment, while a third was fired in a

reductive environment.

Discussion

The main characteristics of the pottery analysed are summarised in the table below. The most

predominant temper used was quartz sand. This is not surprising, considering these sites‟ proximity

to the river and its sandy beaches. Cauixí was also favoured, but rarely on its own. Techniques

involving the displacement or subtraction of clay were employed at the three sites. Cutting –

incision, perforation and carving – was practiced, especially in the form of incision. The irregularity

of some of the incised lines, particularly at the Cocalino and Pajaú sites is owed to the coarse

temper used. Perforation – which entails the instrument being pressed perpendicularly through the

vessel wall – was rarely encountered; in any event it appears to have been employed as a functional,

not decorative, technique, possibly to make colanders (see Plate 7, fig. h). Impression, the pressing

of an instrument “into plastic or, more commonly, leather-hard clay, leaving a negative of its

motif… subsumed under the general term „punctuation‟” (Rye 1981, 92), was particularly favoured

at Pajaú. It appears that clay displacement practices were usually performed when the clay was in a

leather-hard state, because clay overhang was not perceived in the troughs of incised lines or

negatives of punctuations. Additions of clay to the surface of the vessel in the form of coils/fillets,

blobs or other shapes, when the clay of the vessel and of the applique is at roughly the same state –

leather-hard or plastic (Rice 1987, 148) –, were repeatedly noted on the three sites. The effect

produced by these similar techniques was divergent, however.

Painting, particularly in red, seems to have been more prevalent at the Pajaú site. Citing Corrêa

(1984), Guapindaia (1993, 28) mentions a red pigment used by the Tapajó for body painting and for

painting jewellery, cloths and utensils. This pigment was produced by fermenting leaves of the

Caragiru or Carajuru tree, which belongs to the Bignoniaceae family (Arrabidaea chica Verlot)

and dissolving them in oil. Another way of altering the colour of the surface was with the use of or-

ganic carbon, in the form of powdered charcoal from plant extracts, most probably after firing (see

39

Plate 6, fig. j). Slipping was occasionally encountered, especially at TPM. On low-fired pottery,

which is probably our case (although bonfires can quickly reach 900°C [Livingstone Smith 2001]),

Rice (1987, 150) states that slips are usually applied to completely dried wares, directly before fir-

ing and that most “are burnished or polished with a stone to compact and orient particles and to im-

part a luster”.

5.3 Comparisons to ceramic decoration from the wider region

The pottery of Parauá, Lower Tapajós

Aiming to ascertain whether the Tapajós “chiefdom” really was centralised and expansionist,

Gomes (2008, 12) conducted excavations on three archaeological sites in the locality of Parauá,

situated in the hinterland area of the left margin of the Lower Tapajós River. Ceramics dating from

the Formative period (at c. 4400 BP) up to the 17th

century AD were encountered; the author assigns

the bulk of the pottery to the Incised Rim Tradition however (2008, 16-17), which is prior to Tapajó

occupation, while pottery collected related to the Incised Punctuate Tradition is “quantitatively

inexpressive” (2008, 172). The dates obtained underscore this; the most recent is 910 ± 60 BP for

the Terra Preta site (2008, 173), falling within the temporal scope of the Incised Rim Tradition.

51. Pottery from the Lago do Jacaré, Parauá, Lower Tapajós. Adapted from Gomes, 2008, Plate 4, figs, 8, 11 and 23.

Notwithstanding, some of the pottery presented by the author displays decorative techniques and

motifs that are similar to what we found further upstream (fig. 51). These include linear

Site Temper Decorative

field Most prevalent decoration

Firing

atmosphere

TPM Quartz sand; quartz

sand + cauixí

Body and

rims/lips

Incised lozenges or parallel lines. Nicked lips

(isolated or in conjunction with) clay fillets. Oxidising

Pajaú Quartz sand; quartz

sand + cauixí

Body and

rims/lips

Incised fish spines, parallel lines and/or

punctuation. Punctuated clay fillets.

“Serrated” lips. Bands of paint.

Oxidising

Cocalino Quartz sand + cauixí;

quartz sand

Body and

rims/lips Incised parallel lines, fish spines Oxidising

Overall characteristics of pottery analysed.

40

punctuations produced with a rectilinear tool on the internal face of everted rims; what may be

considered “fish spine” incisions (below left) and applied fillets of clay with punctuations (below

centre). These decorative practices are reminiscent of pottery found at the Pajaú and Cocalino sites.

Gomes makes reference to the affinity between some of the pottery she found on the Lago do Jacaré

I site – namely, applied and punctuated fillets of clay – with that identified with the Valloid series in

Venezuela (Gomes 2008, 117; Tarble & Zucchi 1984, see below). This suggests that some of the

pottery she excavated falls outside the period for which dates were obtained (as she acknowledges,

when writing that the area was occupied up to AD 1600 [2008, 16-17]). It also appears that certain

decorative practices from earlier ceramic traditions – such as incisions and impressed punctuations

– may have been assimilated into the Incised Punctuate Tradition; something that had been

postulated before (e.g. Gomes 2002; Lathrap 1970).

Possibly owing to the primacy accorded to vessel form in order to infer function, when describing

and quantifying the decorative attributes of the pottery analysed – which spans millennia – Gomes

conflates the sample, giving us percentages of types of decoration (such as “short simple incisions”)

for each site (2008, 116-117; 141; 153). This is unfortunate as greater detail about when such

decorations were prevalent or in decline, or whether they could be related to particular types of

temper or stratigraphic location would allow us to more accurately assess change or continuity in

such attributes over time and relate them to surrounding areas and their respective time periods.

Although Gomes later states that there was ample stylistic continuity in the sites' utilitarian pottery

(2008, 172), it would still have been useful to separate the components further, relating them to time

periods.

The Tapajós-Trombetas area

The interaction between peoples living around the basins of the Tapajós, Trombetas and Nhamundá

Rivers in the late pre-colonial period is considered as something of a given. Ethnohistorical sources

(e.g. Heriarte 1662, see Introduction) suggested connections and archaeological ceramics from these

areas possess similar features (Gomes 2002; Guapindaia 1993, 2008; P. Hilbert 1955b; P. &

K.Hilbert 1980; Nimuendajú 2004; Palmatary 1960, etc). The nature of the relationship between the

makers of such analogous pottery is still undefined, however, and the geographical limits of these

interactions are also still open to further investigation.

Santarém pottery

The principal expositor of the famous pottery from Santarém and environs was Curt Nimuendajú,

41

who compiled collections for museums (notably the Gothenburg and Goeldi Museums) in the 1920s

(fig. 52). He described it as a testament to the “incredibly lively and bizarre imagination of the

Tapajó women potters... [it] yielded such a profusion of all possible and impossible heads and faces

that it may almost be possible to put together another Noah‟s Ark” (Nimuendaju 2004, 151). He

noted the caryatids as a distinguishing characteristic and that finger impressions were often used to

decorate rims (2004, 125).

52. Ceramic vessels from Santarém collected by Nimuendajú for the Gothenburg Museum. Reproduced from

Nimuendajú, 2004, Plates 193 and 195. Photographs taken by Ferenc Schwetz.

Collections from the Tapajós and Nhamundá-Trombetas areas have since been studied extensively

and provide us with valuable information related to pottery styles and technological practices (e.g.

Gomes 2002; Guapindaia 1993; Palmatary 1960). Citing Ehrenreich, Barata (1968, 87) pointed out

that geometric designs incised into pottery may be stylised animal representations.

53. Pottery from the Nhamundá-Trombetas basin. Left, “fish spine” incised sherds from the Erepecurú River (Rep. from

P. Hilbert 1955a, 32); Right: sherd collected near the Sapuquá lake (Rep. from Nimuendajú 2004, Plate 116, fig. m).

Following fieldwork along the Nhamundá and Trombetas River basins, P. Hilbert (1955a) created

two main pottery groupings, tempered with cauixí and quartz sand respectively. The latter was

restricted to the Trombetas River and its tributary, the Erepecurú River and seemed to be less

42

frequent (1955a, 29-31). Its coarse texture and “fish spine” motif (fig. 53) bears strong resemblance

to pottery from the Cocalino site (Plate 8, fig. a), and some similarity to what was encountered in

the Pajaú site.

P. Hilbert also described the cauixí-tempered Konduri and Globular styles of pottery (1955a, 33-69).

Both of these styles present elaborate plastic decoration, which includes anthropomorphic and

zoomorphic representations. P. Hilbert notes the “pompous application of nicks, incisions and points

or orifices” (1955a, 57) present in both styles. Tripod vessels were also deemed by him to be

diagnostic of pottery from this area (P. Hilbert 1955b). Below (fig. 54), the second “button” in fig. b

recalls that of an outlying rim sherd from Terra Preta do Mangabal (Plate 3, fig. a); the top

illustration of fig. c brings to mind the “serrated” rims found at Pajaú (Plate 7 fig. j and k); the

punctuations illustrated at the top of fig. d remind us of those found at Cocalino and Pajaú.

54. Left: “Typical elements of plastic

decoration, showing several ways of making a

given surface discontinuous. A and B,

buttons. C, fillets. D, incisions”. Above:

Handles belonging to the Konduri style from

Faro and Terra Santa (Reproduced from P.

Hilbert 1955a, 56 and 61).

In a later article, P. and K. Hilbert (1980) describe the Pocó and Konduri pottery complexes,

encountered at the same sites. Pocó pottery is related to the Zoned-Hachured Tradition and dated to

the Formative period (just before and after Anno Domini), being found in the deeper layers of

stratigraphic cuts. On the more superficial levels, within a dark earth context, the Konduri complex

43

was dated to AD 1400 ± 100 and related to the Incised Punctuate Tradition (P. Hilbert & K. Hilbert

1980, 8). Modelled-incised-punctuate decoration (fig. 54), ranging from applied “buttons” and

fillets to complex biomorphic adornos decorated with impressions, perforations and, above all,

punctuations and incisions (1980, 4), is determined to be diagnostic. Further attributes of the

Konduri style are the use of externally strengthened everted rims, producing triangular profiles in

transverse section, and manioc griddles (P. Hilbert & K. Hilbert 1980, 3). The rims of bowls, vessels

and griddles display incised decoration with straight motifs carried out with hard-edged instruments

(1980, 3).

More recently Guapindaia (2008) excavated sites in the Nhamundá-Trombetas area, including the

Boa Vista site worked on by P. Hilbert in the 1950s.9 The radiocarbon dates assigned to Konduri

pottery range from AD 1020 to AD 1450 (Guapindaia 2008, 170-171). By and large P. Hilbert‟s

(1955a) and P. and K. Hilberts‟ findings (1980) were confirmed, although Guapindaia came across

greater volumes of plain, undecorated wares than she had anticipated (2008, 170). She concludes

that it is not yet possible to affirm whether Pocó and Konduri occupations represent distinct

episodes or whether there is continuity between them, since the stratigraphy in some of the areas

excavated is continuous (2008, 185).

Hilbert also drew up a comparison between Santarém and Konduri ceramics (1955a, 72-73).

Guapindaia (1993, 33) later summarised them in a table, some of which is reproduced here:

Santarém Konduri

Moderate use of cauixi as temper Abundant use of cauixi as temper

Moderate use of incisions and adornos on handles Handles almost invariably decorated with punctuation,

nicks and incisions

Abundant use of caryatids Absence of caryatids

Rare presence of tripod vessel sherds Abundant presence of tripod vessel sherds

Hollow rims present Hollow rims absent

Angular pipes with neo-Brazilian decoration Pipes rarely found

Curved and straight incisions used in vessel decoration Solely straight incision used in vessel decoration

Painting executed in manifold colours, with resistant paint Rare vestiges of red paint, which are easy to remove.

This comparison is elucidating in showing that sherds found at the Cocalino and Pajaú sites appear

to have elements in common with both the Konduri (absence of hollow rims, only straight incisions

used to decorate vessels, absence of caryatids) and Santarém styles (vestiges of red paint [Pajaú],

9 This is not the same Boa Vista site as the one visited during our fieldwork. “Boa Vista” (“good view” in Portuguese) is

a common toponym.

44

anular bases [Cocalino]). No pipes or tripod vessel sherds were found whatsoever (which does not

mean they are absent). Interestingly, the Boa Vista and Terra Preta do Mangabal sites each yielded a

singular hollow rim sherd (fig. 55). Linné (1925, 129) considers the process involved during firing

such vessels, when rapid expansion of air inside the rims would lead to it bursting through the paste.

If apertures were not used, the vessels would have to be heated slowly and subsequently cooled

carefully (In: Palmatary 1960, 63). Palmatary (1960) encountered hollow rims on pottery she

classified as distinct from Santarém ceramics (1960, see Plate 85), although she concludes its

makers would have been “familiar with Tapajós ceramic processes… [since] this sherd is hollow

and the technique is excellent” (1960, 65).

55. Hollow rims in profile. Left: Boa Vista site; Right: eroded hollow rim from Terra Preta do Mangabal site (to

facilitate observation, drawing and photo have been included here).

Therefore, although the pottery found at the Cocalino and Pajaú sites is more rudimentary in terms

of paste preparation and decoration, there are motifs and decorative elements in common with those

employed in the Lower Tapajós, Nhamundá and Trombetas Rivers, such as straight line incisions,

applied “buttons” and fillets of clay (which often seem to compose the base line of highly

elaborated Tapajó and Konduri style vessels). some of the elements that compose the Konduri and

Globular style plastic decoration are recognizable to us. Further, the pottery from Cocalino and

Pajaú sites was also encountered within a relatively “shallow” context, suggesting these areas were

occupied relatively recently. Further upstream at Terra Preta do Mangabal, however, our results so

far seem to indicate a more tenuous connection.

Pottery from the Madeira River basin

The Madeira River lies to the west of the Tapajós and provides the Amazon River with its last,

mighty influx of sediments from the Andes. Starting with the work of Eurico Miller (1983), the

upper part of its basin has been the subject of investigations since the 1970s; an almost continuous

sequence of human occupation has been attested there from approximately 8000 BP to the

eighteenth century, with pottery initially dating to c. 2800 BP (Miller et al. 1992). The possible

association of pottery to language stock (namely, Tupi), to the domestication of manioc and other

45

plant species and to the oldest known terras pretas in Amazonia are among the complex questions

being addressed by archaeologists in the area.

Two main ceramic groupings have been identified in the Upper Madeira region: the Jatuarana sub-

Tradition and the Jamarí Tradition. Although plastic decoration, including punctuates, drag-and-jab

punctuate, ungulate, double-line incision feature in the Jatuarana sub-Tradition (dated to 2730 ± 75

BP), these are combined with other elements, such as polychrome painting, monochrome painting,

excised-scraped, pinched, among others, to create varied decorative motifs (Miller 1992, 223-224).

The Jamarí Tradition (dated from 2500 ± 90 BP) displays some decoration, which includes incision,

punctuation, superimposed coils, brushing, and occasional excision, serrungulation and use of

appliqué (Miller 1992, 224-225). Neither of these traditions seems to clearly resonate with the

pottery found by us on the Tapajós. This dissimilarity is also apparent in the more recent research

conducted in the area (fig. 56), which has been revising a number of phases created by Miller

(Almeida 2010, Zimpel Neto 2008, Zuse 2011). However, more work is needed before we can

definitely affirm that no similarities exist.

56. Pottery from the Itapirema archaeological site, on the Madeira River, facing the Jamarí. Reproduced from

Almeida 2010, 121-122. Photographs taken by Agda Sardinha.

On the other hand, the middle and lower courses of the Madeira River have been revealing a

different story. Simões and Lopes (1987) conducted a survey along its course in which they defined

ceramic phases (Axinim and Curralinho) attributed to the Incised Punctuate Tradition. However,

this is currently being questioned by Moraes (2010 and forthcoming), so at present it is not possible

to affirm whether there are common elements or not. It appears that pottery belonging to the

Polychrome Tradition and the Incised Modelled Traditions is prevalent in this area.

Pottery from the Xingu basin

To the east of the Tapajós lies the Xingu River, which like the Tapajós, connects the Amazon plain

46

to Brazil‟s highland shield. The Upper Xingu area, home to the Parque Indígena do Xingu (“Xingu

Indigenous Park”, PIX), created by the Villas Bôas brothers in 1961, has been the subject of

research for a number of years by archaeologist Michael Heckenberger (2005) and students, as well

as by a number of anthropologists. Within the PIX today, speakers of Carib, Gê and Arawak

languages compose a multi-ethnic system.

In his doctoral dissertation, Toney (2012) focuses on ceramic technology from AD 700 to AD 1770.

Toney likens some of the decoration of the “Developmental” period to Arauquinoid pottery (fig. 57)

(2012, 252) and postulates a Carib influence in the “Protohistoric Xingu” period, particularly

because of a chevron motif (fig. 57), which is however engraved rather than incised (2012, 253). He

considers that this discrepancy may be due to the fact that male Carib invaders “may have brought

the style without the skill of execution with them” (2012, 253). This hypothesis is strengthened by

the existence of an origin myth of Carib provenance in the area (Carneiro 1989 In: Toney 2012,

253). Dates related to Carib-related pottery lie at c. AD 1770 (2012, 259). There is some likeness

between the chevron designs and the converging isosceles triangles of the Cocalino and Pajaú sites,

although at Pajaú and Cocalino the body of the vessel was the chosen area, while the pottery of the

MT-FX-02 and MT-FX-13 sites has decorated rims.

57. Left: “Type 2 rims from MT-FX-02 surface collection with incised, engraved and thumbnail punctuate decorations”;

Right: “Type 2 rim adorno (Arauquinoid-like) from TU at MT-FX-13” (Reproduced from Toney 2012, 220 and 206,

respectively).

The Incised Punctuate Tradition has been detected in the Lower Xingu (Perota 1992, 215) in the

form of the Curuá phase, which is always associated to dark earth contexts (1992, 215). Images for

47

this phase were not available, so further comments will have to wait. The Curuá phase is dated to

275 ± 75 BP and 175 ± 55 BP (Perota 1992, 215).

Nimuendajú did however produce images of pottery he collected from the Xingu area (fig. 58)

during his travels, from 1917-21 (2004, 112). The Iriri River is a tributary of the Xingu, and on the

map produced by Perota (1992, 214), the Curuá phase is identified near its mouth. Nonetheless,

these are speculations that will have to await further evidence.

58. Left: Applied fillet with punctuation in

sigmoid form from the Lower Iriry, Xingu

area; Right: rim found in Altamira. (Adapted

from Nimuendaju 2004, Plates 54 and 55,

226 & 227).

Pottery from the Orinoco basin

59. Left: “Applied/incised, incised & modelled decoration of Valloid material. From Orupe (A, D, E, F), Paragüito del

Meta (B, C), El Valle (G, H, I), Agüerito (J, K, L, M) sites”. Right: “Applied/incised decoration of the Valloid material.

Sites: Cerro Aislado (A, D, E, H, I), Buena Vista (B, C, G), La Urbana (F)” (Rep. from Tarble & Zucchi 1984, 437).

Along the middle Orinoco River and its hinterland, a number of sites were encountered in which

48

pottery attributed to the Valloid series, dated to AD 900-1000, was found; its makers could have

been a Carib-speaking subgroup related to Carib speakers from western Guayana (Tarble & Zucchi

1984). Among the most prominent characteristics of this pottery are punctuated or notched applied

fillets (1984, 438) – a characteristic which bears clear correlation to sherds encountered at Pajaú

(Plate 6 figs. a, b, and e). Valloid ceramics are also found in association with pottery of the

Arauquinoid series, at times incorporating some of the latter‟s elements (1984, 440). The authors

note that incision is usually found in conjunction with applied fillets; its isolated presence seems to

be a later occurrence (1984, 438). Valloid pottery is also composed of handles and zoomorphic

adornos (1984, 437). Interestingly, no (manioc) griddles were found (1984, 436). Zucchi (1985, 37)

also describes the Valencioide series, whose features – sand and mica coarse-tempered pottery

decorated with appliqué and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, combined with “clearly

Arauquinoid” incisions and punctuations – appear familiar to much of the pottery previously

described. I have not seen images however so this will have to await further investigation.

Interpretation of results

Pajaú and Cocalino

The pottery we encountered in the environs of Itaituba displays some common features with the

ceramics from Santarém, as it does with those from the Nhamundá and Trombetas Rivers, and (in

the case of Pajaú) with the Valloid series on the middle Orinoco. It seems reasonable to assert that

this pottery belongs to the Incised-Punctuate Tradition. Lathrap (1970) wrote that Carib speakers

colonised new areas through “raiding parties of young men who attacked the neighbouring peoples.

All adult males of the conquered villages were barbequed and eaten while the more desirable

women were taken as wives” (1970, 164). This would help to explain why – “if it is correct to

assume that art style and ceramic technology were feminine domains” (1970, 164) – many aspects

of Carib culture were transmitted in a “poorly understood and garbled form” (1970, 165). Zucchi

(1985) argues that the period from approximately AD 1000 was one of “domination” by Carib-

speaking groups of other areas.

Available dates for Santarém, Konduri and Valloid ceramics lead us to conclude that pottery on the

Pajaú and Cocalino sites was produced over the last six hundred years; already in the 1960s, Hilbert

(1968) observed that “all ceramic complexes connected with this [Incised Punctuate] horizon… are

always late in local sequences” (P. Hilbert 1968, 272). In fact, Pajaú and Cocalino pottery may have

been made in the post-conquest period by fugitives from Santarém, following devastating

incursions by the Portuguese. Barbosa Rodrigues (1875. 130) states that Portuguese violence made

the Tapajó flee to the interior and upstream. The comparatively impoverished decoration and

49

coarser temper detected at Pajaú and Cocalino could reflect this.

It appears that the applied and punctuated fillets of clay and “fish spine” motifs are a sign of a

“common code” (Moraes 2010, 96) impressed on the pottery, which may have stretched from the

Tapajós to the Orinoco basin. This distance is similar to that encompassed by the Polychrome

tradition, the motifs of which have been found to span 3500km, from the middle Madeira to the

Napo Rivers, dated to around the sixteenth century at either end (Moraes 2010, 96).

Terra Preta do Mangabal

60. Above, Left: “On the low parts, denominated Tiacoron, Tapajós River, June 1828”; Right:

Munduruku woman and child (Reproduced from CCBB, 2010, 192-193). Below, Left: detail of

painting above, showing lozenge design; Right: 61. sherd found the TPM (graphic art by Marcos

Brito Castro).

The incised lozenge motif, found to occur frequently in the sample analysed (fig. 61) (see Plates 1

& 2), is strongly reminiscent of the tattooed designs displayed by Munduruku Indians (fig. 60),

50

suggesting what DeBoer (1991, 147) has termed a “total artifactual environment” of pervasive

design. Information recorded in the nineteenth century by travellers to the Tapajós (see

introduction) corroborates this supposition. Chandless (1862) produced a map of the river (fig. 62),

and over the Mangabal area, the words “Mundurucú Vil.” are written (1862, 268); he states that “At

the shallow of Mangabal Grande… the hills on each side are of some height, and here and there the

hill-tops are open campo [fields/grassland]. A little below the Mangabal are two or three Mundrucús

[sic.] villages on the left bank, and the last on that side, as the Maué country begins soon below”

(1862, 277).

Left: 62. map produced by William

Chandless displaying the location of ethnic

groups along the Tapajós. The circle

encompasses the TPM site area (Adapted

from Chandless, 1862). Above: 63.

“Mundurucu tattoos: „captain‟ Gabriel”.

The artist has Europeanised the facial

features of “captain Gabriel” (Reproduced

from Coudreau 1977 [1895], 110, etching

n. 34).

Chandless also writes about Munduruku body ornamentation, stating that their faces were

“blackened all over, and the whole body tattooed in a check-pattern of black stripes” (1862, 277), as

we can see in Florence‟s watercolours. Tocantins (1877) explains how he recognised a family he

51

encounters as being Munduruku: “they were all painted on their face, chest and on all their bodies,

with the lozenges and other figures characteristic of the tribe” (1877, 76). He comments that these

tattoos are related to the Munduruku myth of origin (1877, 115).

Based on compiled information, Barbosa Rodrigues (1875) also offers descriptions of the

Munduruku, who he characterises as “…the most numerous and warlike [ethnic group] of the

Amazon Valley, and the most accomplished in feather work” (1875, 134-135). He explains that the

tattooed geometric pattern (fig. 60 & 62), which takes up to twenty years to complete, is always the

same, although some may have more lines, because these “are indicative of services they rendered

to the tribe. Some, in spite of their age, are not covered in paint, because they did not render

services that lead to painting” (1875, 136). Barbosa Rodrigues also mentions the existence of

Munduruku malocas (indigenous houses) along the course of the river, remarking that the ones

around the Mangabal rapid are abandoned (1875, 124).

However, given the depth of the dark earth found at the site, we may find that the Munduruku

reoccupied the area; this would resonate with the known predilection of the Munduruku today for

reoccupying areas of dark earth [PPTAL 2008, 25]).

Conclusion

It appears probable that the TPM site was occupied by Munduruku speakers, possibly in the post-

colonial period.10

As for the Cocalino and Pajaú sites, they indicate the existence of interactions

with occupations further downstream and beyond the north bank of the Amazon. At present it is not

possible to ascertain the nature of such interactions; further excavations and the knowledge of dates

will be necessary for this.

We may find that these three sites are contemporaneous. The outlying rim sherd (Plate 3, fig. a),

whose features are more akin to what is known from the Incised Punctuate Tradition (applied

“blob”, modelled rim), found on the surface of the TPM site seems to point to contact with people

further downstream.

10

Munduruku is a language family that belongs to the Tupi language stock.

52

5. Conclusion

Amerindian art is a “vehicle of aesthetic visual communication” in which “even the most

individualised manual talents are very much shared by the population: things are made by

local artisans through processes known by all” (Vidal & Lopes da Silva 2007 [1992], 281).

This premise has guided the choice of ceramic decoration as the subject of this research.

Comparisons to ceramic decoration encountered in other areas were based on the idea that

“borrowing is most likely to occur over a wide range of phenomena between cultures that

share similar dimensions-modes/grammars” (Roe 1976, 77).

We have found that pottery from the Pajaú and Cocalino sites, located south of Itaituba,

beyond the first rapids of the Upper Tapajós, share decorative elements with ceramics from

the Incised Punctuate Tradition – encompassing the Lower Tapajós, the Nhamundá-

Trombetas and parts of the Xingu and Orinoco River basins. This tradition has been

associated with speakers of Carib languages and their expansion from the Orinoco basin

(Cruxent & Rouse 1958, Lathrap 1970, Zucchi 1985). Further, the stratigraphic location of

the sherds analysed – found on the surface of the sites or in their uppermost layers – suggest

their relatively recent deposition when compared to pottery from older ceramic traditions in

Amazonia, which fits with the Incised Punctuate tradition’s chronology, dated to c. AD 1000

in northern South America and to around the fifteenth century in nearby areas in the Amazon.

This in turn has led us to speculate about whether the pottery worked on from Pajaú and

Cocalino was pre- or post-colonial.

In contrast, the pottery analysed from the Terra Preta do Mangabal site belongs to a different

tradition that has yet to be defined; it does not seem to possess decorative elements in

common with pottery from Pajaú and Cocalino, in spite of similar techniques and technology

employed. The recurrent lozenge motif, incised on vessel bodies and rims, is strikingly akin

to Munduruku body ornamentation in the form of tattooing. Accounts written by nineteenth

century travellers to the Upper Tapajós have strengthened this supposition, through their

description of the Munduruku tattooing process and its meanings, and through statements to

the effect that the area in which the Terra Preta do Mangabal site is located was occupied by

Mundurukus.

The bellicose incursions of the Munduruku into neighbouring territories made them feared

throughout the Tapajós; the first written accounts on the subject date from the eighteenth

53

century. This opens up the possibility that the TPM, Pajaú and Cocalino sites may in fact be

contemporaneous. As peoples downstream suffered the debilitating effects of European

conquest, they were attacked by the Munduruku “red ants”.

In the following stages of research a number of questions will need to be explored. The

association of Carib speakers to the Incised Punctuate Tradition in the Amazon is a critical

issue, and may bring us closer to postulating which language stock the Tapajó Indians of the

Lower Amazon belonged to. The nature of the interactions signalled by common decorative

elements must similarly be investigated – could they have been intermarital, commercial,

belligerent?

Following DeBoer’s (2003) example, the study of vessel forms will have to be conducted:

their comparison to forms of older known complexes will aid us in understanding longer term

continuities and ruptures in subsistence base and feasting patterns, for instance. The study of

the area’s rich lithic record, which stretches from pre-ceramic times into the sixteenth

century, will also contribute to this longer term perspective. Greater attention must also be

given to archaeological sites themselves, so that changes in population density or settlement

patterns may be perceived. Continuing the survey of the region is therefore a priority.

Ironically, this may soon take place as part of the archaeological salvage work preceding the

planned construction of hydroelectric dams along the river. The predominant assumption that

only archaeological heritage buried underground is legitimate and worthy of “rescue” and

preservation, however, means that while new sites will be found, forest peoples – inheritors

of the past we are studying and who live on or by the sites we will work on – will be

displaced. This calls for a longer term involvement in the area and work with local peoples in

valuing their ways of life and heritage.

As an initial step in determining interactions with peoples in adjacent areas and further afield,

ceramic decorations have much to tell about societies on the Upper Tapajós in the pre- and

post-colonial period. It has become clear that the Tapajós was an area marked by cultural and

linguistic diversity at the time of European conquest; upstream it was inhabited by the

Munduruku (whose language family is a branch of the Tupi language stock), while the Pajaú

and Cocalino sites may represent the Incised Punctuate Tradition’s southernmost limits as

regards the Tapajós River; the implications of this warrant further investigation.

54

Bibliography

Acuña, C. de. 1941 [1641]. Nuevo descobrimiento del gran río de las Amazonas. In: G.

Carvajal, A. De Rojas and C. de Acuña, Descobrimento do rio das Amazonas. São Paulo:

Brasiliana, Cia ed. Nacional, 125-294.

Almeida, F.O. 2008. O Complexo Tupi da Amazônia Oriental.Unpublished MA dissertation,

University of São Paulo.

Almeida, F.O. 2010. Ocupações Pré-Históricas na Bacia do Alto Rio Madeira.Unpublished

PhD Candidacy Report, University of São Paulo.

Arbex Jr. 2005. "Terra sem povo", crime sem castigo. Pouco ou nada sabemos de concreto

sobre a Amazônia. In: M.G. Torres (org.) Amazônia revelada: Os descaminhos ao longo da

BR-163. Brasília: CNPq, 21-65.

Bettendorf, J. F.1910 [1693-1699]. Chronica da Missão dos padres da Companhia de Jesus no

Estado do Maranhão”. Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, 72/1, 1-697.

Barbosa Rodrigues, J. 1875. Exploração e Estudo do Valle do Amazonas. Rio Tapajós. Rio

de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional.

___________. 1876. Antiguidades do Amazonas. In: Ensaios de Ciencia por Diversos

Amadores. Rio de Janeiro: Brown & Evaristo,93-125.

Boomert, A. 2000. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco Interaction Sphere: An

archaeological/ethnohistorical study.Alkmaar: Cairi Publications.

Borges, A. 2012. Garimpo invade bacia do Tapajós. Valor Econômico online. Retrieved on

27th

July 2012 from World Wide Web:

http://www.valor.com.br/brasil/2765302/garimpo-invade-bacia-do-tapajos

Brasil, R.P. 1910. Os sertões do Rio Tapajós. Belém: Secção de Obras da Província do Pará.

Brochado, J.P.1984. An ecological model of the spread of pottery and agriculture into

eastern South America. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Illinois.

Carneiro, R. 1989. To the village of the jaguars: the Master Myth of the Upper Xingu.

Antropológica, 72, 3-40.

Carvajal, G. de. 1941[1546]. Relación del Nuevo descubrimiento del famoso río Grande que

descubrió por muy gran ventura el capitán Francisco de Orellana. In: G. Carvajal, A. De

Rojas and C. de Acuña, Descobrimento do Rio das Amazonas. São Paulo: Brasiliana, 2a série,

Cia ed. Nacional, 11-79.

55

Chandless, W. 1862. Notes on the Rivers Arinos, Juruena, and Tapajos. Journal of the Royal

Geographical Society of London, 32, 268-280.

Chernela, J. 1992. Social Meaning and Material Transaction: The Wanano-Tukano of Brazil

and Colombia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 11, 111-124.

Corrêa, M.P. 1984. Dicionário das plantas úteis do Brasil e das exóticas cultivadas. Rio de

Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, Ministério da Agricultura, Instituto Brasileiro de

Desenvolvimento Florestal.

Coudreau, H. 1977 [1897]. Viagem ao Tapajós. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia.

Cruxent, J. M. and Rouse, I. 1958. An Archaeological Chronology of Venezuela, vol. 1.

Washington D.C.: Pan American Union, Social Science Monographs 6.

DeBoer, W. 1991. The Decorative Burden: Design, Medium, and Change. In: W.A. Longacre

(ed.), Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 144-161.

___________. 2003. Ceramic Assemblage Variability in the Formative of Ecuador and Peru.

In: J. Scott Raymond and R.L. Burger (eds.), Archaeology of Formative Ecuador.

Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 289-336.

Denevan, W. 1992. The Pristine Myth: The landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals of the

Association of American Geographers, 82/3, 369-385.

Ford, J. 1954. On the Concept of Types: The Type Concept Revisited. American

Anthropologist, New Series, 56/1, 42-57.

Gomes, D.C. 2002. Cerâmica Arqueológica da Amazônia. São Paulo: Fapesp, Edusp,

Imprensa Oficial.

___________. 2008. Cotidiano e Poder na Amazônia Pré-colonial. São Paulo: Edusp,

Fapesp.

Guapindaia, V.L.C. 1993. Fontes Históricas e Arqueológicas sobre os Tapajó de Santarém:A

Coleção “Frederico Barata” do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi.Unpublished MA

Dissertation, Federal University of Pernambuco.

___________. 2008. Além da margem do rio – a ocupação Konduri e Pocó na região de

Porto Trombetas, PA. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of São Paulo.

Heckenberger, M.J. 2005. The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the

Southern Amazon, AD 1000–2000. New York: Routledge.

Heriarte, M. 1874 [1662]. Descrição do Estado do Maranhão, Pará, Corupá e Rio das

Amazonas. Vienna: Carlos Gerold.

56

Hilbert, P.P. 1955a. A Cerâmica Arqueológica da Região de Oriximiná. Belém: Instituto de

Antropologia e Etnologia do Pará, publicação n. 9.

___________. 1955b. Tripods in the Lower Amazon. In: Proceedings of the XXXI

International Congress of Americanists, São Paulo, 825-828.

___________. 1957. Urnas Funerárias do Rio Cururú, Alto Tapajós. Boletim do Museu

Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Nova Série Antropologia, n. 6, 1-14.

___________.1968. Archäologische Untersuchungen am Mittleren Amazonas. Berlin:

Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

Hilbert, P.P. and Hilbert, K. 1980. Resultados preliminares da pesquisa arqueológica nos rios

Nhamundá e Trombetas, Baixo Amazonas. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, Nova

série Antropologia, n. 75, 1-15.

Kern, D.C.; D’Aquino, G.; Rodrigues, T.E.; Franzão, F.J.L.; Sombroek, W.; Myers, T.P.;

Neves, E.G. 2003. Distribution of Dark Earths in the Brazilian Amazon. In: J. Lehmann; D.C.

Kern; L. German; J. McCann; C.C. Martins and A. Moreira (eds.), Amazonian Dark Earths:

Origin, Properties, Management. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 51-76.

Kroeber, A.L. 1944. Peruvian archaeology in 1942. New York: Viking Fund Publications in

Anthropology, n. 4.

Lathrap, D.W.1970. The Upper Amazon. London: Thames and Hudson.

Lima, H.P; Neves, E.G.; Petersen, J. 2006. A fase Açutuba: um novo complexo ceramico na

Amazônia Central. Arqueologia Sul-Americana, 2/1, 26-52.

Lima, H.P. 2008. História das Caretas: A Tradição Borda-Incisa na Amazônia Central.

Unpublished PhD thesis in Archaeology, University of São Paulo.

Linné, S. 1925. The technique of South American ceramics. Gothenburg: Elanders

Boktryckeri Aktiebolag.

Livingstone-Smith, A. 2001. Bonfire II: The Return of Pottery Firing Temperatures. Journal

of Archaeological Science, 28, 991-1003.

Lowie, R. 1948. The tropical forests: an Introduction. In: J. Steward (ed.), Handbook of South

American Indians. The Tropical Forest Tribes. vol. 3. Bulletin n. 143, Bureau of American

ethnology. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

Martins, C. M. P.; Lima, A. M. A.; Schaan, D. P.; Bezerra, I. A.; Veiga e Silva, W. F. 2010.

Padrões de sepultamento na periferia do domínio Tapajó. Amazônica, 2/1, 137-139.

Martins, C. M. P. 2012. Sobre contatos e fronteiras: um enfoque arqueológico. Amazônica,

4/1, 150-184.

57

Meggers, B. and Evans, C. 1961. An experimental formulation of horizon styles in the

Tropical Forest Area of South America. In: S.K. Lothrop (ed.), Essays in Pre-Columbian Art

and Archaeology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 372-288.

___________. 1983 [1978]. Lowland South America and the Antilles. In: J. Jennings (ed.),

Ancient South Americans. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co, 287-336.

Meggers, B. 1997. La cerámica temprana en América del Sur: ¿Invención independiente o

difusión? Revista de Arqueología Americana, 13, 7-40.

Menèndez, M. 2006 [1992]. A área Madeira-Tapajós: situação de contato e relações entre

colonizador e indígenas. In: M.C. da Cunha (ed.), História dos Índios no Brasil. São Paulo:

Companhia das Letras, 281-296.

Miller, E.T. 1983. História da Cultura Indígena do Alto-Médio Guaporé (Rondônia e Mato

Grosso). Unpublished MA dissertation, Pontífica Universidade Católica, Rio Grande do Sul.

Miller, E.T. 1992. Archaeology in the Hydrolectric projects of Eletronorte. Brasília:

Eletronorte.

___________. 1992. Adaptação agrícola pré-histórica no alto rio Madeira. In: B.J. Meggers

(ed.), Prehistoria Sudamericana:Nuevas Perspectivas. Washington D.C.: Taraxacum, 219-

231.

Moraes, C.P. 2010. Arqueologia Regional na Amazônia Central: A fase Paredão e sua

inserção no contexto pré-colonial Amazônico. Unpublished PhD Candidacy Report,

University of São Paulo.

Morais, R. 2008. Águas Brancas, Pretas e Verdes. In: A. Ab’Saber (ed.), Leituras

Indispensáveis. São Paulo: Ateliê Editorial, 57-63.

Murphy, R.F. 1958. Headhunter’s heritage – social and economic change among the

Mundurucu indians. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Neves, E. G. 2000. Levantamento Arqueológico na Área de Confluência dos Rios Negro e

Solimões, Estado do Amazonas. Unpublished report submitted to FAPESP-MAE, University

of São Paulo.

Nimuendaju, C.U. 1944. Mapa Etno-Histórico de Curt Nimuendaju. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto

Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística.

___________. 1952. The Tapajó. Translated and edited by John Howland Rowe. Berkeley:

The Kroeber Anthropological Society.

___________. 2001 [1929-1932]. Excursões pela Amazônia. Translated from German by

Thekla Hartmann. Revista de Antropologia da Universidade de São Paulo, 44/1, 189-200.

58

___________. 2004. In Pursuit of a Past Amazon: Archaeological Researches in the

Brazilian Guyana and in the Amazon Region. A posthumous work compiled and translated by

Stig Rydén and Per Stenborg. Gothenburg: Etnologiska Studier 45.

Orton, C. 2000. Sampling in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Palmatary, H.C. 1960. The Archaeology of the Lower Tapajós Valley: Brazil. Transactions

of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, n. 50.

Petersen, J.B.; Neves, E.G; Heckenberger, M.J. Gift from the Past: Terra Preta and

Prehistoric Amerindian Occupation in Amazonia. In: C. McEwan; C. Barreto; E.G. Neves

(eds.), Unknown Amazon: Culture in Nature in Ancient Brazil. London: British Museum

Press, 86-107.

Perota, C. 1992. Adaptação agrícola no baixo Xingu. In: B.J. Meggers (ed.), Prehistória

Sudamericana: Nuevas Perspectivas. Washington D.C.: Taraxacum.

Projeto Integrado de Proteção às Populações e Terras Indígenas da Amazônia Legal. 2008.

Levantamento Etnoecológico Terra Indígena Munduruku. Brasília: FUNAI/PPTAL/GTZ.

Ramos, A. 2003. Munduruku. Nome e língua. Enciclopédia dos Povos Indígenas no Brasil

online. Retrieved on 11th September 2012 from World Wide Web:

http://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/povo/munduruku/794

Rice, P.M. 1987. Pottery Analysis. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Rye, O.S. 1981. Pottery Technology. Principles and Reconstruction. Washington D.C.:

Taraxacum.

Rocha, B.C.; Honorato, V.E. 2011. Levantamento Arqueológico nas Localidades de

Montanha e Mangabal, Município de Itaituba (PA). Unpublished report submitted to the

IPHAN.

Roe, P.G. 1976. Archaism, form and decoration: an ethnographic and archaeological case

study from the Peruvian montaña. Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology, 14, 73-

94.

Roosevelt, A.C.; Lima da Costa, M.; Lopes Machado, C.; Michab, M.; Mercier, N.; Valladas,

H.; Feathers, J.; Barnett, W.; Imazio da Silveira, M.; Henderson, A.; Silva, J.; Chernoff, B.;

Reese, D.S.; Holman, J.A.; Toth, N.; Schick, K. 1996. Paleoindian Cave Dwellers in the

Amazon: The Peopling of the Americas. Science, New Series, 272/5260, 373-384

59

Rossetti, D.F.; Toledo, P.M.; Moraes-Santos, H.M.; Santos Jr., A.E.A. 2004. Reconstructing

habitats in central Amazonia using megafauna, sedimentology, radiocarbon, and isotope

analyses. Quaternary Research, 61, 289-300.

Sampaio, F.X.R. de. 1825 [1775]. Diário de uma viagem que em visita, e correição das

povoações da capitania de S. José do Rio Negro fez o ouvidor e intendente geral da mesma,

Fco. Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio, nos annos de 1774 e 1775. Lisbon: Tipografia da Academia

Real de Ciências.

Sassaman, K.E. 1998. Crafting Cultural Identity in Hunter-Gatherer Economies. In: C.L.

Costin and R.P. Wright (eds.), Craft and Social Identity. Arlington: American

Anthropological Association, 93-107.

Schaan, D.P. 2004. The Camutins Chiefdom: Rise and Development of social complexity on

Marajó Island, Brazilian Amazon. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

___________. 2007. Uma janela para a história pré-colonial da Amazônia: olhando além – e

apesar – das fases e tradições. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas,

2/1, 77-89.

Silva, F.A. 2008. Ceramic Technology of the Asurini do Xingu, Brazil: An

Ethnoarchaeological Study of Artifact Variability. Journal of Archaeological Method Theory,

15, 217–265.

Simões, M.F. 1976. Nota sobre duas pontas-de-projétil da Bacia do Tapajós (Pará). Boletim

do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Nova Série. Antropologia, n. 62.

___________.1983. Pesquisa e Cadastro de Sítios Arqueológicos na Amazônia Legal

brasileira 1978-1982. Publicações Avulsas do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, 38, 57-60.

Simões, M.F. and Lopes, D.F. 1987. Pesquisas arqueológicas no baixo/medio Rio Madeira

(Amazonas). Revista de Arqueologia, 4/1, 117-133.

Steward, J. (ed.). 1940-50. Handbook of South American Indians. Bulletin n. 143, Bureau of

American ethnology. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

Tarble, K.L. and Zucchi, A. 1984. Nuevos Datos sobre la Arqueología Tardía del Orinoco:

La Série Valloide. Acta Científica Venezolana, 35, 434-445.

Tocantins, A.M.G. 1877. Estudos sobre a Tribu “Mundurucú”. Revista Trimestral do Instituto

Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro, 73-161.

Toney, J.R. 2012. The Product of Labor: Pottery Technology in the Upper Xingu, Southern

Amazon, Brazil, A.D. 700-1770. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Florida.

60

Torres, M. (ed.). 2005. Amazônia Revelada. Os descaminhos ao longo da BR-163. Brasília:

Centro Nacional de Pesquisas.

___________. 2008. A beiradeira e o grilador: ocupação e conflito no Oeste do Pará.

Unpublished MA dissertation, University of São Paulo.

Torres, M. and Figueiredo, W. 2005. Yellowstone Paroara. Uma discussão sobre o papel das

Unidades de Conservação e o exemplo do Parque Nacional da Amazônia. In: M. Torres (ed.),

Amazônia Revelada. Os descaminhos ao longo da BR-163. Brasília: Centro Nacional de

Pesquisas, 321-395.

Urban, G. 2006 [1992]. A história da cultura brasileira segundo as línguas nativas. In: M.C.

Cunha (ed.), História dos Índios no Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 87-102.

van der Leeuw, S. 1993. Giving the potter a choice: conceptual aspects of pottery techniques.

In: P. Lemmonier (ed.), Technological Choices: transformation in material cultures since the

Neolithic. London: Routledge, 238-288.

Vidal, L. and Lopes da Silva, A. 2005 [1992]. Antropologia estética: enfoques teóricos e

contribuições metodológicas. In: L. Vidal (ed.), Grafismo Indígena. São Paulo: Studio Nobel,

Fapesp, Edusp, 279-293.

White, L. 1949. The Science of Culture: A study of man and civilization. New York: Grove

Press.

Willey, G. and Phillips, P. 1958. Method and Theory in American Archaeology. Chicago:

University of Chicago.

Zimpel Neto, C. A. 2008. Na Direção das Periferias Extremas da Amazônia: Arqueologia na

Bacia do Rio Jiparaná, Rondônia. Unpublished MA Dissertation, University of São Paulo.

Zucchi, A. 1985. Evidencias arqueológicas sobre grupos de posible lengua Caribe.

Antropológica, 63-64, 23-44.

Zuse, S. 2011. Ocupações pré-coloniais e variabilidade cerâmica nos sítios arqueológicos do

Alto rio Madeira, Rondônia. Unpublished PhD Candidacy Report, University of São Paulo.

Images and Maps:

Advert by Queiroz Galvão construction company announcing the birth of Juarez Furtado de

Araújo Transamazônico. Realidade magazine, 1971, 316 , “Amazonia”. In: M. G. Torres,

2008. A beiradeira e o grilador: ocupação e conflito no Oeste do Pará. Unpublished MA

dissertation, University of São Paulo, 287.

61

Florence, H. Aux bas-fonds appellés Tiacoron, à la Riv. Tapajós, Juin 1828; Femme et enfant

Mandurucús. In: CCBB, Expedição Langsdorff. São Paulo: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil,

2010, 192-193.

Map in Introduction, p. 7 adapted by Vinicius Honorato from Natural Earth online website.

Retrieved on 16th September 2012 from the World Wide Web:

http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

Maps in Annexes 4 and 7 adapted by Vinicius Honorato from Miranda, E. E. de. 2005. Brasil

em Relevo. Campinas: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite. Retrieved on 1st October 2011

from World Wide Web: http://www.relevobr.cnpm.embrapa.br/

Appendix

UPPER TAPAJÓS PROJECT

AUGER RECORD FORM

Test hole n°: ________________ Resp. person:_____________________________ Date:___/____/______

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pottery: ___ Lithic flakes:___ Polished lithics:___ Charcoal: ___ Seed:___ China, glass or porcelain:___ Other:______

Obs.:_____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sondagem n°: __________________Responsável:___________________________ Data:___/____/______

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pottery: ___ Lithic flakes:___ Polished lithics:___ Charcoal: ___ Seed:___ China, glass or porcelain:___ Other:______

Obs.:_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Site: _____________ ANNEX 1

INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY (UCL)UPPER TAPAJÓS PROJECTEXCAVATION LEVEL FORM

Legend:

Observations: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Unit: ___________________________

Level: __________________________

Layer:__________________________

PN(s):__________________________ __________________________

Charcoal collection:_______________

Dating sample:___________________ Soil colour:______________________ _______________________________

Soil texture: _____________________ ______________________________Responsible person: ______________ ______________________________

Date: _____/_____/_________

Lithic flake:

Polished lithic:Pottery:

Charcoal:

Seed:

China, glass, porcelain:

Bone:

Other:

NW NE

SESW Scale: 1:10

Defined limit between layers:

Diffuse limit between layers:

________________

- - - - - - - - - - ___________

Sheet n :___/___ANNEX 2

INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY (UCL)

UPPER TAPAJÓS PROJECT

PROVENIENCE NUBER FORM

Site:________________________ Unit/Sector: _______________ Resp. Person:________________ Date:___/___/____

PN Description

ANNEX 3

TERRA PRETA DO MANGABAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITEItaituba - Pará, Brazil

Tapajós River

Tapajós River

1 m² unit

Contour (5m)

Auger hole

Cross section

KEY

A’A

N1000 E1000: UTM 21M 510468/9428160

200 m100 m50 m 50 m 150 m

TN

MN16.6

50 m

60 m

70 m

80 m

90 m

100 m

110 m

95 m

85 m 75 m

65 m

55 m

50 m

N10

00 E

1000

N10

00 E

1050

N95

0 E10

00

N10

25 E

1000

N11

25 E

1000

N10

00 E

950

N10

75 E

1000

N10

00 E

900

90 m

100 m

50 m

60 m

70 m

80 m

125 m 250 m 375 m 500 m

Section A-A’

110 m

650 m

A

A`

Tapajós

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site

Ponta do Jatobá archaeological site

0 km 2 km 4 km 6 km 8 km 10 km

0 m

ANNEX 4

Source: MIRANDA, E. E. de; (Coord.). Brasil em Relevo. Campinas: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite, 2005.Available at: . Accessed on 01/10/2011

http://www.relevobr.cnpm.embrapa.br

Map by Vinicius Honorato

N1000 E 1025

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/1

10YR 4/3

10YR 4/3

10YR 5/610YR 4/3

N1000 E 1050

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 4/2

10YR 4/2

10YR 4/2

N950 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/3

10YR 3/3, 10YR 5/6

N975 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/1 (80%), 10YR 4/6 (20%)

10YR 3/1 (60%), 10YR 4/6 (40%)

10YR 4/6 (90%), 10YR 3/1 (10%)

10YR 4/6 (90%), 10YR 3/1 (10%)

N1025 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

10YR 4/2 (50%), 10YR 4/6 (50%)

10YR 5/8 (50%), 10YR 3/3 (50%)

N1000 E 975

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

N1000 E 950

10YR 2/1

7.5YR 5/6 (50%)7.5YR 4/1 (50%)

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 5/6 (80%)7.5YR 4/1 (20%)

7.5YR 5/6 (80%)7.5YR 4/1 (20%)

N1000 E 925

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/2 (50%)10YR 4/6 (50%)

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2 (50%)10YR 4/6 (50%)

N1000 E 900

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/4

10YR 3/4

10YR 3/6

10YR 3/6

N1000 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/2

10YR 5/4

N1075 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/2

N1075 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

N1100 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/2

10YR 4/6

N1050 E 1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/2 (50%), 10YR 3/6 (50%)

10YR 3/2 (50%), 10YR 3/6 (50%)

MN-16.6

TERRA PRETA DO MANGABAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE:SOIL PROFILESItaituba- Pará, Brazil

ANNEX 5

Black

Very dark brown

Very dark gray

Very dark grayish brown

Dark brown

Dark yellowish brown

KEY*

Dark gray

Dark grayish brown

Brown

Yellowish brown10YR 5/410YR 5/610YR 5/8

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/1

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/3

10YR 3/4, 10YR 3/610YR 4/4, 10YR 4/6

10YR 4/17.5YR 4/1

10YR 4/2

10YR 4/3

7.5YR 5/6 Strong Brown

*Colours are approximate representations of Munsell Soil Color Chart.

Not to scaleGraphic art by Vinicius Honorato

200cm1000

160

150

140

130

120

110

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

(cm)

0

PN 160

PN 161

PN 162

TL

LL

L

R

R

L

L

L

L

CR

CR

CR

CR

CR

L

E.1000 E.999 E.999N.1073 N.1073 N.1074

IV

V

III

II

I

SOUTHERN PROFILE - N.1073m WESTERN PROFILE - E.999m

R

CR

L

Diffuse limit between layers

Clearly defined limit between layers

Cobble-sized rock

Lithic flake (L), Thermal lithic flake (TF)

KEY

Root

Surface

Charcoal

Pottery

IV

V

III

II

I

Bioturbation

Humic layer. Soil colour 10YR 2/1 Black. Roots, rootlets and biotic activity. Pottery present. Soil of clayey-sandy texture.

Soil colour 2/1 Black. Layer impacted by recent agricultural activities. High density of archaeological remains (particularly from 20-30cm depth), although these are smaller than those in Layer III. Silex, quartz and arenite lithics (chips and flakes). “Loose” soil, of clayey-sandy texture. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets.

Soil colour 10YR 3/1 Very dark grey. Anthropogenic soil. Layer with greatest density of archaeological remains (pottery and flaked lithics), esp. at around 30-40cm depth. Pottery fragments found also larger; however not disposed in any particular orientation in spite of impression of horizontal orientation given in drawing. Large quantity of cobble-sized stones. Number of bioturbations also high. The texture of the soil is clayey-sandy and the soil is “loose”.

Transition layer in which few vestiges occur, some of which can be associated to bioturbations. Mottled soil: 10YR 3/2 Very dark grayish brown and 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown. Clayey-sandy soil texture.

Soil colour 10YR 5/6 Yellowish brown. Although archaeological remains were encountered within the levels 80-150cm, their presence is attributed to bioturbations. Therefore, this layer is archaeologically sterile. The soil is damp, highly compacted, with a clayey-sandy texture. This layer merges into Layer II.

Not excavated.

SOUTH WEST

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site - Itaituba - Pará - BrazilUNIT E.1000 / N.1074 - STRATIGRAPHIC PROFILE

ANNEX 6.1

Graphic art by Marcos Brito Castro

100cm0

160

150

140

130

120

110

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

(cm)

0

LL

L

CR

E.999 E.1000N.1074 N.1074

IV

V

III

II

I

NORTHERN PROFILE - N.1074m

CR

L

Diffuse limit between layers

Clearly defined limit between layers

Cobble-sized rock

Lithic flake

KEY

Surface

Charcoal

Pottery

IV

V

III

II

I

Bioturbation

Humic layer. Soil colour 10YR 2/1 Black. Roots, rootlets and biotic activity. Pottery present. Soil of clayey-sandy texture.

Soil colour 2/1 Black. Layer impacted by recent agricultural activities. High density of archaeological remains (particularly from 20-30cm depth), although these are smaller than those in Layer III. Silex, quartz and arenite lithics (chips and flakes). “Loose” soil, of clayey-sandy texture. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets.

Soil colour 10YR 3/1 Very dark grey. Anthropogenic soil. Layer with greatest density of archaeological remains (pottery and flaked lithics), esp. at around 30-40cm depth. Pottery fragments found also larger; however not disposed in any particular orientation in spite of impression of horizontal orientation given in drawing. Large quantity of cobble-sized stones. Number of bioturbations also high. The texture of the soil is clayey-sandy and the soil is “loose”.

Transition layer in which few vestiges occur, some of which can be associated to bioturbations. Mottled soil: 10YR 3/2 Very dark grayish brown and 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown. Clayey-sandy soil texture.

Soil colour 10YR 5/6 Yellowish brown. Although archaeological remains were encountered within the levels 80-150cm, their presence is attributed to bioturbations. Therefore, this layer is archaeologically sterile. The soil is damp, highly compacted, with a clayey-sandy texture. This layer merges into Layer II

.Not excavated.

NORTH

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site - Itaituba - Pará - BrazilUNIT E.1000 / N.1074 - STRATIGRAPHIC PROFILE

ANNEX 6.2

Graphic Art by Marcos Brito Castro

90 m

40 m

50 m

60 m

70 m

80 m

125 m 250 m 375 m 500 m

Section A-A’

Tapajós River

35 m

40 m

45 m

50 m

55 m

60 m

65 m

70 m

75 m

80 m

85 m

85 m

85 m

35 m

80 m

75 m

70 m

90 m

50 m 0 m 50 m 100 m 150 m 200 m

A

A’

N10

00 E

1000

N10

00 E

1075

N10

00 E

1150

N10

00 E

1225

N10

00 E

1300

N10

50 E

1075

N11

00 E

1075

N95

0 E

1075

1 m² unit Contour (5m)

Auger hole Cross section

KEY

A’A

N1000 E1000: UTM 21M 582600/94933124

0 km 3 km 6 km

Pajaú archaeological site

Tapajó

s R

iver

0 m

50 m

100 m

150 m

200 m

250 m

300 m

350 m

PAJAÚ ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE Itaituba - Pará, Brazil

TN

MN16.6

Map b

y V

inic

ius

Honora

to

Source: MIRANDA, E. E. de; (Coord.). Brasil em Relevo. Campinas: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite, 2005.Available at: . Accessed on 01/10/2011http://www.relevobr.cnpm.embrapa.br

AN

NE

X 7

N1000 E975

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

7.5YR 4/1 (50%) 7.5YR 5/6 (50%)

N1075 E1075

1 0 Y R 3 / 2

10 YR 4/3

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

N1100 E1075

10YR 2/2

10YR 4/3

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/2

N1025 E1075

10YR 3/2

7.5YR 4/3 (50%)7.5YR 4/2 (50%)

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 3/2

N1050 E1075

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 4/2 (50%)7.5YR 5/6 (50%)

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 4/3 (90%)7.5YR 5/6 (10%)

N950 E1075

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 3/2 (80%)7.5YR 5/6 (20%)

10YR 3/2 (20%)7.5YR 5/6 (80%)

N925 E1075

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 4/4 (90%)7.5YR 5/6 (10%)

7.5YR 5/6 (90%)10YR 4/2 (10%)

N1000 E 1225

10YR 4/3

10YR 6/6 (50%)10YR 4/2 (50%)

10YR 6/6

10YR 4/4

10YR 6/6 (50%)10YR 4/2 (50%)

N975 E1075

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 4/2 (70% 7.5YR 5/6(30%)

7.5YR 4/2 (60%) 7.5YR 5/6(40%)

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

N1000 E 1325

10YR 3/2

10YR 4/3 (60%),10YR 5/6 (40%)

10YR 5/6

10YR 5/6 (70%)10YR 4/3 (30%)

10YR 3/2

N1000 E 1250

10YR 3/2

10YR 4/2 (50%)10YR 5/4 (50%)

10YR 5/4

10YR 5/4 (80%)10YR 4/2 (20%)

10YR 3/2

N1000 E 1275

10YR 3/2

10YR 4/3

10YR 6/6

10YR 6/6

10YR 3/2

N1000 E 1300

10YR 3/2

10YR 4/2

10YR 5/6

10YR 4/6

10YR 3/2

N1000 E1000

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

7.5YR 4/2 (60%) 7.5YR 5/6 (40%)

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

N1000 E1025

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 4/6 (70%)7.5YR 3/2 (30%)

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

N1000 E1050

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/3

7.5YR 4/6

7.5YR 4/6

7.5YR 4/6

N1000 E1075

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/2

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 4/2 (70%)7.5YR 4/6 (30%)

7.5YR 4/6 (70%) 10YR 4/2 (30%)

N1000 E1100

10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 4/2 (50%)7.5YR 4/6 (50%)

7.5YR 4/6 (50%) 10YR 4/2 (50%)

N1000 E1125

10YR 3/1

7.5YR 5/6 (50%) 7.5YR 4/2 (50%)

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6 (90%) 10YR 4/2 (10%)

7.5YR 5/6

N1000 E1150

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/2

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 4/6 (70%)7.5YR 5/6 (30%)

7.5YR 5/6 (70%)10YR 4/6 (30%)

N1000 E1175

10YR 2/2

10YR 4/2 (90%)7.5YR 5/6 (10%)

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 5/6 (90%) 7.5YR 4/2 (10%)

7.5YR 5/6

N1000 E1200

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/2

7.5YR 6/6

10YR 4/2 (50%) 10YR 5/4 (50%)

7.5YR 5/6

PAJAÚ ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE:SOIL PROFILES

Itaituba- Pará, Brazil

Black

Very dark brown

Very dark gray

Very dark grayish brown

Dark brown

Dark yellowish brown

KEY*

Dark gray

Dark grayish brown

Brown

Yellowish brown10YR 5/410YR 5/6

10YR 2/1

10YR 2/2

10YR 3/1

10YR 3/2

10YR 3/3

10YR 3/4, 10YR 3/610YR 4/4, 10YR 4/610YR 4/4

10YR 4/17.5YR 4/1

10YR 4/2

10YR 4/3

7.5YR 5/6 Strong Brown

10YR 6/6 Brownish yellow

7.5YR 4/2 Brown

Dark brown7.5YR 3/2

7.5YR 6/6 Reddish yellow

MN-16.6

*Colours are approximate representations of Munsell Soil Color Chart.

Not to scaleGraphic art by Vinicius Honorato

ANNEX 8

200cm1000

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

(cm)

0

RCR

CR

R

R

R

R

R

R

R

R

R

RR

E.1070 E.1070 E.1071N.1079 N.1080 N.1080

IV

V

III

II

I

WESTERN PROFILE - E.1070m NORTHERN PROFILE - N.1080m

CR

Diffuse limit between layers

Cobble-sized rock

KEY

Root

Surface

Charcoal

Pottery IV

V

III

II

I

Bioturbation

Humic layer. Soil colour 10YR 2/2 Very dark brown. Roots, rootlets and biotic activity. Pottery present. Sandy-clayey soil.

Soil colour 2/1 Black. High density of archaeological remains (pottery and lithics). The pottery fragments found are larger; they are not disposed in any particular orientation. Lithics vary from chips to flakes; cobble-sized stones also found in great number. Charcoal present, however not collected because of proximity to surface. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets.

Soil colour 10YR 2/2 Very dark brown. The density of archaeological remains (pottery and flaked lithics) is inferior to that of Layer IV. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets. Charcoal collected from this layer. The texture of the soil is clayey-sandy and it becomes increasingly compact as Layer II approaches.

NORTHWEST

R

Transition layer whose inferior and superior limits are indistinct. Mottled soil: 10YR 4/2 Dark grayish brown and 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown; the proportion of the latter increases with proximity to layer I. Clayey soil texture. Low density of archaeological remains. Charcoal present. Large amount of bioturbations filled with dark-coloured sediment.

Soil colour 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown. Archaeologically sterile. Highly compacted soil, clayey texture. Bioturbations present; a cobble-sized stone can be seen in the profile. This layer merges into layer II.

Not excavated.

Pajaú archaeological site - Itaituba - PA - BrazilUNIT E.1071 / N.1080 - STRATIGRAPHIC PROFILE

ANNEX 9

Graphic Art by Marcos Brito Castro

Annex 10 1

ANNEX 10

Attributes related to technology (4-8), form (2, 3, 9-13, 15) and decoration (14, 16-

23) were observed:

1. Identification number

2. Type of fragment 3.1 Sherd thickness (mm) 3.2 Diameter (mm) 0 - Not identified 0 - Not identified 1 - Base 2 - Body sherd 3 - Inflection 4 - Body Flange 5 - Handle 6 - Adorno 7 - Rim 8 - Labial Flange 9 - Whole Vessel 4. Internal Surface Treatment 5. External Surface Treatment 6. Forming technique 4.0 - Other 5.0 - Other 6.0 - Undetermined 4.1 - Smoothed 5.1 - Smoothed 6.1 - Coiled 4.2 - Burnished 5.2 - Burnished 6.2 - Modelled 4.3 - Resin 5.3 - Resin 4.4 - Polished 5.4 - Polished 4.5 - Brushed 5.5 - Brushed 4.6 - Eroded 5.6 - Eroded

8. Temper 8. cont. 8.0 - Undetermined 8.8 - Shell 8.1 - Cauixí 8.9 - Quartz 8.2 - Caraipé 8.10 - Charcoal 8.3 - Grog 8.11 - Quartz sand 8.4 - Mineral 8.12 - Voids 8.5 - Haematite 8.6 - Clay 8.7 - Bone

9. Vessel contour 10. Vessel shape 11. Inflection point(s) 9.0 - Undetermined 10.0 - Undetermined 11.0 - None 9.1 - Simple 10.1 - Restricted 11.1 - Rounded 9.2 - Composite 10.2 - Unrestricted 11.2 - Acute 9.3 - Inflected 10.3 - Vertical 11.3 - Carinated 9.4 - Complex 12. Rim inclination 13. Lip shape 14. Lip finish 12.0 - None 13.0 - None 14.0 - None 12.1 - Direct 13.1 - Pointed 14.1 - Rounded 12.2 - Everted 13.2 - Bevelled 14.2 - Flat 12.3 - Introverted 13.3 - Internally strengthened 14.3 - Cut 13.4 - Ext.strengthened 14.4 - Impressed 13.5 - Expanded 14.5 - Slipped 13.6 - Rounded 14.6 - Painted 13.7 - Flat 14.7 - Modelled 13.8 - Excised/grooved 13.9 - Hollow

7. Colour of the Paste 7.0 - Undetermined 7.1 - Oxidised 7.2 - Reduced 7.3 - Internally Oxidised/ Externally Reduced 7.4 - Internally Reduced/Externally oxidised 7.5 - Reduced core

Annex 10 2

15. Base shape 16. Decorative surface 17. Decoration type and location

15.0 - None 16.0 - None 17.0 - None 15.1 - Flat 16.1 - Internal 17.1 - Painted internal 15.2 - Convex 16.2 - External 17.2 - Painted external 15.3 - Pedestal 16.3 - Both 17.3 - Plastic Internal 15.4 - Concave 17.4 - Plastic External 15.5 - Flat with leaf impression 17.5 - Slip internal 15.6 - Foot 17.6 - Slip External 17.7 - Rim 18. Colour of slip 19. Type of painting 20. Paint colour 18.0 - None 19.0 - None 20.0 - None 18.1 - White 19.1 - Fine lines 20.1 - Burgundy 18.2 - Burgundy 19.2 - Thick bands 20.2 - Red 18.3 - Red 19.3 - Straight lines 20.3 - Orange 18.4 - Orange 19.4 - Curved lines 20.4 - Yellow 18.5 - Yellow 19.5 - Post firing 20.5 - Black 18.6 - Black 19.6 - Pre-firing 20.6 - White 19.7 - Undetermined 20.7 - Negative 20.8 - Brown 21. Type of Pl. decoration 22. Plastic decoration patterns 21.0 - None 22.0 - None 22.2.3 Zoned-hachured incision 21.1 - Lip finish 22.1.1 Nicked lip 22.2.4 Incised curved lines 21.2 - Incised 22.1.2 "Serrated" lip 22.3.1 Ungulate/ finger tip 21.3 - Ungulate/Finger tip mark 22.1.3 Punctuated lip 22.4.1 Punctuation (rectilinear)

21.4 - Impressed 22.1.4 Undetermined 22.4.2 Punctuation (round stylus)

21.5 - Perforated 22.1.5 Fingernail ridged 22.4.3 Cord or fibre impression 21.6 - Modelling 22.2.1 “Fish spine” incision 22.5.1 Perforation 21.7 - Adornos 22.2.2 Parallel incision 22.6. Modelled 22.7.1 Applied fillet 22.7.2 Applied blob

23. State of paste when plastic decoration was executed 23.0 - Undetermined 23.1 - Wet/damp 23.2 - Leather hard/dry 23.3 - Post firing 23.4 - Pre-slip 23.5 - Post slip

ANNEX 11

Temper

Cauixí is the generic name given to freshwater sponges. The shape of the sponge

spicules is acicular. Caraipé derives from the burnt bark of certain trees. Both cauixí

and caraipé are high in silica content.

Tempers commonly used in Amazonia. Left, cauixí; Right, caraipé and quartz. Photographs of Paredão pottery (40x magnification) by Claide de Paula Moraes.

Identification of firing environment

Adapted from chart used by the Central Amazon Project, courtesy of Márjorie Lima.

f

Plate 1

Terra Preta do Mangabal

Figs. a-e: lozenge-shaped incisions on rim and body sherds; f & i: perpendicular incision - possible «fish spine» motif; g, j, k: straight, parallel incisions; h: triangular-shaped incision - possible «fish spine»motif; l: parallel, curvilinear incision.

lk

j

ih

g

fe

d

c

b

a

Plate 2

Terra Preta do Mangabal

Fig. a: remountable fragments of vessel withridges, also nicked.

lozenge-shaped incision, «nicked» rim and lip, applied vertical fillets forming

a

Plate 3

Terra Preta do Mangabal

Fig. a: Orange-slipped rim sherd with modelled lip and appliqué blob (found on surface); b: fibre-impressed body sherd, subsequently coated with white slip; c: rim sherd displaying clay additions around circumference; d: modelled rim producing «wavy» effect; e: modelling on body sherd.

ab

cd

e

Figs. a - f: everted, «nicked» rims and lips; g: direct «nicked» rim.

Plate 4

Terra Preta do Mangabal

ab

c

d

e f g

Plate 5

Terra Preta do Mangabal

Figs. a-d: direct, «serrated» rims and lips; e: ungulate impression on body sherd; f: impressed punctuation on rim; g: modelled body sherd.

f

a

b

c

de

g

Plate 6

Pajaú

Fig. a & e: horizontally applied clay fillets with round-edged punctuations; b: rim sherd with horizontally applied clay fillets and round-edged punctuations -- fillets are accompanied by lines of orange paint; c: body sherd with «fish spine» incision and vestige of red paint; d, f, g, i: body sherds with red paint; h:modelled, undecorated handle; j: body sherd with black resist paint in curvilinear design. Photographs of figs. c, e, f and g taken by Rogério Andrade dos Santos.

a

b

c

d

fg

i

h

j

e

5cm

Plate 7

Pajaú

Fig. a: Double-line rectangular-shaped punctuations on internal face of everted, «serrated» rim; b: lines of rectangular-shaped punctuations on body sherd; c: lines of parallel rectangular-shaped punctuation below rim on external surface of sherd; d: line of rectangular-shaped punctuation placed above incision (possible «fish spine» motif); e: «fish spine» incisions; f: «T» shaped parallel incision; g: possible «fish spine» motif - otherwise, convergent lines; h: perforations - possible colander?; i: impressed lip; j & k: «serrated» lips.

f

kji

h

e

d

cb

a

g

Plate 8

Cocalino

Fig. a: incised “fish-spine” design on outer surface near rim; b: parallel vertical incisions on internal face of everted rim; c and d: converging isoceles triangles; e: parallel incisions; f: crossed incised design; g: applied fillets with punctuation; h: punctuation along lip.

c

b

a

d e f

g h

Plate 9

Boa Vista

Fig. a: Hollow rim sherd; b: hollow, red-slipped rim with «wavy» modelled lip. Photograph of fig. a. taken by Rogério Andrade dos Santos.

ba