Moundbuilders of the Amazon: geophysical archaeology on Marajo Island, Brazil 0125953488

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MOUNDBUILDERS OF THE AMAZON

MOUNDBUILDERS —__ ———— OF THE AMAZON ______ ¢

Geophysical

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Archaeology on__ Ss Fre Margjo Island, el Brazil Anna Curtenius Roosevelt Department of Anthropology American Museum of Natural History New York, New York

ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers

San Diego New York Boston London Sydney Tokyo Toront

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 1991 by Academic Press, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Academic Press, Inc. San Diego, California 92101

United Kingdom Edition published by Academic Press Limited 24-28 Oval Road, London NW1

7DX

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Roosevelt, Anna Curtenius Moundbuilders of the Amazon : geophysical archaeology on Marajo Island, Brazil / by Anna Roosevelt. > Gil Includes bibliographical references. ISBN

0-12-595348-8

(alk. paper)

1. Indians of South America--Brazil--Maraj6 Island--Antiquities. 2. Mound-builders--Brazil--Maraj6 Island. 3. Earthworks (Archaeology)--Brazil--Maraj6 Island.

-Antiquities.

5. Brazil--Antiquities.

F2519.1.M35R66

4. Maraj6 Island (Brazil)-

I. Title.

1990

981'.15--dc20

89-18604

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This book is dedicated to these pioneers of South American archaeology in recognition of their innovative work and their help and inspiration to colleagues:

Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna Junius Bird

Wesley Hurt Irving Rouse

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS — xi LIST OF TABLES xv PREP ACES * xvii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ~ xxi INTRODUCTION — xxv

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM Introduction 1 The Environment of Marajo Island Resources for Humans

20

The Marajoara Culture

27

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

29

The Funerary Complex 40 _ Material Culture 59 Art and Iconography 76 Symbolism and Society 89 Summary 95

Vii

CONTENTS

Vill

AA METHOD AND THEORY FOR AMAZONIAN ARCHAEOLOGY First Approaches 100 The Feud 105 The Developmental Sequence in Amazonia 111 Method and Theory in American Archaeology 115 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Materials 125 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Settlements 139 An Archaeological Experiment on Marajo Island 154

THE MARAJO ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT History of the Project 156 Systematic Collections and Archives 162 The Study Site, Teso dos Bichos 167 The Environmental Survey 170 Previous Archaeological Work at Teso dos Bichos 1890 Project Survey and Excavations at Teso dos Bichos in 1983

182

Project Survey and Excavations at Teso dos Bichos in 1985

Past and Current Research by the Project at Other Sites

GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS AT TESO DOS BICHOS Introduction 188 Topographic Mapping 193 Geophysical Characteristics of the Site 195 Magnetic Surveys 197 The Conductivity Survey 212 Resistivity Surveys 215 Ground-Penetrating Radar Survey 222 Conclusions from the Survey 226 Improvements for Future Surveys

227

184

186

CONTENTS

THE EXCAVATIONS Excavation Methods 230 The Results of the Excavations

242

Excavations at Magnetic Anomalies 243 Excavations in Areas Without Magnetic Anomalies Excavations at High-Conductivity Areas 312

Excavations at Radar Anomalies 321 Summary of the Results of the Excavations Interpretation of the Ancient SiteCommunity

331 333

THE ANALYSIS OF OBJECTS Object Conservation 344 Lithics 347 Ceramics 349 Biological Remains 373 Human Remains 384 Results of the Analysis 395

CONCLUSIONS Results of the Marajo Project 397 The Nature of Marajoara Society 403 Directions for Future Work 421 The Significance of Amazonian Archaeology

APPENDIX = 439 REFERENCES = 447 INDEX 483

431

291

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Pigure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure! Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1:12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 3.1

Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 4.1

Map of lowland South America. Map of eastern Marajo Island. Radar map of eastern Marajo. The Bay of Marajo. Water quality studies. Tidal gallery forest along the Camara River. Gallery forest along the Anajas and Goiapi Rivers. The Arari River drainage at low water. Savanna vegetation. Fauna. Marajo people and dwellings. Transportation. Water control. Marajoara mound complexes: Fortaleza. Marajoara mound complexes: Camutins. Marajoara cemeteries. Polychrome anthropomorphic burial urns. Painted funerary pottery. Elaborate incised, excised and painted funerary pottery. Incised, excised and painted funerary pottery. Funerary effigy vessels. Funerary figurines. Special purpose objects. Utilitarian vessels. Topographic map of the archaeological mound Teso dos Bichos. Teso dos Bichos. Surface remains. Geophysical summary map (enlarged version in Appendix).

xl

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Xi

Figure Figure Figure Figure

4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

Figure Figure Figure Figure

4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

Figure 4.10 Figure 4.11 Figure 4.12 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

4.13 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13

Figure 5.14 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 5.21

Figure 5.22

Figure 5.23

Surveying with proton magnetometers.

Magnetic profiles. Large-amplitude magnetic anomalies. High-resolution magnetic map (enlarged version in Appendix). Detail of high-resolution magnetic map. Detail of magnetic susceptibility map. Radar and conductivity survey. High-resolution conductivity map (enlarged version in Appendix). Electrical resistivity surveys. Resistivity pseudosection and conductivity profile at magnetic anomaly M27. Resistivity pseudosection and conductivity profile at Profile S. Radar profiles. Project excavation form. Soil screening. General views of Excavation 1 at Profile A. Section drawing of Excavation 1 at Profile A. Rubble Stratum 9, Excavation 1. Remains of pole and thatch structure in Excavation 1. Uncovering Stoves 1—4 in Excavation 1.

Views of Stoves 1—4, Excavation 1. Stove group in Excavation 1, cleared of contents. Stoves in Excavation 2 and Test 13. Drawings of stoves in Profile L, Tests 13 and 16. Stoves in Excavation 5 at magnetic anomaly M27. Section drawing and photograph of Excavation 3, Profile B, at magnetic anomaly M17, and section drawing of Profile X. General view of Profiles N, Q, R, and O and section drawing and plan at Profile N. Photograph and drawings of Profile O. Modern trough stoves on Marajo and in Indonesia. Drawing of garbage fill at Test 10. Garbage fill and structural remains at Profile H. Garbage fill at Profile T. Section drawing and photographs of alluvium in Test 8. Section drawing and photographs of alluvium in Test 19. Section drawing and photographs of large earthworks at Profile S and W and occupation features at Profile U. Section drawing of disturbed stratigraphy in Profile M at radar anomaly G27.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 5.24 Figure 5.25 Figure 6.1 Figure 6.2 Figure 6.3

Views of disturbed stratigraphy in Excavation 6 and Test 15, at radar anomalies G25 and G6. | Geophysical—archaeological interpretation map and village reconstruction drawing. Lithics from Teso dos Bichos. Pottery vessels in the excavations at Teso dos Bichos. Elaborately decorated pottery sherds from the

Figure 6.4

excavations. Utilitarian wares from the excavations.

Figure 6.5 Figure 6.6

Carbonized plant remains from Excavation 1. Faunal remains from the excavations.

Figure 6.7 Figure 6.8

Human crania and calavaria from Marajo. Human bone pathologies.

Figure 6.9

Pacoval Subphase skeleton in block from Teso dos Bichos. Pacoval Subphase skeleton en bloc from Teso dos Bichos.

Figure 6.10

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1

Abundance, frequency, dominance, and importance of plant species in a dry forest, Ilha de Goiaba, Marajo Island,

Table 3.2

Plants identified in the Municipality of Cachoeira do Arari, Marajo Island, 1987. List of fishes collected from the Goiapi River, Marajo Island, 1983-1987. Radiocarbon dates from Marajoara Sites. Seriation table of Goiapi Scraped sherds in Test Pit 10. Seriation table of Johanes Painted sherds in Test Pit 10. Seriation table of Finger Grooved sherds in Test Pit 10. Seriation table of Goiapi Scraped sherds in Excavation 1. Seriation table of Johanes Painted sherds in Excavation 1. Seriation table of Finger Grooved sherds in Excavation 1. Stable isotope analyses of human and faunal bone from Marajo and adjacent islands.

1984.

Table 3.3 Table Table Table Table Table Table Table Table

5.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7

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PREFACE

Lowland tropical environments cover large areas of the globe, and what is known of early humans suggests that the tropics were an important arena of cultural and biological evolution. Nevertheless, the lowland tropics are poorly known archaeologically in comparison to temperate and desert environments. Many archaeologists have thought that tropical envi- ) ronments were inimical to human cultural development. They have, there-( fore, focused research on cultural centers outside of the lowlands, and the 1 lowlands have been left out of consensual narratives of the human past. ~/ Recent findings from tropical lowland archaeology, however, show a Y | surprising cultural precocity and an unsuspected magnitude of prehistoric| - occupation. In the Amazon basin in Brazil, new evidence shows that seven thousand years ago tropical riverine foragers developed the earliest pottery: in the Americas; by at least three thousand years ago, chiefdoms in many areas had transformed lowland landscapes with extensive earthworks and settlements and developed elaborate material culture with far-flung influence in outside areas. If prehistoric lowland peoples led other areas in important cultural innovations, then obviously they should be represented in scholars’ explanations of New World prehistory. This book is a first step in bringing the rich archaeological record of the Lower Amazon into the light of day. It is about Marajoara, a complex} society that existed from the fifth to fourteenth centuries A.p. on Marajo, the | vast island at the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil. The large earthen mounds of Marajo and their exquisite funerary art have elicited interest worldwide since the nineteenth century but very little scientific research. Scholars have speculated about the origin, lifeways, and demise of the society but have done so without an adequate factual basis. Despite the) fame of the mounds and artworks and the culture’s theoretical significance | as a tropical lowland complex society, there have been few data from } Marajoara sites. Until now, none has been mapped with surveying instruments, and only uncontrolled trenches and a few small test pits have been

xvii

XVill

PREFACE

dug. The mounds’ stratigraphy, structures, and cemeteries have been essentially unrecorded, and the soil had not been sifted for artifacts and biological remains. The majority of the archives and collections from early explorations have lain uncataloged and unanalyzed. This book presents the results of nine years of research by the Marajo archaeological project, bringing together the findings from five seasons of fieldwork on Marajo with extensive information from museums and archives. The book summarizes current knowledge about the Marajoara and outlines a strategy for research on the culture. It reports in detail the results from the project’s 1983 and 1985 surveys and excavations at Teso dos Bichos, an archaeological mound in eastern Marajo. The first chapter is a summary of what is known so far about the Marajoara. It includes new information and illustrations from archives, collections, and recent fieldwork. I discuss this material as evidence for the origins and nature of the society and evaluate earlier archaeologists’ interpretations. I identify the kind of research needed to address the important questions about the culture. The second chapter discusses the methodology of Amazonian archaeology. In it I characterize earlier approaches to prehistoric Amazonian cultures and describe the intense professional conflict that arose among researchers after the Second World War, hindering progress in the field. I critique the theory and method of professional archaeologists in the lowlands, showing the failure of dogmatic scientism and the effectiveness of a skeptical and holistic scientific methodology keyed to theoretical issues. I propose a more comprehensive, empirical, and interdisciplinary approach to Amazonian archaeology. Chapters 3 through 5 report on the fieldwork at Teso dos Bichos, communicating the goals, procedures, and results of the Marajo project’s geophysical survey and stratigraphic excavations. Chapter 3 summarizes earlier work at the site and explains the rationale of the research strategy. Chapter 4 describes the four high-resolution geophysical surveys with maps and profiles of the results. Chapter 5 describes the excavation program and illustrates the results of the excavations with photographs, stratigraphic drawings, and a table of radiocarbon dates. Chapter 6 summarizes the ongoing analysis of the artifacts and biological remains from the excavations and the human skeletons from collections with illustrations in the form of photographs, drawings, and statis-

tical tables. Throughout the book, results from current research are mentioned where relevant, especially the project’s reconnaissance at 15 other sites on Marajo and our 1987 and 1988 surveys and excavations at Guajara mound in the Anajas basin. The concluding chapter (Chapter 7) reviews key interpretive questions about Marajoara in the light of the research at Teso dos Bichos and crosscultural theories and data on tribal and ranked societies. In terms of these questions, I outline directions for future research by the project on commu-

PREFACE

XIX

nity organization and regional integration in the Marajoara domain. The book concludes with a summary of the general significance of Amazonian archaeology. There are several potential audiences for this book. For field archaeologists and prehistorians, it demonstrates the wide utility of an undogmatic, theoretically informed research strategy that combines a variety of traditional archaeological methods with techniques from other fields. With numerous

photographs, maps, drawings, and tables, the book illustrates

the large yield of significant information possible when qualitative, cultural studies and quantitative, technical analyses are integrated. For geophysicists, chemists, engineers, as well as natural scientists and art histori-

ans, the book shows how their respective research techniques can shed light on fundamental research questions about human nature and the human condition through the ages. Additionally, for those interested in the native peoples of Amazonia, the book offers abundant evidence for the outstanding achievements of their ancestors.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book was made possible by the help of many people and institutions.

Ronaldo and Lucia Cardoso, of the Fazenda Santa Maria where Teso dos Bichos is located, supported and advised the project. Commendably, the Cardoso Family Cooperative values the site as a historic resource and protects it from looting. Other ranch families gave us hospitality and unpublished information about Marajo and the Marajoara culture, especially the Lobato, Teixeira, Miranda, Sampaio, Acatauassu, and Barbosa families, as well as Dona Hidalgina and Dona Oneide Rodrigues and their families. Jose Seixas Lourenco, my first counterpart scientist in Brazil, initiated the idea for a collaboration on Marajo and led the first geophysical surveys. Guilherme De La Penha of the Museu Geoldi and Silvia Maranca of the Museu Paulista also were counterpart scientists, and Guilherme Branda6 and Jose Duarte de Araujo of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento e Tecnologia and Angelo Oswaldo de Araujo of the Secretaria do Patrimonio Historico e Artistico Nacional arranged the permits. Bruce Bevan, project geophysicist of Geosight, codirected the geophysical surveys for the project and created the summary geophysical maps published in this book. William Sauck and Geraldo das Virgens of the Universidade Federal do Para collaborated in the geophysical work with

the help of Cristina Senna and others. The topographic mapping of Teso dos Bichos was accomplished by Michael Davenport of Greenhouse Consultants, with the help of William Barse, then a graduate student at American University. Elizabeth Richter, Lydia Mueller, and William Bale helped

with the mapping and worked in the excavations at Teso dos Bichos. Mapping at other Marajo sites was carried out by Mark Perry of Pima Community College, Tucson, Arizona and by John Douglas of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Many from the Museu Goeldi took part in the project. Cristina Miranda

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

and Maura Imazio da Silveria, resourceful field and lab workers, contributed their extensive experience in archaeological fieldwork in other parts of Amazonia. Anthony Anderson and Paulo Cavalcante advised on the identification of archaeological plant remains, and Anderson contributed a census of the piant communities in the vicinity of the site. Carlos Rosario made botanical study collections for the project. Horst Schwassman and Maria Ivaneide da Silva studied the waters and their fish and made faunal collections. William Overall studied the insect fauna of the site and its impact on stratigraphy. Adelia de Oliveira Rodrigues, Daniel Frois Lopes, Nelson Papavero, and Conceicao Correia, did much to make the work in Brazil possible, and their own research has been an inspiration. Celso Martins Pinto and Walmir Oliveira at the Goeldi lent valuable administrative support. Fernanda da Costa Araujo, also of the Museu Goeldi, lent competent assistance in the fieldwork during the first season. Cintia and Marcos Magalhaes, then associated with the Museu Goeldi, also took part in the field work at Teso dos Bichos, and Cintia and Cristina Miranda cataloged the field collections. Cristiane Lopes Machado and Cristina Leal have worked with us in the field at other Marajo sites and carried out the flotation of samples from all sites. Other students who took part in the fieldwork at Teso dos Bichos included Felice Mueller Pierce (now of the University of Washington), Dirse Kern, and Mauro Viana, then of the Federal University of Para; and Carlos Fitzgerald, then of Hunter College; Nina Weissberg (the laboratory

supervisor for the project at the American Museum); and Laurie Matthews, then at New York University. John Willis of Hunter College and Melinda Cahill worked on the Teso dos Bichos collections at the American Museum. Beatrice Grabowski of Indiana University worked with us at other sites on Marajo and on the comparative botanical collections. Linda Brown of the University of Arizona, David Stephan of Pima Community College, and Kevin Splied of Wolf Computer created the computer system for the project. The drawings of objects were made by Kimberly van Dyke, and the final maps and stratigraphic sections were drawn by Agiro Agelarakis from our field drawings. Carleton Palmer, Carmelo Guadagno, and Joshua Nevsky took studio photographs for the project. Unless otherwise identified, the field photographs and excavation drawings in the book are mine. The radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analyses for Marajo have been done by Harold Krueger of Geochron Laboratories, Inc. Those from other regions were provided by Rupert Housley of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Laboratory. David Greene, project physical anthropologist, was responsible for the report on human osteology. Harry Shapiro and Gonzalo Correal Urrego also reviewed some of the skeletal remains. Elizabeth Wing of the University of Florida and Elizabeth Reitz of the University of Georgia advised on the identification of faunal bones from the excavations. Lee Newsome of the University of Florida and Deborah Pearsall of the University of Missouri examined some

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

XXIII

of the archaeological plant remains. Abe Jaffee of Columbia University advised on the statistical analyses; Linda Brown

carried them out. The

Glassman and Nobman families supplied materials for the project, and Joao Cunha, Dona Reiko of Belem, Dona Lourdes of Kovacs Air Company, and Hortencia Vasquez gave valuable services. Others gave indirect inspiration to the project. In the late nineteenth century, Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna worked hard to spread knowledge of the archaeology of the Brazilian Amazon. His work and the work of those he brought to Marajo was the essential foundation for mine. The late Junius Bird’s pioneering work in stratigraphic excavation and soil processing influenced me, and his lifelong skepticism of consensual archaeology gave a good model for an approach to Amazonia. Marvin Harris helped by keeping his eye on the big picture and asking the question, ‘‘What does it all mean?” Irving Rouse started me in tropical lowland studies in the 1970s and gained me access to research sites in the Orinoco when lowland Colombia, Brazil, and Peru were inaccessible. Wesley Hurt has been out-

standing among archaeologists working in the lowlands of South America for his ideological tolerance and willingness to help his colleagues. This project could not have gone forward without his advice. Lita Osmundsen former Director of Research of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, gave intellectual and financial support for my first work in the lowlands, which led me to the research in Brazil that is reported in this book. Sydel Silverman, President of WennerGren, funded an international symposium that gave me the opportunity to discuss Amazon archaeology with ethnologists working in the area. The work at Teso dos Bichos and other sites was funded by three research grants from the National Science Foundation Cooperative Science Program of the International Division and Anthropology Program; a matching grant to my Brazilian colleagues from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico; a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; and a Prize Fellow Award from the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation. The institutional bases for this project have been the Museum of the American Indian, the American Museum of Natural History in New York,

and the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, in Belem. I would like to thank the following people who helped the work at these institutions: at the Indian Museum, Brenda Holland, Phyllis Dillon, Mary Jane Lenz, Mary Davis, Sanda Alexandride,

Ellie Wierda, Isabel Morales, Shira Birnbaum,

and

Ellen Jamieson; at the American Museum of Natural History, Diane Menditto, Craig Morris, Paul Beelitz, Barbara Conklin, Belinda Kaye, Joan Buttner, Clarissa Wilbur, Laura Lundenberg, Gary Nelson; and Richard Tedford, George Gardner, Peggy Cooper, Alan Ternes, Gareth Nelson, Vittorio Maestro and Robert Carneir. Staff in many museums kindly opened their collections and records to me for study: William Cox, Susan Glenn, and Leslie Sagle at the Smithson-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

XXIV

ian Archives; Donald Haller, Pamela Hern, John Laurence, Maryanne Ken-

worthy, and Georgia Grentzenberg at the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania; Maria Cohen at the Brooklyn Museum; Sven Erik Isacsson and Henry Wassen and others at the Gothenburg Ethnographic Museum; Victoria Swerdlow and others at the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology of Harvard University; the archaeology and anthropology staff at the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro; David Phillipson at the Cambridge University Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology; Malcolm McLeod and Iris Barry at the British Museum; Luciana Pallestrini at the Museu Paulista; Edith Landmann at the Universidad de Sao Paulo; Walter Rocha and Jane Cony Cruz at the Instituto Geografico e Historico de Amazonas; and Victor Pimentel at the Museu Nacional de Antropologia e Arqueologia in Lima. I have benefited from the willingness of colleagues to discuss the ideas presented in this book. I thank Gertrude Dole, Helen Fisher, Richard Schultes, Neil Whitehead, Jane Ross, Marilyn Goldstein, Barbara Braun, Linda Schele, Mary Miller, Michael Harner, David Friedel, William Balee,

Lucy Lewis Johnson, Cornelia Kurbjuhn, Norman Whitten, Jonathan Haas, Winifred

Creamer,

Jeff Ehrenreich,

Laurence

Desmond,

Darna

Dufour,

Michael Brown, Mark Brenner, Susan Milbrath, Virginia Miller, Dorothy and Maurice Kamen-Kaye, Robert Bailey, Adelia de Oliveira Rodrigues, Conceicao Correia, Wilton Hagman, Maura Imazio, Denny Moore, David Oren, Marianne Schmink, Kent Redford, Nigel Smith, George Armelagos, Nancy Parezo, Wendy Ashmore, Darrell Posey, Virginia Miller, Pita Kelekna, Patricia Anawalt, Antonio Porro, Faith Hubley, Robert Meade, and

Harold Stolberg. The book benefited from the efforts of Adrienne Welin, proof-reader, and Elizabeth Brock-Sullivan, indexer. Finally, lam most grateful to my friends: Laurence Addington, Alison Conner, Ann Hitchcock, John Wilcox, Kristie Miller, Margaret and Vincent Fay, Dora Chun, Alex Schoumatoff, Florence and John Stickney, Anne Alexander, Mavis and Zebulon Taintor, Virginia Maxwell, John Bruno, Roger Pasquier, Phebe Miller Olcay, Margaret Bird, Victoria Macy, Jane Brookins, Mauricio Obregon, Bernard Pomerance, and Rose Kendall. John

Gable and William Josephson gave both friendship and professional support. My family Susan Weld, William Weld, David Weld, Frances, Sandy, Connie, Cornelius, Tweed, and Elizabeth Roosevelt, and Stephen Jeffries

gave unflagging interest, advice, and kindly support.

INTRODUCTION

The field research at Teso dos Bichos was an experiment to integrate geophysical survey and excavation in basic research at a tropical lowland

archaeological mound. Its goal was to investigate the organization and activities of the ancient settlement by studying the structure and composition of the mound. First, high-resolution geophysical surveys mapped the mound’s major stratigraphy, and then the geophysical patterning was evaluated through a program of 32 stratigraphic excavations carried out with fine screening and recording of the relationships of objects, strata, and structures. A wide range of analyses has been performed on the material from these and earlier excavations: functional, chronological, and iconographic studies of pottery; radiocarbon dating; stable isotope and human osteological analyses; and identification of plant and faunal remains. Project environmental surveys recorded the current habitat and created comparative biological collections. From this research has come the first systematic archaeological information about the Marajoara society. The work at the site has uncovered significant archaeological patterning and materials: remains of monumental earthworks, large domestic structures, substantial cooking facilities, large garbage dumps, and ceremonial caches, along with thousands of artifacts, plant remains, and animal bones in stratigraphic context. These data shed light on the lifeway, organization, and symbolic system of the ancient society, its history, and environment, revealing a complex, populous, and stable society that achieved a long-term, successful adaptation to a resource-rich seasonal environment of floodplains, savannas, and gallery forests. The Marajo archaeological project is part of the continuum of my 17 years of research in the tropical lowlands. To exploit the rich archaeological record of the area for evidence about human adaptation, I have applied field and laboratory methods to gain theoretically relevant information over and above mere stylistic information about pottery. My project of

XXVI

INTRODUCTION

regional settlement survey and excavations at Parmana in the Venezuelan Orinoco uncovered the first substantial evidence that archaeological preservation and prehistoric lifeways in the lowlands were different than had been assumed previously. The research uncovered numerous large prehistoric sites with complex stratigraphy and quantities of wellpreserved biological remains as well as artifacts. These revealed a sequence of population growth, economic intensification, and art symbolism not accounted for by then-current views of Amazon prehistory. My experience in the Orinoco led me to review the archaeology elsewhere in Greater Amazonia and investigate the relationships of social organization and ritual systems to economy and population growth through time. The long human occupation in the Lower Amazon in Brazil became the focus of my field work. On Marajo, this research is uncovering the florescence of an important early complex society. At Santarem (upriver) the project’s surveys and excavations are documenting an innovative cultural trajectory of about ten thousand years, a crucial framework to

assess the place of societies such as Marajoara in cultural history and human evolution in Amazonia and beyond. I hope that experience of this extraordinary Marajoara culture and the research at Teso dos Bichos will encourage all to join with anthropologists in respecting and protecting the archaeological monuments of such societies and the rights of Amazonian Indians to survive and continue to develop their own, highly estimable lifeways. Unwanted and unwarranted interference and forced displacement and deculturation have brought these peoples and their cultures to the verge of extinction only about 500 years after the arrival of Europeans. Extinction of Amazonian Indians and ruination of the archaeological sites, through imposition of large-scale, ill-judged development and resettlement programs by governments and international organizations, would be a tragedy for the world as well as a crime against human rights, for the diverse indigenous peoples of Amazonia have indisputable ancestral rights to this land and offer a heritage of valuable knowledge about successful, sustained-yield adaptations to tropical environments. This book about an ancient Amazonian complex society may also encourage anthropologists and natural scientists to rethink the history of Amazonian peoples and the role of the environment in indigenous cultural adaptation. An understanding of why Amazonian Indians live as they do today requires consideration of how their lifeways and habitats have changed over the millennia. The evidence in this book that populous complex cultures flourished in the tropical lowlands of South America as well as in the highlands and desert coasts suggests the need to look more critically at traditional explanations of the trajectories of indigenous cultures in this hemisphere. For those interested in research on human social evolution and human ecology worldwide, the countless, substantial Amazonian archaeological

INTRODUCTION

sites are ideal locations for problem-oriented research on the origins and adaptations of non-state complex societies, one of the most ancient and widespread types of human organization. This book offers concrete evidence of the magnitude, complexity, and excellent preservation of archaeological resources in the lowland tropics. Perhaps the new information about an ancient tropical complex culture and its habitat will inspire readers to consider carrying out research in some area of Amazonia, the largest and least known cultural and biological region of the Americas.

XXVil

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THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

INTRODUCTION je Marajoara culture was one of the outstanding nonliterate complex societies of the world. Apparently a chiefdom, it had an enormous geographic domain that dwarfs those of some famous, old-world civilizations. Like many early complex societies, the Marajoara occupied the alluvial floodplain of a major river, the Lower Amazon. During its reign, from about A.D. 400 to 1300, the society made great achievements in earthen constructions and ritual ceramic art. It was responsible for the erection of hundreds of monumental earthen mounds that served as platforms for numerous large and small settlements and urn cemeteries. The society developed an intensive subsistence system that maintained large population centers for

almost 1000 years. The multicolored modeled and incised ceramics created for ceremonial use by these people reveal a cosmology and ritual of great complexity and beauty. In addition to these achievements on Marajo Island, it appears that the Marajoara culture was an important ancestral

culture, so far the earliest known of a series of related cultures that arose all along the Amazon from its mouth to the Andes foothills. Traces of this influential cultural tradition, called Polychrome after its elaborately painted pottery, persist in many native Amazonian societies today, although the Marajoara Phase disappeared before the European conquest.

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Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

‘The temporal gap between the ancient society and the first historical se peeerd: of the Amazon means that archaeology must be the primary method for learning about the society. Through the work of the Marajo Project, we are, for the first time, beginning to learn about the nature of Marajoara settlements, which represent a regional population of a hundred thousand people or more. Their \| organization into settlements composed of many multifamily houses, or _malocas,

is a widespread

Amazonian

pattern. The clustered hearth ar-

rangement in Marajoara households is a pattern characteristic of some lowland matrilocal communities, which are found over a wide area of western, southern, and eastern Amazonia. The large Marajoara mounds, house platforms, and baked clay cooking facilities, however, are not characteristic of current Amazonian Indian settlements, which tend to be small and shifting, with ephemeral structures built of perishable materials. The variations in settlement types and sizes and in grave types and human osteology suggest that, unlike present-day native Amazonians, the large | Marajoara population was socioeconomically differentiated, with much _ variation in diet, health, and activity. Whether the variation was primarily | associated with sex and age or with genealogy, wealth, or occupation is a , question that needs to be addressed by detailed studies of mortuary populations and settlement patterns. The Marajoara subsistence economy was ‘apparently an intensive system of cultivation and foraging that had substantially disappeared before the European conquest and is seldom re‘ferred to in early historic accounts. Appropriate to the rich riverine habitat, it seems to have been a system of seed cropping supplemented by intensive bel(ee fishing and plant collecting. Which groups in the society carried out basic subsistence work is not known, but our future studies of activity areas and osteological remains can be expected to elucidate the nature of occupational patterning in this area. The ceremonial art of the Marajoara, abundant in major museums and _ private collections worldwide, is some of the most complex and accom_|plished art in the world, and its styles and iconography reveal an elite —-\conceptual and aesthetic culture of great sophistication. The large urn cemeteries from which this art derives are possible evidence of social ranking by unilineal descent groups, and the predominantly female human imagery of the funerary art suggests a possible ritual emphasis on female genealogy, as in some other early chiefdoms. This imagery presents females as powerful supernatural beings, but lacks obvious images of either male or female political specialists, although these are found in the _ art of later prehistoric Amazonian chiefdoms. The degree of political hierarchy and centralization in the society is thus an open question that we are investigating through studies of settlement patterns and cultural and biological variations within and among cemeteries. Possible evidence of economic centralization, stratification, and specialization is found in the unequal distribution of certain artifacts and

Introduction

biological remains at sites and the different ecological orientation of the different kinds of sites. However, some of these patterns of variation may relate to seasonal and periodic transhumance, rather than to socioeconomic differentiation. Sampling of human remains in the different types of sites inventoried by regional surveys is needed to determine if the same groups of people were responsible for the different kinds of deposits. The Marajoara society had extensive outside relations and imported rocks for gems and tools from hundreds of kilometers away. Its art style was part of a major interaction system, the Polychrome Horizon, in which numer-

ous regional cultures participated over the length of the Amazon mainstream from its mouth to the Andean foothills. Future studies need to address the problem of documenting the nature of the ancient networks with comparisons of skeletal genetics and stylistic and geochemical provenience analyses of artifacts. Future work on the differences between sites in occurrence of artifacts, an important article of wealth in the society, is also needed to illuminate the organization of the economy. By its scale and elaboration, the culture is substantial proof contrary to

\ithe conclusion that Amazonian environments were too poor to support the |\development of complex culture. For decades, researchers who believed that native Amazonian cultures were derivative, retarded, and short-lived

attributed the Marajoara culture to an ill-fated invasion from the Andes. However, it is no longer possible to explain away this culture in that fashion. What we now know about its history shows that it arose in the heart of Amazonia, not in the Andes region.

Studies of ceramic chronology in South America indicate that the Marajoara style arose in the lower Amazon from tropical lowland predecessors. Only later relatives of the art style have been found in the | Andean margins of Amazonia, and no similar style has ever been discovered in the Andes culture area. The style has technical characteristics, such as elaborate painting in unfired pigments, that link it culturally to Amazonia rather than to the Andes. In addition, the settlement organization of Marajoara sites is acommon Amazonian pattern of multifamily houses that surround an open space. Another key finding is that the Marajoara society was not an ephemeral, ill-adapted manifestation but a successful, longterm adaptation that continuously occupied its habitat in force for hundreds of years. Also important is the fact that despite its distinctive character the Marajoara society was not unique in Amazonia. Similar mound-building societies flourished in all quarters of Amazonia where there were large expanses of alluvial floodplains: the coastal plains of the Guianas in the ,east, the Middle Orinoco in the north, the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia in the |west, and Marajoara in the east. The mound-building settlement pattern ||was a recurring adaptation by large, dense populations to the deltaic tropical riverine habitat. The characteristics of this important culture make it of great interest

Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

for several reasons. Its rich material and conceptual culture and complex organization are of intrinsic ethnographic interest as examples of the acccomplishments made by ancient native Amazonians. The culture is of |considerable interest for scholars of cultural ecology as an example of early indigenous adaptation to the Amazonian floodplain habitat. No complex society of Amazonia has ever been studied comprehensively. The flood'\ plain chiefdoms’ disappearance shortly before or after the European con||quest makes them an archaeological, rather than an ethnographic, research { \problem, but until recently archaeology lacked the concepts and tools for \aen research. As one of the best preserved archaeological examples of the rise and fall of a pristine complex society, the Marajoara society is also of general anthropological interest. The complex stratigraphy of the earthen mounds documents building sequences. The clear differential patterning of objects, stratigraphy, and structures within the sites holds abundant information about community patterning. The well-preserved house floors and baked clay hearths illuminate the composition of households. The refuse deposits rich in artifacts and biological remains document daily activities and give evidence of the state of the habitat. The highly organized and structured cemeteries with their abundant, diverse artifacts and human bones are evidence of the nature of residential, ceremonial, and socioeconomic groups. All this evidence is of potential significance for elucidating the changing relationships of people with each other, with ideas and objects, and with their physical and biological environment. Many as yet unanswered questions about the nature and evolution of human societies can be addressed with the evidence from this ancient Amazonian society. How do economic activities and their organization relate to characteristics of the habitat and to community organization? Is large-scale construction necessarily tied to political centralization and socioeconomic hierarchy? What is the relationship between gender, econ‘omy, and social organization in nonstate complex societies? Why do unilineal descent groups form, and what is the reason for genealogical focus on one sex as opposed to the other? Are there relationships between women’s occupations and their socioeconomic status and roles or between men’s occupations and involvement in war and the patterns of women’s lives? How does ideology incorporated in ritual objects and structures relate to economic and political differentiation? Was gender tantamount to socioeconomic class then as it usually is in Amazonia and was it sanctioned by cosmology, as today? Is preferential access to ritual culture generally associated with patterns of people’s access to economic and physiological benefits? What is the human condition in chiefdoms; is it more or less favorable than in simpler or more complex societies? Effective strategies to answer such questions require the integration of undogmatic general theory with carefully designed research methodologies. The general theoretical approach adopted in this archaeological in\

Introduction

quiry is one that combines materialist and idealist approaches that have often been in unprofitable opposition in the past. It seems obvious that both approaches are needed for progress in the explanation of the nature of human culture, behavior, and conditions of life through the ages. Both conceptual and material aspects of societies are important in their own right, and they are closely related. As many have argued, material aspects, such as the environment, demography, health, and economy of a society are crucial aspects of lifeways. Much time, effort, and concern are spent on these aspects of living, and they are all part of a causal nexus. There are clear, cross-cultural, diachronic associations between certain kinds of environments and population and health patterns and certain kinds of economies and social and political organizations. We simply cannot adequately explain patterns of human interaction without reference to the material factors involved, and systematic, cross-cultural research in this general area of anthropology is sorely lacking. For Amazonia in particular, research of this type has hardly begun. After decades of projecting recent ethnographic patterns into prehistory, anthropologists are facing some surprises, for the small amount of ecological archaeology that has been done is revealing economies, physiologies, and demographic patterns not characteristic of the ethnographic peoples. In inquiries about diachronic changes in the material conditions of human life, there is much to be done worldwide. It is often claimed that

\ | | |

| | ©

cultural evolution is progressive, that successive cultures are better and |

better adapted to their environments. But this assertion definitely has not ea | eal been proven. After all these years, it still remains to be evaluated empiri- | cally. Here lies the first important reason for the relevance of the approach of human ecology studies for archaeology. Most studies of prehistoric cultural adaptation assume that the growth of larger and denser populations is an index to the success of the adaptation, but studies of food remains and human bones suggest that the quality of most people’s lives— their longevity, health, and survival rates—deteriorated as populations expanded, because the intensive economies needed to support the populations were unstable ecologically and overtaxed resources. The process of population growth and intensification also led to lessened longevity for

_cultures, whose life-spans shortened from thousands to hundreds of years or less. With the increased rate of cultural change, the stability of populations also lessened, and ancient regional populations were often displaced by invaders. If it is the case that cultural ‘‘evolution” leads to less favorable conditions of life in the environment, how are we to explain this process of cultural change as adaptation? Such findings force us to develop more sophisticated theories to explain the processes of human development. What seems of special interest is the question of the social, political, and | demographic setting of “‘progress.”’ Can it be that cultural evolution is not a progressive fine tuning of adaptation to the environment but merely the

Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

compet!)achievement of temporary survival in a world of too many people d enhance the to led has n evolutio cultural so, If land? the ' ing for access to | adaptation of a few at the expense of the majority. The different kinds of economies and organizations represented in the world through the ages have undeniably involved many different patterns of access to resources within populations. This is the second important reason for the study of ecological material from archaeological sites, because such remains are the only conclusive source of information about changing patterns of differential access to life-sustaining resources. Artifact variation can never be conclusive evidence because material and conceptual culture may vary enormously and yet not involve differences in people’s basic health and welfare. To neglect to study patterns of physiological variation in the populations of ancient societies is to neglect an extremely important aspect of human history—the nature and causes of socioeconomic inequality. To fail to use archaeological evidence to investigate the history of the human condition is not only unethical but it is also epistemologically faulty because people’s desire to maintain or improve their quality of life has been a powerful influence on their thinking and behavior through the ages. What has changed through time is not the degree of concern for this aspect of life but people’s ability to determine their own relationships to resources. Given that the problem of differential access to resources, both between people and between nations, is one of the great problems of our age, there can be no justification for neglecting the material aspects of life in our studies of human history. But neither is it justifiable to neglect the aesthetic and ideological aspects of an ancient society, as some of us interested in the New Archaeology have done, scorning studies of ancient art as peripheral and unempirical. Such a prejudice is untenable for several reasons, not the least of which is that the humans we study have no such prejudice. Humans clothe much of their systematic knowledge of the environment and technology in ideological terms, and their political, social, and religious systems are commonly expressed and articulated by ideology. Thus, if we want to under\stand people’s rationales for action and reaction in political and social life, \we must know about their ideology as well as their behavior. For archaeologists to neglect symbolic evidence is especially remiss for practical reasons, because the majority of the artifacts found in ancient sites are art, an imperishable material expression of concepts employed in the society. This is especially true in Amazonia, whose archaeology holds a treasure of both monumental and portable art, a magnificant corpus that is virtually unstudied and unanalyzed today. Arguments that prehistoric symbols are less real, analyzable, and important than prehistoric tools or biological remains or that visual symbols -are less interesting than verbal ones are absolutely unconvincing. First, a people’s manner of conceiving of themselves and the world is of intrinsic interest, and anthropologists’ existing knowledge and interpretation in

The Environment of Marajo Island

this area are most preliminary and inconclusive. It is an area that needs much more and better work. Second, there is significant evidence for recurrent cross-cultural associations between certain complexes of ideas) and symbols and patterns of social and political organization. The ancient | art is thus a significant source of information about central aspects of the changing organization and function of societies and must be integrated at the center of our research strategy. For explanatory purposes, it will be a crucial area of study for the future. ,, Imall the theoretical flux of anthropology today, the Marajoara society has a special significance. It is an example of the pristine ranked society, a (developmentally prominent and apparently successful way of life that no }longer exists. For genetically modern humans, it was a major way of life ‘from early hunting days until the expansion of state societies. Because all ‘recent ranked societies can be argued to be influenced to some degree by interaction with colonial and industrial states, the archaeological examples are a unique body of evidence. Many of our questions about the reason or changing human lifeways can be answered by comprehensive studies f such societies in historical and environmental contexts. We need to find yout how these cohesive, stable, and productive societies were supported ‘and integrated. What kinds of economies did they have, and how were Petarand resources organized and allocated? What were the social and Apolitical organizations by which they functioned, and how did people think about and behave in relation to each other and to the material world? Was the pernicious gender and class inequality of both the industrial and the third worlds absent from these societies? Could that pattern be one imposed by states, or has it been a part of the human cultural adaptation since the beginning? As will be seen in the next chapter, the Marajoara Culture has had an important place in Amazonian anthropological theory, despite the paucity of archaeological data. Through improved methods of archaeological sur-| vey, excavation, and analysis, the culture can have an equally important \ role in the testing of theories about human societies. The abundance,! richness, distinctive patterning, and good preservation of Marajoara remains makes it an excellent focus for problem-oriented research.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF MARAJO ISLAND \ The geographic focus of this study is Marajo Island (Figs. 1.1 through 1.4), a vast, low island at the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil (Anonymous 1906; oe Brochado 1980; Cott 1938; Derby 1898; Gallo 1981; Hartt 1898; Holdridge 1939; Lange 1914; LeCointe 1945; Miranda da Cruz 1987; OAS 1974; Rich 1942:21—27; R. Rodrigues 1982; SERGRAF-IBGE

1977; Sioli 1966a, 1966b,

1975; H. H. Smith 1879). The Island is more like a small continent, about 50,000 km? in area, almost the size of Belgium or Switzerland. The remains

Chapter1

8

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mound-building culture of Marajo Island known in Amazonia. Other mound in the Orinoco basin in Venezuela and coastal plain of the Guianas.

of the prehistoric mound-building culture, Marajoara, are found primarily in the interior of the eastern half of the Island. Derived mainly from recent alluvial deposits, eastern central Marajo is one of the largest expanses of floodplain (varzea) in the Amazon. The land has little natural topography, y : ; other than low river levees, and the main topographic eminences are the archaeological earthworks. | Much of the surface of Marajo is composed of deep, nutrient-rich sediments eroded from rocks in the mountain headwaters of the Amazon ‘and its tributaries. The higher terra firme land at the southeastern edge of the island, however, has weathered residual soils of low agricultural potential developed over red sandstone related to the Barreiras Formation. The reddish sandstone bedrock overlies Precambrian rocks and is near the surface only in the southeast. Elsewhere, alluvium extends down several

The Environment of Marajo Island

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dos Bichos, lies on the Goiapi River, a tributary of the Arari River, south of the Fortaleza mound group. Research is also under way in the Monte Carmelo mound group on the Anajas River, and preliminary reconnaissance has been carried out by the project at Os Camutins, Tapereba, Fortaleza, Ilha do Fogo, Salitre, Ilha dos Marcos, Pacoval do Arari, Teso do Sitio, Matinadas, Santo Andre, Laranjeiras, Macacao, Teso dos China, Sanharao, Tapera, and other sites.

thousand meters. There are no known sources of igneous or metamorphic rock on the island, and the material for the many prehistoric tools and ornaments made of such rock had to have been brought to the Island. (Sources on the major stratigraphy and sedimentology of Marajo Island are Bermerguy 1981; Cerri and Volkoff 1988; and Gonzales-Carrasquilla 1984).

Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM 190908008 pong 4

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Figure 1.3

Radar map of eastern Marajo. The radar image records active river channels as well as ancient, sedimented-in river courses, called paleochannels. The archaeological sites usually occur in the gallery forests and savannas near these channels.

The extensive floodplain soils of the Marajoara heartland are dark, heavy, hydromorphic soils. Their grayish color derives from reduced iron, not from a high content of organic matter, because the primary exchange material in the alluvial soils is clay, not humus. The predominant clays are montmorillonite and illite, and so the soils are well supplied with nutrient elements for plants, but subject to waterlogging during seasonal flooding. These soils generally resemble those of other large, seasonal rivers, such as the Mississippi, Yellow River, Indus, and the Nile, which drain heteroge-

_| neous, weatherable rock areas or soils derived from such areas. The agri-

)

potential of the Marajo floodplain soils, therefore, is significant, }| ' cultural and the soils are expected to be productive for intensive cultivation of

: I{| ]

flood-tolerant annuals, although difficult to manage physically.’ floodplains are now used mainly for commercial cattle pasture. 1. Marajo floodplain soils have been said to be acid and infertile and therefore not appropriate for agriculture (Meggers and Evans 1957), but they actually have relatively high pH and are as fertile as varzea soils elsewhere in the Amazon (Brochado 1980). It has also been suggested that

The

11

The Environment of Marajo Island

Less extensive are the sandier alluvial soils along present and relict levees in the interior of Marajo. The ancient levees, visible in the Brazilian radar images (Fig. 1.3), may date to the early Holocene period of high sea levels, 8000—3000 B.p. (Bermerguy 1981; Gonzales-Carrasquilla 1984; J. S. Lourengo, personal communication). They are paleochannels, ancient _tiver channels now mostly filled with sand.” Since their slightly elevated _banks escape sedimentation from the annual floods, they represent very ,ancient land surfaces that may bear the remains of early human occupa‘tions oriented to riverine habitats. Several possibly early Archaic shell ‘mounds were found during the last century along relict shores and banks in south central Marajo and by the Arari River near Cachoeira do Arari (Ferreira Penna 1876; Hartt 1883, 1885; Monteiro de Noronha 1862:9; Lage

1944). The levee soils occur as bands of fine sandy loam soils of high agricultural potential cupped within the predominantly clayey alluvium. Their nutrient content is thought to be similar to that of the clayey soils, but they can be cultivated year-round because they retain moisture in the dry season and drain well in the wet season. The very few subsistence gardens still to be found in the interior of Marajo are often located on these soils. On the band of uplands at the southeastern edge of the island, are the few terra firme soils in the area. These leached, reddish-yellow kaolinitic soils are of lower nutrient content and are mainly used today for logging and longfallow slash and burn cultivation.

The climate of eastern Marajo has often been referred to as tropical rain | forest (Meggers and Evans 1957), but it is tropical savanna, Aw in the ee

ee

SS

some Marajo floodplain soils are currently being flooded extensively by seawater (Meggers and Evans 1957), but our studies of water quality show that Marajo is primarily a freshwater biome, getting most of its water from rain or flooding from the Para and Amazon rivers, which debouche into the sea at Marajo. Concentrations of salts on the surface of soils in some areas appear to be the product of evaporation (Gonzales-Carrasquilla 1984; Bermerguy 1981; Horst Schwassmann, personal communication); in

addition, marine introgressions into the Lower Amazon in the early Holocene and earlier left some deposits of calcareous or salty sediments, which may have been reworked into the recent alluvium (Brochado 1980: 52-53). Sediments of marine origin can produce sulphuric acid during the flooding cycle but do not have the aluminum toxicity and nutrient deficiencies of acid kaolinitic tropical soils (Sanchez 1976). Such soils are valuable agricultural soils in the tropics for crops such as rice. to

. Several of the ancient meanders are large enough to have been channels of the Amazon (Brochado 1980:51—52; Robert Meade, personal communication). These lie parallel to and east of Lake Arari, which appears to be a meander that has not yet completely filled in. Although these meande?’s are striking features on the radar map (first observed by Brochado 1980), because of their textural contrast with the predominant clayey soils, they have little topographic eminence due to erosion and general sediment buildup around them. Thus, they do not now have ridge and swale topography as Brochado (1980) surmised from aerial views.

|

| | |

*

Figure 1.4

The Bay of Marajo. Eastern Marajo Island is separated from the mainland by a wide and rough expanse of water that takes about 8 hours to cross under power.

Figure 1.5 ; Water quality. Limnologist, H. Schwassmann tests water from the Camara River for an environmental study, 1983. Marajo floods seasonally with fresh water rich in suspended sediment. During the dry season, salt water comes into the lower reaches of some coastal rivers but apparently does not penetrate to the interior.

Figure 1.6 Tidal gallery forest along the Camara River, 1983. The banks of coastal rivers, flooded daily by the tides, have wet-adapted vegetation including mangroves and palms such as agai (Euterpe sp.) and buriti (Mauritia sp.).

The Environment of Marajo Island

Koppen system of classification (Sarmiento and Monasterio 1984).? Tem-

peratures are tropical, and rainfall is highly seasonal, with most of the c. 2000—2500 mm of annual rain falling from January to July (Galvao 1969; Nimer 1979:363—392,377). During the dry season, it is common for 4 or more months to pass without a drop of rain, and both cattle and people suffer from drought. During the c. 6 months of heavy rains, much of the interior (c. 70%) floods with fresh water (Fig. 1.5) and becomes a series of very large, shallow lakes, hundreds of square kilometers in size (Egler and Schwassmann 1962) and from 3—9 m deep. The water is pale and milky in color from the abundance of silty suspensoids. During the c. 6-month dry season, strong trade winds blow out of the northeast, the floodwaters dry up, and most of the area experiences severe water scarcity. Some of the small rivers that crisscross the interior cease to flow and turn into ponds or small lakes in parts of their courses during the dry season. Many others dry up entirely, and driving dust and sand storms are a daily occurrence at this time.

,/ The combination of flat topography, clayey soils, and the seasonal /moisture regime in central and eastern Marajo makes most of the area a ‘treeless grassland, with gallery forest and savanna woodland making up no /more than about 20% of the ground cover (Figs. 1.6—1.9). The wet savanna area is too dry in the dry season and too wet in the rainy season for most trees to survive, and the predominant plant species are algoddo-bravo (Ipomoeia fistulosa) in the higher areas and various Cyperaceae, Gra- _ minaceae, and Chenopodia in the lower areas. As early scholars pointed / out (Hartt 1883, 1885; Derby 1898), it is this large savanna area that was the homeland of the Marajoara Phase and is now the focus of the cattle indus- pone try as natural pasture.

In central and eastern Marajo, narrow bands of gallery forest grow on higher, sandier land at permanent moisture sources (Figs. 1.6 and 1.7), and there is savanna woodland on high land away from water sources (Fig. 1.9). (See “Environmental Survey,” Chapter 3, for results of the project’s study of local flora.) The gallery forest is a tall, multistoreyed formation made up of trees such as sumauma (Ceiba pentandra), jutai (Hymenea sp.), breu (Protium spp.), embauba (Cecropia sp.), palms such as agai and tucuma (Astrocaryum vulgare and A. tucuma), and rubber trees (Hevea brasilensis).

3. Some researchers (W. Denevan, personal communication) prefer an amended definition of Koppen’s class Aw, with seasonal substituted for savanna. However, the majority of tropical climates are seasonal, and the primary contrast between areas with Aw and those with other tropical climates is the predominance of savanna mosaic vegetation as opposed to continuous forest. Therefore, it seems best to retain Koppen’s inclusion of the characteristic savanna vegetation in the definition of this climate type (Harris 1980).

13

14

Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

Figure 1.7 Gallery forest along the Anajas and Goiapi rivers. The forests along channels in eastern Marajo have tall trees with buttress roots, such as sumauma (Ceiba pentandra), various legumes, palms, and useful fruit trees. (A) Anthropogenic gallery forest along the Anajas River at Bacatal mound, Monte Carmelo, 1986. (B and C) Gallery forest along the Goiapi at Tapereba near Teso dos Bichos, 1983.

The savanna woodland is the classic Curatella—Byrsonima formation that occurs in seasonally dry areas of Latin America from Mexico to Argentina and Chile. This vegetation is composed of tall bunch grasses, such as arroz de campo (Trachypogon polymorphus), dotted with slight, drought-, flood-, and fire-adapted trees such as Curatella americana (a lixeira) and palms such as tucumd. The savanna woodland and dry forest usually grow on the fine, whitish sandy soil near fossil streams, rather than on the heavy, dark clay soils, which usually have low, grassy vegetation.

Figure 1.8 The Arari drainage at low water. The interior of eastern Marajo is a mosaic of

gallery forest, savanna woodland, seasonally flooded grass savanna, swamps, and lakes. (A) Air view of gallery forest and grassland along the Arari, 1983.

(B) Receding shallows in the Goiapi River, a tributary, near Teso dos Bichos, 1985. (C) Aquatic vegetation in the Goiapi, including elephant ears (Montrichardia arborescens) and water hyacinth (Eichornia crassifolia), 1985. (D) Swamp grasses near Lake Arari, including arrow grass (Gynerium sagittatum). Photo by A. Fisher, 1913. Identifications by botanical consultants A. Anderson, I. Prance, and Carlos Rosario.

Chapter 1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

The Environment of Marajo Island

17

Figure 1.9 Savanna extends over much of the interior of eastern Marajo today. (A) Grassland between Teso dos Bichos and the Goiapi gallery forest at Tapereba. (B) Savanna woodland with a lixeira trees (Curatella americana). (C) Inga tree (Inga edulis). (D and E) Tucum4a palm (Astrocaryum sp.) and fruits. Photographs 1983.

The survival of trees at the old stream channels is possible because they hold water in the dry season, and the slight elevation and coaser texture of the soil fosters better drainage during the flood. At several places in the floodplain, there are topographic depressions that hold sizable permanent lakes. Lake Arari, which covers about 400 km?, is the best known of the lakes; others are Lake Guajara and Retiro

Grande. During the dry season, the waters of lakes such as Guajara are colored a bright green from the abundance of phytoplankton and algae in them. Some of the lakes are ringed with gallery forests, swamp forests, and floating meadows (Fig. 1-8). The vast swamp forests called mondongos often have large stands of useful palms such as Mauritia flexuosa (buriti).

18

Chapter 1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

tae swamps, and seasonally flooded alluvial plains support rich, varied communities of edible grasses, chenopods, Cyperaceae, and sedges, including arroz de Guiana (Leersia hexandra) and canarana-rasteira (Paspalum repens). The native grasses are important fodder for cattle, and some were collected and cultivated by Indians of Marajo and the Lower Amazon at the time of the conquest of the Amazon by Europeans (Brochado 1980:66—67; Medina 1934). The permanently wet or tidal portions of rivers nearer the coasts have mixed floodplain forests with abundant Euterpe sp. (acai) and buriti palms. When water levels were much higher before c. 5000 B.p., this sort of forest was much more extensive in eastern Marajo (Absy 1979). During the annual drought, from August to December, when the soil dries out, many trees drop leaves, and the extensive low, herbaceous vegetation of the floodplains turns dry and yellow. This is a time of natural faunal abundance, for fish, migrant birds, and other animals congregate in lakes and rivers and at water holes. In flood time, the dry forest and savanna turn green, and low, semiaquatic vegetation expands in the wa-

ters. Fish are relatively scarce in the increased volume of water, and many bird migrants leave due to lack of food. Today’s climate and hydrography are broadly similar to those of the ancient Marajoara Culture as indicated by the prehistoric stratigraphy and biological remains recovered by the Marajo project, as well as by the pollen record for the period (Absy 1979). These document plant communities dominated by herbs and characterized by the presence of both gallery forest and savanna trees, indicating a floodplain savanna habitat with seasonal tropical climate (see ‘Biological Remains,’ Chapter 6). Comparison of the archaeological remains with the present biota and hydrography suggests that the small rivers of Marajo were more permanent earlier and have become more seasonal lately, due to increased sedimentation since the conquest (as predicted by Anthony Anderson, personal communication; and Brochado 1980;78—79), and flood levels have increased (Derby 1898:172). Dry forest and savanna woodland are probably slightly more extensive today than in ancient times, because the increased sedimentation has expanded the sandier alluvial deposits on which they grow.

It is important to note that none of the plant formations characteristic y of the Marajoara domain are classic terra firme rain forest. That formation only occurs on the band of higher land along the rainier southeastern coast of Marajo and in some areas of western Marajo, both outside of the culture \area. The seasonally dry tropical climate and seasonal floodplain hydro. graphy characteristic of central and eastern Marajo is found in many areas of archaeological complex cultures in the South and Central American lowlands, areas that are also commonly miscalled humid tropical rain forests: much of the Tapajos, Xingu, and Araguaia basins south of the Amazon mainstream in Brazil, the Llanos de Mojos in the Upper Amazon

The Environment of Marajo Island

in Bolivia, the Ucayali Basin in the Upper Amazon in Peru, the Llanos of \ \| the Middle Orinoco basin in Venezuela, and parts of Pacific coastal Panama and Costa Rica, the Mexican Gulf Coast, and the Mayan lowlands, to | name a few. There is thus a consistent correlation between the distribution | of the seasonal floodplain habitat and prehistoric complex cultures in the tropical lowlands. Like Marajo, all these areas have rich soils because of | their combinations of climate, geology, and hydrology. . The savanna gallery forest biome was a major habitat of human prehistoric adaptation in the lowlands of Amazonia, not simply a postcon|quest anthropogenic habitat. Tropical savanna is not arecent development

‘in the Amazon and Orinoco. Its prehistoric presence is attested to by the numerous carbonized specimens of tropical savanna species of flora that have been found in archaeological sites dating back more than 4000 years (Garson 1980;

Roosevelt

1985;

Roosevelt

1988b;

Smith

and Roosevelt

/1984). Though it is sometimes suggested that the savanna of the Amazon and Orinoco floodplains are artifacts of recent overuse (Sioli 1984), the _ savanna habitat seems clearly attributable to the seasonality of rain, imper'meability of soils, and flat topography of these areas (references summa' rized in Denevan 1966; Roosevelt 1980; Sarmiento and Monasterio 1984).

No climate change that has been hypothesized for Amazonia within the last 5000 years is one that would have changed landscapes sufficiently to have eliminated this savanna floodplain habitat. On the contrary, during much of prehistory, savanna environments seem to have been more exten-

sive in South America than they are today (Ab’saber 1977, 1982; Absy 1979, 1982; Bigarella and de Andreade-Lima 1982; Harris 1980; T. van der

a

Hammen

1982). No doubt, the long-term,

intensive

prehistoric human

— * | occupation of the habitat must have continually influenced its characteris9 } tics, but this process was not the major factor in the creation of the savanna

,floodplain habitat. ~ Social anthropologists interested in human adaptation to Amazonian environments have focused almost exclusively on nutrient-poor terra firme forest habitats where Indians are now concentrated, and their articles on the evolution of culture in Amazonia usually emphasize the question Why did civilization not evolve in Amazonia (e.g., Gross 1975)? But geologists and paleontologists have discovered that fully 20% of Amazonia is covered with post-Pleistocene alluvium and another 20% is made up

of terra firme forests developed on nutrient-rich bedrock of volcanic, igneous, and calcareous sedimentary rocks (references summarized in Roosevelt 1990a,b). Such areas are suitable for intensive cultivation and foraging and have abundant archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence for large prehistoric populations and complex societies. The answer to the question, then, is that complex cultures did indeed evolve in Amazonia, in its vast, nutrient-rich floodplains and forests. The floodplain areas are ‘often ignored as possible foci of cultural evolution because many of their indigenous societies disappeared soon after European settlers moved in.

Chapter 1

20

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

Nevertheless, existing archaeological evidence suggests that these were important arenas for cultural development in Amazonia.

RESOURCES FOR HUMANS The primary human food resources of the nutrient-rich savanna floodplain environment

of Marajo are fish, tree seeds and fruits, and herbaceous,

seed-bearing plants. The environment supports abundant natural fisheries and supplies fish for the Belem market. However, the resource is abundant only season-

ally, and commercial fishing stops in the rainy season because of the scarcity of prey. Some large landowners own rights to intensive exploitation of the fish in lakes such as Guajara, and they use refrigerated trucks and boats to take part of the catch to the Belem market. Most of the fish is consumed on Marajo. There are also municipalities that specialize in seasonal fishing, and many small groups of transhumant fishermen catch fish to sell to owners of refrigerated transport. Some of the most popular fish species have been pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) tucunare (Cichla ocellaris), traira (Macrodon traira), tambaqui, pescada branca (Sciaena amazonica), camorim (Centropomus undecimakis), and bagre (Arius herzebergi). Local people catch and eat a lot of piranha, of which there are many species. In the absence of refrigeration and long-distance transport, fish on Marajo are primarily a seasonal food source. Harvests at the end of the dry season specialize in several armored catfish species that do well in the shallow, stagnant, warm, low-oxygen water of the water holes. The eutro-

phication and sedimentation that the cattle industry has caused in Marajo water bodies has presumably affected aquatic faunas, but fish are nevertheless very abundant. Terrestrial game is much less abundant than the aquatic fauna, in part because of the highly seasonal nature of the environment and in part because of the impact of present-day economies. Introduced cattle, horses, goats, and pigs have replaced many of the larger indigenous range feeders, such as deer and tapir (Tapirus terrestris), though capybara (Hyrochoerus capybara) still flourish in some areas. Overhunting seems to be threatening many of the arboreal species, such as monkeys and parrots. Ducks, primarily muscovy (Cairina moschata) and marreca (Alopochen jubatus), still seem to be abundant. Crocodilians have been reduced in an effort to protect cattle from predation. Lizards, such as the camaledo (Iguana tuberculatus), are abundant. Turtles, however, including the tortoise (Testudo tabulata), the tiny mugua (Kinosternon scorpioides), and water turtles (Podocnemis spp.) have suffered from overhunting and the introduction of cattle. 1 The prehistoric faunal food bones from this project show a clear pre|dominance of small aquatic fauna and a rarity of terrestrial fauna. Some

Resources for Humans

Ai

Figure 1.10 Fauna. A faunal study collection compiled for the project by M. I. da Silva and H. Schwassmann to document the present habitat and help identify faunal bones from the excavations. (A) Mugua, mud turtle (Kinosternon scorpioides). (B) Traira (Hoplias malabaricus). (C) Armored catfish (Hoplosternon litorale). (D) Aruana (Osteoglossum bicirrhosum).

specimens of large aquatic fauna, such as manatee and pirarucu, and possibly aruana (Fig. 1.10), have been recovered from the project’s excavations, but they make up an insignificant proportion of the archaeological fauna, quantitatively, and seem not to have been an everyday food. Most of the archaeological fauna were small fish of the type mass harvested during |

21

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©THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

Figure 1.11 Marajo people and dwellings. In the early colonial period many Indians were relocated off

the island, and people from Europe and Africa moved in and established cattle ranching in the savannas. The population is culturally and genetically diverse today, and house types range from huts of thatch, earth, and poles to imported wood pile dwellings and concrete structures.

Resources for Humans

Figure 1.12 Transportation. Water buffalo and horses are the main transportation in transitional

seasons; canoe is best for shallow rivers and flooded land; bicycles and cars serve only in the dry season. During unseasonal rains in 1983, the project moved all its equipment and supplies by horse and water buffalo.

the dry season in Amazonia today. The most common are small catfish and characins, such as Hoplias malabaricus (traira). Small species such as these are the ones that dominate the aquatic faunal biomass of Marajo waters, so it appears that preconquest fishing was highly intensive and less selective than today’s, being primarily focused on the capture of the most abundant faunal resources. Today, the savanna interior of Marajo is used primarily for raising cattle on the nutrient-rich natural pasture of the floodplain. Bos indicus seems to predominate among the cattle raised for meat, though Bos bubalus (water buffalo) is successfully raised for meat, milk, and traction in many places. Stocking density often reaches respectable levels, such as 5

23

Chapter 1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

Figure 1.13 Water control. On Marajo, there is an excess of water in the the rainy season and a lack of it in the dry season. People dig wells and construct earthworks to ameliorate the hydrological extremes. (A) Tenant rancher’s shallow well at Tapereba. Photo by

C. Miranda, 1983. (B) Causeway between Salitre and Ilha dos Marcos, 1985. (C) Ditch at Teso dos Bichos, 1983. (D) Irrigated fields, 1985.

head per hectare (E. Moran, personal communication), and ranching seems

to be a lucrative industry for the large holders. Many natural scientists and ethnologists assume that cattle raising is not a viable sustained yield system of exploitation in Amazonia, but this assessment only applies to poor-soil terra firme land, not to the natural pasture of the alluvial plains. (The introduction of cattle is, nonetheless, adverse to the survival of many native animals and plants, and overgrazing has eliminated many edible herbs and enhanced the spread of inedible species, like algoddo bravo.) Though some attempts have been made to seed pasture with introduced species (Holdridge 1939; A. Teixeira, personal communication), the Marajo pasture is still predominantly made up of native species (R. Cardoso, personal communication). Despite the richness of the pasture, stocking per hectare on the island is often limited by mortality from drought and flooding, as in other floodplain areas in greater Amazonia, such as the Llanos of the Orinoco and the

Mojos. On Marajo, many cattle die of thirst during the dry season, when thousands of hectares are without surface water. Even those that manage to

The Marajoara Culture

stay near water holes have a high mortality rate, for they become mired in the mud and slowly die, too weak from thirst and hunger to pull themselves out. During flooding, much of the pasture in the interior is covered with water, and only the archaeological mounds provide elevations that escape flooding. Cattle forage on the seasonal and semi-aquatic vegetation in the flooded land during the day and return to the archaeological mounds to sleep at night, hence, the name of the archaeological site Teso dos Bichos, or Cattle Mound. Ranchers attempt to alleviate water excesses and shortages by constructing

drainage

ditches, wells, and ponds, but the/

hydrological extremes still cause severe problems. The floodplain soils that support the rich pasture would also be good|i agricultural soils, similar in quality to those in the floodplains of other|| large rivers around the world. In general, though, Brazilian land-use classi- ||. | fication does not take this possibility into consideration, as Brochado | (1980) has pointed out, for reasons having to do with Brazil’s particular | philosophy of development and the importance of meat in today’s diet. By, Brazilian classification, the seasonally flooded Amazon varzea soils are not || apt for intensive agriculture, despite their fertility, but are good only for | | cattle raising. Accordingly, archaeologists have assumed that the land was| not good for cultivation and that the ancient economy was based on fish|| and game, not cultivation (Meggers 1952:22—23; Meggers and Evans 1957).| Marajo large landowners are dedicated to the cattle industry and Eatedoris\) cally deny any agricultural potential for their land. At present, there are | only small household gardens on Marajo, usually in the gallery forests, | where cattle are scarce and the soil is easy to manage. However, floodplain | islands of similar soils nearer to Belem (such as Ilha das Ongas) have been | profitably put into intensive vegetable and spice production for the city | market. In addition, coffee, sugar cane, and cacao were grown profitably on Marajo before the rubber boom (Derby 1898:168). If the future brings increased urbanization at the mouth of the Amazon, Marajo will probably go into intensive agricultural production also. For this to happen, either the cultivated fields or the range will have to be fenced, because the cattle | destroy all unprotected gardens by trampling and eating the produce, ) according to numerous

informants.

The cattle industry and the Marajoara Phase have identical spatial > distribution on Marajo apparently because both were focused on the exf ploitation of the native seed-producing plants that flourish on the heavy / alluvial soils. The modern industry uses such plants as feed for beef cattle,! but the Marajoara appear to have collected and cultivated them for human‘ consumption. During the Marajoara Phase, when the population was con- | centrated in the interior, the floodplain soils may have been under inten-/ sive cultivation of short-maturing crops, such as maize (Roosevelt 1987), on indigenous, wet-adapted cereals, such as Leersia hexandra, a relative of rice (Brochado 1980). Conquest-period records mention collection and cultivation of native rice-like cereals by Marajo Indians (Brochado 1980).

/ A

26

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THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

The archaeobotanical remains recovered in this project include numerous small carbonized seeds (see Chapter 6, ‘‘Plant Remains’’). A future segment of the project will be an inventory of Marajo floodplain grasses and other herbaceous plants to evaluate their taxonomy, ecology, and food potential and to provide study collections for the identification of the archaeological seeds. Seed crops would have provided dietary protein during the severe seasonal scarcity of fish. The earlier studies of mound-building societies in the Amazon floodplains (Denevan 1966) assumed that manioc would have been the staple food, because it is the major indigenous staple of living Amazonian Indians. However, manioc is unlikely to have been a major food source in the Marajo interior, an environment inimical to longmaturing crops sensitive to flooding and waterlogging. The indigenous, wet-adapted root crop Xanthosoma sagittifolium would be a more likely root crop for the floodplain, but the dental condition of the ancient people suggests reliance on seed crops, rather than primarily on starchy roots (Greene 1986). In prehistoric times, as today, flooding and drought could ihave been dealt with by the construction of drainage ditches, canals, and ‘raised fields, but few such works have been found, possibly because they are buried under recent sediments. In ancient times, as today, savanna and gallery forest trees, many of them cultivated, would have furnished starch, sugar, fat, and vitamins in their fruit. Indeed, their seeds are common in the archaeobotanical remains. Though it is often claimed that palm fruits could have been a staple protein source for prehistoric peoples in the tropics, nutrient analysis shows that none of the tree crops available has enough protein to be a staple food source. The major calorie and protein resources for prehistoric human food, then, would likely have been the aquatic fauna, annual and semi-aquatic seed crops, and wet-adapted roots, supplemented by tree fruits and seeds and occasional game. —oe Thus, the nature of the indigeneous land-use system in eastern Marajo would have been quite different from that of today, though both systems exploited the same resource complex. Then, the land supported large populations by direct exploitation of the flora and fauna for subsistence. Though the ancient socioeconomic and political system there may have . been centralized and stratified, in terms of subsistence it was a localized

entity centered in eastern Marajo. Today, the bounty of the floodplain is scooped off by major landowners and sold for profit in the urban market of Belem. The local population on the land, therefore, is relatively small, less than 50,000, and made up mainly of the land owners, tenant ranchers, and

the urban populations of the municipalities that service the agribusiness. The main consumers of the products of Marajo today live in the city across the river. Essentially, then, Marajo has become a supplier region for a larger stratified and urbanized society. Once the center of the ancient Marajoara society, eastern Marajo has become just one part of the commercial economy of a larger ecosystem (Fig. 1.11—1.13).

27

The Marajoara Culture

THE MARAJOARA

CULTURE

The Marajoara culture was one of the major complex societies of prehistoric America, known worldwide for its extensive earthworks and beautiful incised and painted pottery, the earliest known style of the widespread Polychrome Horizon. The large-scale ceremonial pottery, made for feasting and burial, is some of the most abundant and elaborate in the world. The homeland of the Phase was an extensive floodplain, an enormous area of c. 20,000 km? or more in the eastern half of Marajo Island (Fig. 1.2). The large population of this society of mound builders dominated this area for more than 1000 years, living and burying their dead on top of numerous platform mounds. The Phase dates approximately from the fifth to fourteenth centuries A.D. and was part of a long sequence of occupation that began sometime before 1500 B.c. The Phase constitutes the climax of prehistoric occupation of its habitat, and the occupation of the eastern Marajo heartland before and afterward appears to have been less intense, to judge from the relative rarity of sites of other phases there. Outside the floodplain, where sites of other phases are more common, Marajoara sites are rare or absent. Thus, the characteristic ecological adaptation, organization, and

cultural content of the Phase appear to have been closely linked to its occupation of the savanna-gallery forest floodplain. Salient characteristics of the culture, such as its large domain, the monumental mound building, and the elaborate material culture, give it substantial intrinsic interest in terms of its organization and functioning. In addition, its distinctive similarities and differences from present-day Amazonian societies give it much historical interest for Amazonian spe-

cialists because of its unique role in Amazonian cultural evolution. As an early complex society of indigenous origin, its location in the tropical lowlands, where complex cultures are not supposed to be possible, give it significant general theoretical interest. But despite all this, the culture is not well known, even to specialists, and there is as yet no published account that does justice both to its particular nature and its general interpretive significance.

Sources on the Marajoara The easily accessible published sources of information on the Marajoara Phase are rather few and do not adequately express the basic characteristics of the culture. In the one substantial monograph on the culture (Meggers and Evans 1957), information, though abundant, is subject to interpretive distortions based on expectations that the tropical forest could not support native civilization. Other easily available published sources are highly abbreviated (Derby 1879; Meggers and Evans 1978; Simoes 1967, 1969; Figueireido and Simoes 1963; Hartt 1871b; Hilbert 1952; Willey 1971:407—408). Much important information can, however, be gleaned

28

Chapter 1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEF DOM

from obscure or unpublished sources (e.g., Ferreira Penna 1879a, 1885;

Brochado 1980; Farabee, 1914—1915; Hartt 1883, 1885; Mordini 1934a,b,

1936, and letters [Palmatary 1950]; Netto 1885; Nimuendaju nd. and letters [Palmatary 1950]) and from the large collections of Marajoara material in museums, universities, and private collections and the catalogues on them (Palmatary 1950; Alberto Torres 1929, 1940). The information presented below includes material from the collections and unpublished sources (which are discussed in ‘“‘Study of Systematic Collections and Archives,”’

Chapter 3) and on the results of the Marajo project (Chapters 3-7).

Misconceptions about the Marajoara Because of the paucity of primary published information about the Marajoara Culture, anthropologists hold some rather significant misconceptions about it. The most important is that the Marajoara culture is unique as the _ only complex, mound-building culture that flourished in the Amazonian tropical rain forest environment. In fact, as explained, the environment of _ the culture was savanna-gallery forest floodplain, not an upland rain for| est, and a number of other mound-building cultures flourished in similar | regions in Amazonia, such as the Polychrome Horizon and the Incised and Punctate Horizon cultures of the Llanos de Mojos of the Bolivian Amazon | (Denevan 1966; Dougherty and Calandra 1981-82; Erickson 1980; Nor‘denskiold 1913, 1924b), the Arauquinoid cultures of the Apure triangle of the Middle Orinoco (Cruxent 1952, 1966; Denevan and Zucchi 1978; Rouse and Cruxent 1963; Cruxent and Rouse 1958-1959) and of the extensive coastal plains of the Guianas’ coasts (Boomert 1976; 1980b). In addition, other quite different complex cultures flourished in other regions of Amazonia near Maraca (Ferreira Penna 1879b), at Santarem (Nimuendaju

1949; Palmatary 1960; Bezerra de Meneses 1972), and elsewhere. Another important misconception is that the Marajoara culture must be derived from Andean cultures because civilization could not arise in the

tropical rain forest. Although this was the theory of the first professional archaeologists to work on Marajo (Meggers and Evans 1957), it lacked empirical support from the start and has been disputed on the basis of evidence of the habitat, chronology, ceramics, and life-style of the culture. Marajoara is the earliest known of the many cultures of the Polychrome Horizon, which radiocarbon dates show spread from the Lower Amazon to the foothills of the Andes, not the other way around (see references in Chapter 2, ‘‘Migration Theories and Physical Anthropology”’’). The culture is Amazonian in character, and no similar culture has ever been identified in the Andes culture area. Its origin, therefore, must be explained with reference to local, Amazonian environments and social, cultural, and de-

mographic history, rather than by foreign invasions or diffusions. A misconception that has limited knowledge of the culture is that stratigraphy, structures, features, and biological remains are not well pre-

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

served in Marajoara archaeological sites, hindering their potential to yield information. As the chapters on the Marajo project show, all of these kinds of archaeological remains are abundantly preserved in the sites, as they are in many other regions of Amazonia. In fact, Marajoara sites have some of the best preserved deposits I have encountered, as well or better preserved than those I have excavated in sites in Peru, highland Mexico, northern California, and New York. The good preservation makes the culture an excellent one to investigate, because of the potential for analysis of spatial covariation of structural remains, stratigraphy, and objects. Though the misconceptions are understandable in terms of the history of archaeology, their effect has been to limit research and to hinder evaluation of the place of the culture in American archaeology. Because there is no easily available literature that accurately describes and analyzes the culture, general, synthetic interpretations of the rise of complex cultures in the New World rarely take the Amazonian developments into account. Therefore, wrong conclusions have been made about the role of the environment in indigenous American cultural development. Also, because of the lack of accurate published information, interpreters of Amazonian | ethnology have not integrated the existence of this and other ancient complex societies into their adaptive evolutionary scenarios, but instead project the ethnographic patterns onto prehistoric societies. Consequently, the impact of the European conquest on ethnographic lifeways has been underestimated, and ethnographic lifeways have been interpreted as representing the primeval adaptation to the tropical lowlands. Because scholars have assumed that the Marajoara culture had a foreign origin, archaeologists have not investigated the development of the culture in relation to its habitat, subsistence, population, and organization. Also, archaeologists have been discouraged from working in an area where they expect poor preservation and uninteresting sequences, and the lack of primary research perpetuates the misinterpretations.

Nonetheless, the Marajoara Phase represents one of the outstanding indigenous cultural achievements of the New World, and its remains are a rich source for research on human cultural evolution. Even a summary of its basic characteristics, given next, makes this clear.

MOUNDS, MIDDENS, AND CEMETERIES The Marajoara left behind a large number of diverse kinds of archaeological sites that have never been adequately assessed. Thus far, only informal reconnaissance surveys have been carried out on Marajo, and regional settlement patterns have not been investigated systematically. In the informal surveys, archaeologists have essentially traveled about Marajo, visiting and sampling sites known to the local populace or from the literature. There are so many Marajoara sites that a lifetime would not be enough to

29

Chapter 1

30

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

have been visit and sample all the known sites. Accordingly, many sites and the tically systema covered been not located, but, because the area has and sites of ing pattern overall the y, sites have not been compared criticall red. discove been not have features mental their relationships to environ In the future, in order to gain information about the distribution, activities, and interaction of the populations participating in the Marajoara culture, it will be important to carry out systematic surveys to determine the nature and numbers of different kinds of occupations. Settlement surveys on Marajo will require mass mapping and reconnaissance methods and mechanized subsurface sampling, because the area is very large, and the Marajo project excavations have shown that much of the floodplain land surface dating to Marajoara times lies underasmuchas2m , of recent sediment. This recent blanket of sediment has probably protected from erosion any ancient agricultural or transport earthworks built on the floodplain, preserving them for study. (The need for a regional settlement pattern survey on Marajo and the plans for one are discussed in Chapter 7.)

Types of Sites Despite the lack of work, existing information reveals some significant characteristics of Marajoara sites. The majority of known sites of the culture are the numerous artificial earthen cemetery/habitation mounds, which are located in the lowest areas of the floodplain, usually by the forested banks of small rivers in the midst of large stretches of grassy floodplain. These mounds are truly monumental in scale and represent hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of earthen construction. They stand from 3 to more than 20 meters high above the present floodplain (Figs. 1.14, 1.15, and 3.1), and the average height is about 7 m. The majority of known Marajoara sites are mounds of 1 to 3 ha in size. Some settlements are aggregations of numerous mounds of different sizes and shapes, covering many square kilometers of ground. Most multimound sites are groups of three to five mounds, but there are several much larger. Os Camutins on the Anajas River has 40 large and small mounds within an area of about 10 km’, and Fortaleza on the Goipai River has about 20 mounds within a similar area. The Monte Carmelo group on the Anajas is an example of a smaller multi-mound site, with a cluster of three mounds, one of which is Guajara, presently under investigation in the Marajo Project. In the multimound sites, mounds lie from 20 to 1000 m apart, and there are often nonmound archaeological deposits in between (eg., Hilbert 1952). The magnitude of the Marajoara mound sites has not been really grasped before because of a lack of mapping to scale by archaeologists. Until now, not one Marajoara site had been professionally topographically mapped to scale with a surveying instrument. Many early investigators reported very large mounds, but their figures were discounted by the first

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

professional archaeologists, who often traveled during the rainy season when the lower parts of sites are hidden under water. Also, the field notebooks of Farabee, the only investigator to make extensive sketch maps, were lost for the last 30 years and only recently recovered. His drawings had been published by other investigators (Meggers and Evans 1957), redrawn with the scale of the drawings altered to make the sites appear smaller, presumably because the sites seemed too large in comparison with the investigators’ expectations. However, Farabee’s original drawings [Fig. 1.14(B)] and accompanying notes suggest that his scale was correct, and my reconnaissance of the multimound sites confirms that such sites are areally very extensive. The mounds vary a great deal in height. The highest mound on Marajo is reputed to be Camutins Mound in the Os Camutins group (Fig. 1.15). It is about 50 hectares in area and 20 m high (Farabee, fieldnotes; Marajo Project preliminary survey). Two of the mounds at Monte Carmelo appear to be 10 m in height from the floodplain (Roosevelt 1988c). The single mound with the largest area may be Teso do Sitio (Fazenda Guajara), which seems to be more than 90 ha in size, though only a few meters high. That Marajoara earth mounds were artificial mounds was well known jin the last century. The geologist Orville Derby (1879), one of Charles Hartt’s students, seems to have been one of the first to emphasize this in print. The size and shape of the mounds and their internal stratigraphy leave no possible doubt that they are artificial mounds. They are forthe most part large, oval or oblong platforms built up of massive layers of almost sterile, clayey soil. Toward the interior of the mounds, the layers are very level, and at the edges, sloping. Each earth building unit is composed of numerous thinner lenses that appear to represent loads of earth. The mounds are usually aligned parallel to the adjacent streams. Some may have been built on top of low stream levees, but our seismic refraction tests at Guajara suggest that it was built directly on the floodplain in the middle of the stream bed (Roosevelt 1988c). Teso dos Bichos and some of the Camutins mounds also seem to have been built out into stream beds. Most of the tall mounds on Marajo are found on the lowest parts of the plains, where water is available year-round, but where flooding is deep and extensive during the rainy season. In such areas, the mounds had the obvious function of keeping settlements and cemeteries out of reach of the seasonal flood. However, the maps of Teso dos Bichos and our observations at other sites reveal that many of the mounds were built several meters higher than necessary to keep settlements out of the flood. Worldwide sea levels are higher now than at the time of the culture, but the water level only comes halfway up most mounds during the highest floods. Therefore, such mounds, which the local people call fortalezas (forts), appear to have been defensive in function, also. The mounds with cemeteries are the type of Marajoara deposit that predominates in the literature. Despite the fact that systematic surveys

31

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©THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

bolaaah

mali)

SOX So S52

BS

RSSORE

“i NO

BURIALS

Figure 1.14

Marajoara mound complexes: Fortaleza. One of the larger mound groups on Marajo, Fortaleza has at least 14 mounds over about 10 km?. Marajoara mounds were assumed by earlier investigators to be purely ceremonial, but all those investigated so far have both cemeteries and habitations. (A) Sketch map of Fortaleza on the Goiapi River 10—15 km north of Teso dos Bichos. (B) Mound 10 at Fortaleza. Neg. 18135. (C) Sketch map of excavations at Mound 7. (D) Pacoval Phase urn burials at Mound 7. Neg. 18727. Courtesy of the Archives, University of Pennsylvania Museum. Photographs and drawings by W. Farabee, 1915. Maps redrawn by A. Agelarakis.

33

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

have never been carried out, more than 200 Marajoara artificial mounds

with cemeteries have been recorded. Of those recorded on Marajo, the following are the best known: Fortaleza (c. 20 mounds), Os Camutins (c. 40 mounds), Panellas (at Desterro), Pacoval do Arari, Teso dos Bichos, Teso dos Indios, Pacoval do Cururu, Monte Carmelo (3 mounds), Sitio dos Gentios, Sanharao, Mungubas, Nazareth, Teso dos China (11 mounds), Teso do Sitio, Macacao, Santa Izabel, Teso dos Severino, Santa Brigida, Bacuri Alto, Igagabas, Laranjeiras, Curuxys, Santo Andre, Matinadas, and

Cajuleiros. There also are many mounds at which cemeteries have not been found yet. Though it is sometimes said in the literature (Willey 1971) that all Marajoara sites are artificial mounds, there are many non-mound

Mara-

joara sites, especially in the gallery forests along rivers and ancient levees. Earlier investigations at such sites and our reconnaissance at Ilha dos Marcos show the non-mound sites to have wide areas of black soil garbage. During the reconnaissance survey carried out in preparation for the systematic survey, we have recorded several new non-mound Marajoara archaeological sites in gallery forests, and there are many small mounds that are not mentioned in the literature. The low mounds and non-mounds seem more numerous than the tall mounds, but received less attention until professional archaeologists began working in the area in the late 1940s.

In addition to the cemetery and habitation mounds, there may be causeway earthworks, ramps, canals, ponds, and drained fields of the kind

often found alongside artificial mounds in other areas of the Amazon (see Fig. 1.13). On Marajo, most of these kinds of sites have been buried by sedimentation or altered by the activities of the present inhabitants. However, during the regional survey it will be important to carry out large-scale topographic surveys and subsurface sampling to investigate ancient alterations of the surface of the floodplain. The overall number of Marajoara sites is considerable. If each discrete mound or site is counted separately, then work to date has documented more than 400 individual Marajoara sites, and most authors agree that these must be only a fraction of those that still exist. My own experience has been that each documented Marajoara mound has near it three or four unreported sites, many of them modest habitation mounds of lesser elevation. Sighting from each substantial Marajoara mound, a person can see in the distance in a 5-km radius around the site three or four other substantial cemetery and habitation mounds, many of them not recorded but known to the landowners and tenant ranchers. Activities at Sites The activities represented in Marajoara sites are only now being investi-

gated empirically through extensive survey and stratigraphic excavation. Early explorers on Marajo made large, inadequately documented excava-

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

Chapter1 arte

ASG

e

Figure 1.15 Marajoara mound complexes: Os Camutins. Possibly the

: Camutins Mound

«*} @

7]

Edge of mound not

SOMITE Ieee:

ae ao

Archaeological material exposed at surface

f

Archaeological mound

Dry season river bed

largest site on Marajo, Os Camutins has c. 40 large and small mounds within an area of about 10 km?. Camutins mound appears to be the largest mound on Marajo.

Having escaped damage from the large, poorly controlled excavations by turn-of-the century archaeologists, it is now being destroyed by looters hired by its owner. (A) Partial map of Os Camutins in the Anajas Basin near Monte Carmelo. Redrawn by A. Agelarakis and A. Roosevelt after Meggers and Evans (1957) and Hilbert (1952), with corrections from Roosevelt’s site visit. (B) Magno mound of Os Camutins and its borrow pit. Neg. 18180. (C) Excavations in the Camutins Phase urn cemetery at Magno. Neg. 18177. Photographs by W. Farabee, 1915, courtesy of the .

.

.

.

Archives, the University of Pennsylvania Museum. (D) Plain urn abandoned by looters at Camutins mound, 1987. Height c. 1.5 m. (E) Superimposed house floors and hearths near cemeteries in a massive looter’s trench at the top of Camutins mound, 1987.

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

35

36

Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

tions at many of these sites and uncovered large urn cemeteries, habitation

refuse, and earthworks (Lange 1914; Steere 1927; Tocantins 1876; Alberto Torres 1929; Ferreira Penna 1879a; Mordini 1936, 1947; Derby 1879; Holdridge 1939; Netto 1885; Hartt 1883, 1885; Farabee 1914-1915, 1921; Pal-

matary 1950: 270-281). Professional archaeologists of the mid-20th century customarily dug one or two small, artificial-level test pits at each site to collect ceramics (Figueiredo and Simoes 1963; Hilbert 1952; Meggers 1952; Meggers and Evans 1957; Simoes 1967, 1969). They believed most cemetery sites to be ceremonial facilities without dwellings, but, although some mounds may have been built solely for burial, this is not yet proven. All the cemetery sites reported until now have abundant features of ordinary household occupation. No kinds of ceremonial sites other than

_ cemeteries have been identified, and no cemeteries outside of settlements

)have been found, so far as we know. The older literature documents the presence of abundant habitation remains at sites (Lange 1914; Steere 1927; Farabee, 1914-1915; Derby 1879; Netto 1885; Hartt 1883, 1885; Mordini 1947). The early explorers mention house floors, garbage dumps, prepared earthen floors, ceramic hearths or stoves, layers of sherds, charcoal and ash layers, faunal remains, and other features in addition to the cemeteries and earthworks. The museum and private collections confirm the existence of domestic deposits because they contain chunks of baked clay cooking hearths, fragments of sooty common cook pots, etc. Recent investigators’ test pits were too small and few to have effectively sampled the stratigraphy and identified activity areas, but a review of their descriptions of the soil and finds reveals that they also found the same kinds of habitation features at all the sites they investigated although they did not recognize them as such (Meggers 1952; Meggers and Evans 1957; Simoes 1967). This project’s excavations on Marajo have also revealed abundant stratigraphic patterning, structures, facilities, and refuse at Teso dos Bichos and Guajara, and our preliminary survey has revealed the same kinds of features at many other sites including Camutins, Monte Carmelo, Pacoral do Arari, Teso do Sitio, Sanharao, Matinadas, Laranjeiras, Tapereba, and Fortaleza. In the past, sites were customarily classified as cemetery mounds merely because they were high mounds and had cemeteries. Then, because the sites were considered to be cemeteries, the domestic occupation remains found there

were Classified as being the products of ceremonial feasts, not of habitations. However, all the cemetery sites described have the same kind of

habitation remains as Teso dos Bichos: numerous domestic baked clay hearths, abundant coarse domestic pottery, prepared clay house floors, and extensive, deep deposits of black soil garbage full of food bone, carbonized plants, and small sherds. These remains are not slight, exiguous strata that might represent periodic feasts, but are substantial, superimposed strata of primary, permanent domestic occupations.

The patterning of structures and activities at sites is only just now emerging from the geophysical surveys and excavations of the Marajo

37

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

project. Teso dos Bichos, the site reported on in this monograph (Chapters 3—6), appears to have had more than 20 longhouses oriented east—west around an open area. Guajara, still under investigation, appears to have a similar arrangement of 10 or more houses. Camutins Mound at Os Camutins also has the remains of several large houses, which have been exposed in the excavations of recent cemetery looters. The dwellings appear to have been large, multifamily structures, a traditional type of Amazonian house, called maloca. The houses of earth, poles, and thatch were placed on earthen platforms or floors, which were kept clean and surfaced with white sand. Garbage was swept up regularly and thrown between houses as fill. Within each house at Teso dos Bichos were several meter-long, trough-shaped, baked clay hearths. Each hearth had room for three large pots and was probably for the use of a nuclear family. The hearths were grouped along the center of the house, as is common in many matrilocal extended family dwellings in southern Amazonia, rather than dispersed in separate sections of the house, as is more common in patrilocal extended family households in the northern Amazon (see Chapter 5, “Interpretation of the Ancient Site Community’’). We have found the remains of such hearth groups at many other Marajoara cemetery sites, such as Monte

Carmelo,

Camutins,

Fortaleza, Pacoval, Laranjeiras, and

Teso do Sitio. Within the houses at Teso dos Bichos, domestic wares predominate, clustered around the hearths, but elaborately decorated wares are common in the garbage outside the house and predominate in graves. Preliminary site surveys and the Marajo Project collection study indicate that there is considerable variation from site to site in the nature and | prominence of different activities, raising the possibility that there were

|functional distinctions in economic and ceremonial activities between \sites. For example, the site of Teso do Sitio contains thousands of ceramic

and sandstone abraders that are rare or absent at many other sites. Whatever task these were for seems to have been much more common there than elsewhere. The distribution of functional pottery types also differs from site to site. Many small, non-mound sites seem to lack the elaborate funer-

ary features and the fancy food preparation and service wares often found in the garbage and cemeteries of the mound sites. The non-mound sites’ garbage often has only the plainer culinary and food-service pottery that predominates at hearth features in the mound sites. Thus, the ceremonial wares are not present at all sites, though all sites yet known have the domestic wares (see the sections on functions of pottery, in this chapter). The occupations on the mounds were dense and continuous. Space seems to have been at a premium, and houses and cemeteries are crowded onto the tops of the earth platforms. Garbage was thriftily thrown between houses as fill, rather than being tossed over the side of the mounds. Many mounds appear to have been occupied throughout the Marajoara Phase, according to what is known of the pottery and stratigraphy, although this needs to be verified with deep test pits or cores. Substantial earthworks,

Chapter1

38

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

buildings, and cooking facilities were built and carefully repaired. There are many successive building stages and occupations in each mound, and the floors and hearths of houses in each occupation were maintained for long periods. Some mounds (Os Camutins and Teso dos Bichos, for example) have as many as 20 superimposed house foundations in each occupation. At such sites there are few rubble layers that might indicate regular or . periodic abandonment of the sites. Such remains indicate a more substantial and permanent occupation than is usual in Amazonian Indian settle' ments today. Based on the patterns of living Amazonian Indians, it has been claimed that Marajoara mounds represent brief temporary occupations (B. Meggers, personal communication). However, there is little archaeological evidence to support this claim. Nomadic peoples without draft animals do not usually develop material culture with large-scale ceramic objects and facilities, construct massive habitation and cemetery platforms, or leave deep garbage fills (Rafferty 1985: 131-135), and livee ing Amazonian peoples with nomadic settlement patterns certainly do not do so.

Populations -\The finding that most mounds probably had substantial, long-term habita| \]tions changes the picture of the overall Marajoara population size and density, in view of our findings about site layout. This project’s work at Teso dos Bichos, a typical high mound, indicates a site occupation of about 1000 people, conservatively estimated on counts of hearth groups at the same level. Based on the information from Teso dos Bichos presented later, the estimated population for modest mounds would be between 300 and 500, more than 1000 for larger mounds, and several thousand or more for the large multimound sites (see ‘““Summary of Excavations at Magnetic Anomalies,” Chapter 5 and ‘““The Nature of Marajoara Society,’’ Chapter 7). A multimound site such as Os Camutins, which has 40 mounds of the 7 Camutins Subphase, is likely to have had a population of more than 10,000 people. The prehistoric population density on Marajo would therefore have been very substantial. Based only on the published sites, the total population size could have been 100,000—200,000. This size range of population would give a population density of 5-10 people per square km within the c. 20,000 km? of the Marajoara domain. If reported sites are only a fraction of those that existed, the population could have been up to one million people, and the density could have been as great as 50 people per square kilometer. These densities, although unheard of among Amazonian Indians today, are not out of line with those estimated for parts of the Amazonian floodplains at the time of first contact on the basis of ethnohis‘toric accounts (Deneven 1976). That Marajo in particular may well have had very large indigenous populations is supported by observations of Portuguese administrators in the 17th century that Marajo had at least

Mounds, Middens, and Cemeteries

100,000 native inhabitants (Vieira 1925) and by the reports of Jesuit missionaries that 100,000 Indians attended the signing of the 1658 peace treaty on Marajo (Miranda da Cruz 1987: 32). However, because the existing archaeological evidence is so sparse and uneven and because the ethnohistoric evidence dates 300 years after the depopulation of central Marajo, intensive regional survey on Marajo is needed to gain actual counts, measurements, and functional identifications for sites and structures.

The Settlement System Marajoara mounds, with their clusters of east—west oriented malocas and

the mounds dispersed along streams, are quite different from classical Roman towns with planned street grids. However, they were nonetheless carefully planned and constructed and had sizable populations housed within rather small areas. In fact, in terms of the settlement classification system commonly used in South America (Willey 1971: 131-132), the populations of the largest Marajoara mounds are within the size range defined for towns, 1000—5000, and the multimound sites are definitely in the range for cities, 5000 and upward. The conclusion is inescapable that the Marajoara settlement pattern is urban in scale. Systematic surveys will be necessary to determine whether settlements were also urban in function and organization. There is some evidence that Marajoara population centers may have functioned as urban centers in an organized system of relationships between settlements. Preliminary knowledge of Marajoara settlement patterns from informal reconnaissance surveys indicates the existence of a multilevel stratification in site size. It includes three or four very large multimound centers at the top of the size range, a larger number of sites with only 3 to 5 such mounds, very numerous sites consisting of a single such mound, and countless, small low habitation mounds and nonmound sites. This patterning suggests the possibility that there was some kind of settlement hierarchy, with people of different occupations and statuses occupying the different types of sites. The quantitative and qualitative contrasts within and between sites are difficult to interpret without more information about the differences among houses and burials and knowledge of the overall patterning and distribution of different kinds of sites in the region. The contrasts between activity areas found by the project at Teso dos Bichos and Guajara could be a reflection of behavioral dichotomies, characteristic of the “egalitarian” societies of present-day Amazonian Indians, in which women are occupied with domestic activities, while men control ritual and intergroup contacts. In this case, the material distinctions among sites could represent the circulation of people between different use sites for different activities during the year. Some sites would be used year-round for many different activities, and others might be used only seasonally or periodically.

39

Chapter 1

40

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

An alternative interpretation would be that the differences represent the existence of different occupational and status groups in a ranked or stratified society, such as elites and commoners. The elites could have occupied the mound sites and could have controlled ritual culture and certain crafts, and they might have had some rights to the labor and tribute of commoners, who might have occupied the non-mound sites, perhaps living in pile dwellings. If so, the laborers would have been the most numerous group in the society, because non-mound sites apparently without ceremonial remains may be the most numerous kind of site on Marajo, despite the focus of interest of most investigators on the cemetery mounds. Though difficult to interpret conclusively at present, the existing information about settlement patterning provides a basis for planning intensive investigation of site differences and similarities in the future.

THE

FUNERARY COMPLEX

The ancient Marajoara culture had one of the outstanding funerary complexes in the Americas. Funerary rites were an important focus of the culture, and mound cemeteries were the first kind of Marajoara deposit to attract attention from observers, because of their topographic prominence and the richness of their art. Nevertheless, all work indicates that there was no such thing as a cemetery mound, per se. All known cemeteries are located in villages or towns. Whether there exist any mound sites without cemeteries is not yet known for certain, because of the lack of extensive investigation. The few black-soil, non-mound sites investigated appear to lack urn cemeteries. At least, no one has yet documented

urn burials at

such sites. Cemeteries

Marajoara burial grounds in the mounds are urn cemeteries. Farabee’s and others’ records make it clear that the mounds they excavated had a number of spatially discrete cemeteries, and that the urns were highly clustered within them, one placed right next to the other. The only known plan drawings of urn cemeteries (Figs. 1.15 and 1.16) are in Farabee’s fieldnotes,

but other workers report the same close spacing of urns in large groups (e.g., Mordini letters and sketch, in Palmatary 1950; Hartt 1883, 1885; Lange 1914). Within each of the discrete cemeteries, which often cover several hundred square meters, there are from 50 to 200 urn burials. Because of this concentrated pattern of disposition, if the early explorers could find a place to dig where someone had previously found an urn, they would thereafter find many more. When there had been no previous work at a mound, the excavators would have to trench for many

The Funerary Complex

tens of meters to find urns, destroying the majority of the mound’s deposits without keeping good records of what they found. Farabee wrote about the Casa Velha mound in the Fortaleza group that when they dug where a local man had encountered an urn, ‘‘We at once began finding things in abundance. . . The burials were grouped. Ina space of 50 feet square, we might find 50 pots, and then another 50 without finding a thing. Once in a space 4’ by 2’ we found 7 pots belonging to 4 different burials’ (Farabee, letter February 8, 1915, quoted in Palmatary 1950). Farabee also wrote the following about Magno Mound of the Camutins group: ‘‘Put men to work near the south end where someone had taken out a pot, and at once found so

many pots together it was impossible to dig without hitting one. In a space of six feet square there were six large pots and three small ones”’ (Farabee, 1914-1915). The Marajo Project excavations at Guajara confirm this pattern of horizontal clustering of burials (Roosevelt 1988c). i Marajoara cemeteries were often structured in vertical layers by pe' riod, each horizontal layer of urns separated by a clean layer of building earth, and there are often three superimposed layers of burials at a site (Hartt 1883, 1885; Netto 1885; Meggers 1952; Meggers and Evans 1957; Steere 1927; Ferreira Penna 1879a). Joseph Steere (1927), the discover of Teso dos Bichos and one of many excavators of Pacoval do Arari, ‘‘distinguished in Pacoval three strata of vessels superimposed one upon the other, and representing artifacts sensibly different from one another in designs and other decoration” (Ferreira Penna 1879a:52). Mordini also found this pattern of layering at Teso dos Gentios, and his valuable sketches published by Palmatary (1950) clearly illustrate this common pattern of vertical arrangement (Fig. 1.16). Meggers and Evans (1957:259— 295) also found evidence of vertical layering in their excavations in mounds along the Anajas River. Cemeteries may actually have functioned as the temples in Marajoara society. The vertical layering of cemeteries with bands of building soil in _ between could be interpreted as evidence that cemeteries were placed in ‘special structures with earthen floors. Other possible evidence that the cemeteries were protected by roofed structures is that Marajoara painted urns in the burials seem to be in mint condition despite the fact that most of the paint is very water soluble. In our current excavations at Marajoara cemeteries at Guajara, the stratigraphy is being carefully studied for possible structural features, such as post holes and burial pit intrusions, to evaluate the evidence for shelters. Such funerary structures could have functioned as ancestral shrines. Temples for keeping religious idols and paraphernalia and the bodies of chiefly ancestors were described in the conquest period literature for the Lower Amazon (Bettendorf 1910; Daniel \1840-—1841; de Heriarte 1964; Nimuendaju 1949; Palmatary 1960). The large size and large number of cemeteries at the sites and their _\~ apparent temporal continuity make them an important potential source of

42

Chapter1

THE MARAJOARA CHIEFDOM

information about the Marajoara. Since many mounds have two or more superimposed cemeteries, there is the possibility that stratigraphic studies of mortuary remains will yield evidence of change through time in cultural and biological patterning. The total number of burials preserved in each mound is very large. With an average of 75 burials per individual cemetery layer, at least 5 cemeteries per mound, and at least 2 layers of urns in each

—_—-—--—3

probable

division of archeological strata.

mum

—

0.50 metres

Figure 1.16 Marajoara cemeteries. The Marajoara people placed their dead in jars and buried them in crowded cemeteries. (A) Profile sketch of superimposed urns at Teso dos Gentios in northeastern Marajo (Palmatary 1950, after Mordini). (B and C) Looted urn cemetery under ranch house at Monte Carmelo mound, 1986. (D—F) Farabee’s sketch maps of urn clusters in cemeteries at Fortaleza, 1915, courtesy of the Archives, University of Pennsylvania Museum.

43

The Funerary Complex coe

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tions or with the conversion of resistance data to resistivity data. Finally, computers are needed to create and print maps of geophysical data in the field, so that they can be compared with topographic and archaeological data for the purpose of guiding sampling by excavation. Another trend in geophysical survey presumably will be toward electrical power efficiency, with such refinements as portable solar charging panels and more efficient and lighter battery systems. Another productive direction of expansion for archaeological remote sensing is in the area of regional ecological and settlement surveys. At present, most surveys are carried out on the surface, with little mass mapping aids except aerial photography. This manner of surveying is costly and ineffective at locating nonarchitectural sites or sites not exposed at the surface. In principle, space or airborn remote-sensing methods should be effective for detecting and mapping both occupation sites and agricultural fields and earthworks. Ancient sites and earthworks are large masses that produce stratigraphically anomalous areas in their regions in the same way that features and strata do within sites, and the anomalies can theoretically be detected by their mineral, spectral, thermal, magnetic, and conductivity characteristics. Potential sites can thus be identified by computerized pattern recognition, verified by ‘‘ground-truthing”’ survey, or known sites’ geophysical signatures can be used to find other sites with similar signatures. Until recently, the software (Elas by NASA), hardware (Vax minicomputers), and form of data (marketed by EOSAT) available for the necessary manipulations of the remote-sensing data made the work difficult and expensive, but miniaturization of hardware, improvement of the software, and more effective commercialization of data services are making them more convenient and cost effective. (See ‘“‘Plans for Future Research,” Chapter 7, for further discussion of these possibilities.) Because of its effectiveness for stratigraphic investigation, remote sensing is no doubt going to have an impact on archaeology in the future and could become a routine method of archaeological survey, replacing conventional surface survey and telescopic mapping. It will be interesting

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Settlements

to see if leadership in this process of developing geophysical methods for archaeology will come from the commercial sector, where most of the existing work has been done, or if government agencies that fund basic archaeological research will begin to take the lead.

Geophysical Survey for Amazonian Archaeology Until recently, geophysical methods have not been applied to archaeology in Brazil, despite the need to speed up investigation of the numerous archaeological sites in the immense territory before civilization destroys them. Traditional Amazonian archaeologists, who were trained by tradi-

jae North American archaeologists, tend to be opposed to the applica_tion of new technology to archaeology and assume that features and struc\tures of the kind detectable geophysically do not exist in tropical ‘archaeological sites, because of the destructive climate and because the

tropical forest way of life is thought to have lacked substantial structures and facilities. Also, many American archaeologists not familiar with the

literature on geophysical surveying erroneously assume, for example, that “. . . these surveying techniques . . . are inappropriate in areas where

there is abundant soil moisture, such as the tropics, . . . where it has already been found to be inappropriate’ (NSF reviewer, 1983). However, tropical conditions are no barrier to the application of geophysics to the tropical lowlands, and no one has ever found such methods to be inappropriate for use there. They have been used very extensively in the lowlands for mineral, oil, and groundwater exploration (Bermerguy 1981; Gonzales Carrasquilla 1984; McCracken 1983; Bischoff 1983; Lourengo and Rijo 1983; Palacky 1983; Palacky and Kadekaru 1979; Lourengo and Dias 1983; Verma and Bischoff 1989). Moisture and electrical ground properties vary from more conductive in the rainy season to more resistant in the dry season, so geophysicists can choose from a wide variety of conditions for those suitable to survey goals. The first attempt to apply a geophysical survey to archaeology in Brazil took place in 1977 (Alves and Lourengo 1981). Based on this and our recent studies, we know that many geophysically detectable archaeological features exist in Amazonian sites. Investigation on Marajo has revealed clay floors, walls, burned clay features, burials, large vessels, major strata, and concentrations of biological remains, and it is likely that future exca\vations will reveal more features. Geophysical features have been found to /be nonrandomly distributed through the sites, giving the first evidence that ( behaviorally significant layout patterns exist within Amazonian sites. “— The techniques of geophysical survey seem to have potential for Amazonian archaeology, as well as for archaeology elsewhere. In order to exploit this potential, however, it is necessary to integrate the geophysical survey methods with professional archaeological excavations. Only in this

153

154

Chapter 2. METHOD AND THEORY FOR AMAZONIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

way can the signatures of different kinds of features and strata at a site be verified so that the geophysical evidence of the stratigraphy and site layout can be interpreted and then extrapolated to unexcavated areas. The lack of systematic comparisons between geophysical surveys and excavation may be one reason why most archaeologists do not use geophysical methods, despite their effectiveness, rapidity, and inexpensiveness. One of the goals of this project has been to improve the archaeological documentation of geophysical survey results.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT ———___ ON MBRA OL SAND SSS (To investigate the characteristics of the Marajoara society, we have been | studying Teso dos Bichos with many of the interdisciplinary archaeological techniques that it has often been said are not appropriate for work in , tropical areas. Geophysical surveys by four different instruments have ‘been used systematically to investigate the patterning of features and strata at the 2.5-ha site, and a series of controlled stratigraphic excavations have been carried out to test the geophysical survey and gather information about the settlement and way of life. The 32 excavations, the most extensive scientific excavations ever carried out at any lowland site, have re-

vealed depositional, functional, and chronological aspects of features and strata and have recovered artifacts for stylistic and functional analysis and biological remains for osteological and chemical analysis. The field research has revealed domestic and monumental structures for the first time in Amazonia and has provided unprecedented evidence of behaviorally significant variation. The preliminary analysis of objects from the excavations has helped define the nature of that variation. This project is making both substantive and theoretical contributions. By comparing the results of the survey and excavation systematically, our findings are refining and improving geophysical survey techniques that will be valuable for archaeological research in general. The unprecedented data on site layout and cultural and biological patterning are beginning to reveal aspects of the social organization of the ancient site community, and the preliminary analysis is documenting aspects of ancient subsistence, environment, demography, and crafts. These data, the first of their kind to be recovered in the Amazon, shed light on prehistoric human adaptation to this important tropical region. They are, thus, germane to many areas of interest: Amazonian anthropology, tropical archaeology, archaeological methods, and to anthropological theory, as well.

THE MARAJO psi ARCHAEOLOGICAL_( PROJECT

The interdisciplinary methods discussed in the previous chapter have been applied in the Marajo Project to gather specific data relevant to the theoretical and methodological issues of Amazonian prehistory. Interpretive goals have been to investigate basic questions about the nature of prehistoric communities. Technical goals have been the application of geophysical, stratigraphic, bioarchaeological, and chronological methods to investigate interpretive problems in tropical lowland archaeology. The interdisciplinary project has been a collaboration between anthropologists, geophysicists, and natural scientists for research at several Amazonian archaeological sites. In the project at Teso dos Bichos, geophysical survey and stratigraphic excavation have been used to investigate the distribution of archaeological material at the site and gather information relevant to the interpretive issues. The research has produced abundant artifacts and biological remains in stratigraphic context and has uncovered the well-preserved remains of numerous features, facilities, and structures. The work shows that the archaeological remains are patterned in behaviorally significant ways in the site and has yielded evidence about the organization and lifeway of the ancient community. The primary culture at the site is the noted Marajoara Phase of the | Lower Amazon. Believed to have been one of the largest native chiefdoms \of the Amazon, its numerous artificial mound sites are found throughout

155

Chapter 3

156

THE MARAJO ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

the interior of eastern Marajo, the vast, deltaic island at the mouth of the

_ Amazon (Figs. 1.1 to 1.16). The funerary art style of this culture is one of the great styles of the New World, characterized by elaborate polychrome pottery, effigy sculpture, and fine incised decoration (Figs. 1.17 to 1.24). Although abundant material from the Marajoara culture exists in museums worldwide, no Marajoara site has ever been studied intensively before this project. (For details about the culture, see Chapter 1.) The focus of this project is ac. 3-ha, 7-m high Marajoara mound on the Goiapi River in eastern central Marajo Island (Figs. 3.1 to 3.3). Our purpose has been to investigate the stratigraphy of the mound and the overall patterning of features, artifacts, bones, and plant remains within the site. We have used the results of an intensive ground-probing geophysical survey of the archaeological site for information about the distribution of areas of prehistoric activity in the deposit. This survey has been carried out over several years by teams of Brazilian and American geophysicists, archaeologists, and students in those fields. Using the survey data as a guide, the archaeologists have carried out a series of excavations at areas of prehistoric activity, using stratigraphic methods and intensive soil processing to recover artifacts for stylistic and functional analysis, food remains

for identification,

and

human

skeletons

for osteological

and

chemical analysis. By systematically comparing the archaeological characteristics of excavated features and layers with the geophysical patterning of the archaeological mound, we have identified the geophysical signature of different kinds of archaeological remains and constructed a picture of the sites layout. This part of the project is the subject of Chapters 4 and 5. The results of the preliminary analysis of objects recovered is presented in Chapter 6. The combined results from Teso dos Bichos are producing information about the subsistence, population, religion, and organization of this community of an important prehistoric chiefdom. This kind of information has never before been collected in the Amazon and promises to shed light on fundamental questions about human biocultural development in the tropical lowlands. The results document the potential of the interdisciplinary archaeological methods for problem-oriented archaeology in the tropics in the future.

HISTORY OF THE PROJECT The Marajo Project began in 1981 in the museum and archival research project that I carried out as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. The museum project was a review of systematic archaeological collections from Amazonia as primary research for a book on the prehistory of Amazonia (Roosevelt n.d.a). At that time, it was not possible for American

History of the Project A MAP

157

OF THE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

SITE

OF

i= SOs bOesssicAos MARAVO ISLAND, PARA STATE BRAZIL, S.A. TOPOGRAPHIC SURVEY

OCT. 1985

FINAL ORAFT JUNE 1986 M.DAVENPORT pezzi

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WYTERVAL 25m. Eleyotcra based on ortitrary 100 meter vericol dalvm located 0! grid NICCYE'SO0

GRIO NORTH ALIGNED TO MAGNETIC

NORTH

3

E310

321

Figure 3.1 Topographic map of the archaeological mound Teso dos Bichos. This is the first instrument map to scale of a Marajoara mound. The mound has been eroded by several ravines, and cattle have made shallow wallows on the top. A layer of material eroded

from the mound has been deposited around its base along with recent alluvium and eolian sand. Excavation map created by J. Douglas with Generic Cad.

£330

£340

Figure 3.2

Teso dos Bichos mound. The archaeological mound projects into a small stream tributary to the Goiapi River. The stream is enlarged by a borrow pit to the east of the mound. (A) View from the air from the southwest, 1985; (B) view from the opposite shore, looking west, 1983;

(C) view from the water, looking west, 1983.

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Figure 3.3 Surface remains. (A) Possible earth constructions at the southeast of the mound; (B) apparent earth wall foundations exposed at an erosion surface in the north of mound; (C) sherds strewn on eroded surface; (D) burnt adobe lumps of hearth material on the surface of the site. 1983.

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archaeologists to carry out field projects in the Brazilian Amazon due to permit problems (see ‘““The Feud,” Chapter 2). However, the museum collections had never been intensively studied, and as I found out, they contained significant unpublished information about the Marajoara Phase, among other things. It was during the collection study that I was invited by Brazilian officials to begin an archaeological project on Marajo, thereby circumventing the permit problem. As part of the museum project, I visited archaeological sites and collections in Brazil in 1982, with the NEA funding. While studying the collections for two weeks in the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi in Belem, the great Amazonian natural history museum,

I met the then director of the

museum, Jose Seixas Lourenco, a Berkeley Ph.D. in geophysics and electrical engineering. Lourengo, a pioneer in the application of geophysics for exploration in the tropics, was familiar with the European and American literature on the use of geophysics for archaeology. He had also carried out a geophysical survey with colleagues at Lower Amazon archaeological sites in the 1970s, finding complex stratigraphy and numerous prehistoric features and facilities. In Belem, Lourengo showed me his publication on the geophysical work at archaeological sites (Alves and Lourengo 1981), and I realized that he and his colleagues had found some significant archaeological features of types that were not supposed to exist in the area, such as complex stratigra-

phy and baked clay hearths. I, also, had found at tropical sites in the Orinoco Basin archaeological remains very different from what traditional lowland archaeologists had reported, so Lourengo’s results seemed plausible. Lourengo read about the Orinoco research (Roosevelt 1978, 1980; van der Merwe et al. 1981) and found the ecological approach to tropical archaeology germane to geophysical archaeology. Before I left the Goeldi, he had proposed a research collaboration on Marajo Island. My intention had been to try to work first at Santarem, upriver, but the Marajoara Phase was an interesting prospect for research, being one of the richest and most problematical of the archaeological cultures of the Amazon Basin. I suggested that we use geophysical survey data to make inferences about the archaeology and then test them systematically with excavation. This would help to demonstrate whether the geophysical techniques were as useful for routine archaeological work as Lourengo thought. If effective, the techniques would recover a settlement layout, which, along with the basic stratigraphic, artifactual, and biological remains that I would collect by excavation, would reveal important information about the way of life during the Phase and its history. Lourengo was able to circumvent the previous barriers to permits for American archaeologists because Simoes was his subordinate at the Museum, and he was able to get the project joint funding from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento e Tecnologia (CNPq or National Research Council) to match my grant from the Cooperative Science Program of the

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International Division of the National Science Foundation.

Simoes and

Meggers both opposed the project and recommended against a permit, ) but neither Lourengo nor the scientists at CNPq were convinced by j their reasoning, which opposed our methods because they were too | “high tech” and different from the traditional methodological approaches | in Amazonia, which the Smithsonian scholars had established there. The f

scientists

at CNPq,

however,

had no

problem

with the technological

aspects of the project. In fact, the applied geophysics and natural science that the project involved seemed rather ‘“‘low tech” to them. There was also opposition to the project among anthropologists who were referees for my NSF INT grant. Some criticized the project on the grounds that techniques such as geophysics, archaeobotany, and bone chemistry had been proven to be inappropriate for tropical archaeology. ; One reviewer objected that the cooperative aspects of the work were a “sham” and suggested that the participation of Brazilians was peripheral to the project. However, the anthropologists’ criticisms were discounted by NSF staff. The INT program manager was familiar with the Orinoco work on prehistoric subsistence and had been in communication with CNPq scientists, who knew that geophysical methods were already in routine use for geological exploration in the area. In addition, the Brazilians assured NSF staff that the project was indeed a cooperative venture and had, in fact, been initiated by Brazilians. The project was funded, therefore, in 1983, and with further funds from NSF anthropology, grew into an extensive interdisciplinary collaboration between the Museum of the American Indian (MAJ), in New York, and the Goeldi Museum (MPEG) in Belem. When I moved to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in 1986, that museum took the place of the Museum of the American Indian as the American institutional partner. When Lourengo became the President of the Federal University of Para, Guilherme de La Penha, the next director of the Museu Goeldi, continued the Goeldi’s participation in the project, and Silvia Maranca of the Museu Paulista Universidade de Sao Paulo became the Brazilian counterpart scientist.

The laboratory work on the American side has been carried out at the MAI and AMNH in New York. The Museu Goeldi has generously given administrative support on the Brazilian side, as well as goods, services, and loan of facilities, equipment, and a vehicle. The Federal University of Para has also lent staff, a field class of geophysics graduate students, air photographs, facilities, computers, and geophysical and camping equipment.

The Marajo Project has involved about 30 long-term participants, half Brazilian and half American. Among the scientific staff, about half the participants have been women and half men. Between 1983 and 1985 approximately 13 months have been spent in the field (7.5 at the field site of Teso dos Bichos) and three times that amount in laboratory time.

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SYSTEMATIC COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES In 1981, I began a review of worldwide museum archives, photographs, and object collections from prehistoric Amazonian sites (Roosevelt n.d.a., n.d.a,b). The purpose of the study was to provide basic information about Amazonian prehistory. I had found that the majority of material that had been excavated in Amazonia was not published and decided to seek information from the extensive material in museums. Though the material was / from all periods and regions of Amazonia, Marajoara and Santarem mate- | rial predominated, so the study concentrated on these cultures. Initially, 1 | spent about six months traveling in South America and Europe and spent short periods of several days to two weeks studying the North American collections. I was able to visit Brazilian collections again during 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1987.

The following collections that had Marajoara material were studied , during the period 1981—1987: the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, the | Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, private collections in Sao Paulo, Belem, |

and Marajo, the Musee de L’Homme, the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, the British Museum, the Peabody Museum of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Cornell University Department of Anthro- \ pology Collection, and the American Museum of Natural History. I also studied several older private collections and the municipal collections of ~ Santarem City and Cachoeira do Arari. The collection review was very important for this project because it \, provided significant unpublished information about the Marajoara Phase. / , The material in major collections contains invaluable information about ||technological, ecological, chronological, aesthetic, and ideological aspects ’ of the ancient cultures, giving a picture of the ancient society quite differesfrom that in the current published archaeological literature. In fact, much of the information about the culture summarized in this work (Chap- | ter 1) comes from studying these collections and from the results of the! field project, rather than from published sources. The most important sources of unpublished information were certain book-length manuscripts, photographs, and the artifacts and skeletal collections. (The skeletal remains are discussed under the section “Results of the Human Osteology Study,” Chapter 6.)

The Lange and Rempen collections of the American Museum of Natural History make up one of the larger groupings of Pacoval_ Subphase material from Marajo. Antonio Rempen’s collection is practically undocumented, other than an 1896 notice that it is on loan to the AMNH. The material was recorded as from Pacoval and includes both exhibit quality artifacts and perfectly preserved human osteological material (Fig. 6.8). Lange’s collection is quite well documented by correspondence and his

Systematic Collections and Archives

published book (1914). It is primarily from the Pacoval site, a fact which is well documented by his published photographs of the material at the site and the illustrations in his book, but not made clear in the museum’s

catalog. According to archival correspondence, the AMNH apparently acquired only a small amount of Lange’s collection of skeletal material, essentially whatever fragments were mixed in with the sherd collections. However, this and Rempen’s material provided important information about Marajoara technology, style and iconography, and lifeways. Lange’s film of his work, mentioned in his correspondence, has disappeared. The Charles Hartt archaeological collections from the Lower Amazon have also been an important source of information. The main collections are stored in the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, where Hartt was a student under Louis Agassiz, and at Cornell University, where he was the

founder and first chair of the Geology Department. Most of the Cornell collections are held in the Anthropology Department. The Hartt archaeological collections at the Peabody Museum surfaced when I examined them and the archives during various visits over a period of years between 1982 and 1986. Although I found some specimens in 1983, the main part of the collection was identified during an inventory of the collection funded by the National Science Foundation Systematic Anthropology Collections Program in 1985. Among the relevant material acquired by Harvard in the early 1870s were manuscripts and numerous objects from Hartt’s and his assistants’ research at sites in the vicinity of Santarem and his associates’ collections from Marajo. According to the Peabody records, Palmatary (1950) was the only Amazonian scholar who had studied these collections. The Marajoara artifact collections catalogued by Hartt include both whole and fragmentary material from the site of Pacoval, mainly collected by his assistants W.J. Barnard and O.A. Derby. Because the provenience was recorded, these collections helped me define the important Pacoval Subphase. One of the largest figural artworks of this subphase of the culture, a female funerary effigy of the scorpion—snake woman, was collected by Hartt’s assistants from this site, with in-place drawings. They made meticulous observations that included the nature of the stratigraphy and the disposition of features at the sites. Also, they collected comprehensively, so their material includes informative remains that other collectors, except Nimuendaju, tended to leave behind, such as fragmentary lithics, ceramic hearth fragments, and biological remains. An important written source on the Lower Amazon turned up in the Hartt collections at Harvard. This was the geologist’s long, unpublished English manuscript on Lower Amazon archaeology, ‘Contributions to the Ethnology of the Valley of the Amazons,” or, as he referred to it sometimes, “Brazilian Antiquities.’’ This work had been lost since his premature death from yellow fever in 1878. It had been a rough draft when he died, and soon after, his young assistant, Orville Derby, corrected and augmented it from the field notebooks and sent it to the Peabody Museum for publication in

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1883 (correspondence, archives, Peabody Museum). The Smithsonian had made a bid to publish the work at the time, but Derby decided to give the manuscript to Harvard, perhaps because Hartt had trained there. For some reason, the Peabody did not publish it, and it was filed away in the archives for the museum’s Amazonian archaeology collections, unbeknownst to scholars. As part of their routine help to visiting researchers, the Peabody curatorial staff showed me this manuscript in 1986 when I was studying the artifacts. The Hartt manuscript was the English version of Hartt’s Portuguese work, which was published posthumously as an article in the Archivos of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, the institution that inherited the museum he established as head of the Imperial Geological Commisssion, after leaving Cornell. The information from the Portuguese article has never been extensively incorporated into the English literature, except in extracts and summaries in Palmatary’s book (1950). Therefore, my planned publication of Hartt’s English work will make that information more accessible. This manuscript incorporates the basic information from the field notes of Hartt’s assistants. Of particular importance for Marajo is the information from Barnard’s and Derby’s observations on sites on Marajo. By comparing the written material with the object collections at Harvard, Cornell, and Rio, I was able to make conclusions about the stratigraphy and

chronology of the sites and the nature of burials. The photographs and field notes would be a further valuable aid, but these have actually not yet

surfaced, except for a notebook in the Olin library at Cornell. Hartt’s family sold some of his photographs and papers after he died, and the whereabouts of these are unkown. Derby’s own premature death by suicide in Rio in 1915 led to the disappearance of some important papers, photographs, and collections, which may be found in Brazilian archives in the

future. Cornell has extensive collections of papers, such as clippings and correspondence, in various archives, including the Department of Entomology, but the major part of his collections in the National Museum in Rio (placed there by Derby in 1876) have not yet been located. Another important source for me was Curt Nimuendaju’s (n.d.) long unpublished manuscript on archaeology in the Brazilian Amazon, translated into English by Stig Ryden, which is in the archives of the Goteborg Ethnographic Museum. This work and his papers contain descriptions of his fieldwork on Marajo and in other regions, mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as summaries of early ethnohistorical information. The manuscript, his letters and notes, and most of the collections were acquired for the Museum by Erland Nordenskiold, who secured museum

funds to support Nimuendaju’s excavations. Other collections by Nimuendaju were acquired by the Museu Goeldi. Nimuendaju died during ethnographic fieldwork in 1945, and because of a disagreement between the translator and the museum,

the manuscript was never published. After

a falling out with museum officials, Ryden tried to publish the work out-

Systematic Collections and Archives

side the institution, and the litigation that ensued prevented its publication.

Nimuendaju’s artifact collections were valuable because he made comprehensive, relatively unbiased surface collections with good provenience records, furnishing unique information about settlement patterns and material culture. Because Nimuendaju did not collect as selectively as many other scholars, his were some of the few museum collections that included samples of stove material, domestic wares, and other informative but unprepossessing remains, which documented the presence of habitations at sites that had been miscataloged as empty ceremonial sites. The collections and his maps and writings provide evidence for the large number and

extensive areas of late prehistoric occupation sites and middens in the Brazilian Amazon, in turn documenting the substantial density and relative sedentism of human populations in the area. This material has not yet been published adequately, except for that included in Palmatary’s book (1960), which presents valuable excerpts and summaries from his writings and maps. Of particular importance to my work on Marajo have been Farabee’s recently rediscovered 26 field notebooks and his well-known artifact collections from Fortaleza and Camutins at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. His field notes, which had been missing for about 35 years, were found by museum staff in a seminar room in 1985. Farabee was not an accomplished archaeologist, and he died young, of amoebiasis without adequately publishing his archaeological work, but he was a good observer and worked extensively on Marajo in 1914 and 1915. His notebooks contain significant unpublished information about sites and cemeteries [Figs.

1.14, 1.15, and 1.16(D) J.

Most valuable were Farabee’s sketches of site and cemetery plans and notes on skeletal positions in urns. His multimound site plans from Camutins and Fortaleza reveal a distinctive pattern of site size stratification, / suggesting the possibility that there was some kind of political hierarchy during the Phase. His site plans had been published by Meggers and Evans (1957), but at a different scale than the original. Farabee’s cemetery plans had never been published, and these showed the clustered and orderly fashion in which graves were arranged at sites, valuable information for junderstanding the organization of cemeteries and for planning cemetery | surveys and excavations for the Marajo project. The extensive information /about Fortaleza allowed me to evaluate the site as a possible focus of cemetery excavations. Farabee’s collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum have lost their site and cemetery provenience for the most | part, because he left them in the field for many months during the rainy season, and termites ate the labels. However, the collections were to some degree sortable by descriptions in his notes (Meggers and Evans 1957) and by style information from others’ work, and their large size, high quality, and good preservation made them very useful for iconographic study. His

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partial lists of grave contents give important information about the range of variability of mortuary remains. By studying the collections in light of the information from the field notes, I gained added information about Marajoara pottery and cemeteries.

The museum collections of Marajoara material have yielded information of significance to the project. In addition to helping me form a fuller picture of the Marajoara culture and a new interpretation of its signifi» cance, the archives were an important practical complement to the | fieldwork. When I found certain stratigraphic and structural patterns at | Teso dos Bichos, I could check the archives to see if the early excavators | described anything similar. In this way, it was possible to conclude that all \the types of features and layers—the garbage, prepared floors, earthworks, and stoves—found at Teso also exist in most Marajoara sites that have been investigated. In addition, the museum

collections, which contain many

complete specimens, are an aid to the reconstruction of the shapes of vessels recovered only as isolated sherds from the excavations. The whole vessels were also a useful body of information about Marajoara ideology, ritual, and social organization, through the study of style and iconography. The many examples illustrated the different contexts and forms of images, furnishing information about their possible symbolic meaning. (The implications of the art are discussed in the sections ‘‘Art and Iconography”’ and “Symbolism and Society” in Chapter 1.) The shapes, wear patterns, and residues on the pottery gave functional information, also. The skeletons in the collections were invaluable (‘‘Results of the Human Osteological Study’, Chapter 6), their anthropometrics and pathologies yielding preliminary information about the patterns of genetic and physiological varia_ tion in the ancient population, with implications for our understanding of the geographic origins of the population and its conditions of life. Without all this information from collections, the results of the field research project would have been much less significant. The Amazonian archaeological collections also yielded information of importance for my understanding of characteristics of the archaeological , record and the developmental sequence of the region as a whole. What I found was at odds with published or accepted conclusions about the | origins of Amazonian Indian cultures and populations, the history of i - occupation, the nature of settlements, and the basis of subsistence. In addition, I learned that common assumptions about the poor preservation | of remains in Amazonian archaeological sites were wrong, for the collections kept turning up material that was not supposed to be there— biological remains, such as carbonized seeds, faunal bone, shells, and human bone—and the documents and photographs revealed stratigraphy thought not to exist in such sites. The collection study, along with my fieldwork experience in the Orinoco, encouraged me to plan fieldwork aimed at recovering and recording such material and patterning, and the results have confirmed their existence fully.

| |

y

The Study Site, Teso dos Bichos

Despite their significance, the collections from Amazonia have suffered from neglect that lessens their information value. Information about the early investigations has been lost, whether temporarily or permanently, because the archaeologists or museums lost, discarded, or improperly cataloged the material. For example, as mentioned, the provenience of Farabee’s enormous

ceramic collections from Marajoara cemeteries was

due to insect damage. In addition, all the skeletal material from Farabee’s excavations on Marajo has disappeared from the University Museum, and Lange’s films of Marajo disappeared in 1914 when the Anthropology Department of the American Museum of Natural History acquired his collection of artifacts from Marajo. The collections’ documentation fared best when museums simply took in all the material along with its original documentation and did not alter or recatalog it. When curators reclassified objects, basic provenience information was lost. For example, the proveniences of Hartt’s assistants’ collections from Marajo in the Cornell Anthropology Department were mixed up with those from Santarem when the material was recataloged and the old numbers and labels removed, but the proveniences of the material that went to Harvard survived intact because the old labels were left on the pieces. Lange’s collections from Pacoval in the American Museum were documented by his published photos of the site, but the museum catalog does not record a site provenience for most of the pieces. The urn provenience of the cataloged bones in the American Museum’s Marajo collections were lost in the process of cataloging, when the bones were removed to the physical anthropology collections, whereas the bones that were inadvertently left uncataloged inside their urns maintained their vessel provenience. The museum collections from Marajo were an important source of information for me and would have been even more valuable for research had the excavators and curators made preservation of documentation a high priority.

THE STUDY SITE, TESO DOS BICHOS j

|The first site of fieldwork for the Marajo Project was Teso dos Bichos, a ' typical artificial mound of the Marajoara Phase on the Goiapi River in ’ central Marajo (Figs. 1.2 and 3.1 through 3.3). The site is also called Aterro dos Bichos or Ilha dos Bichos. The words teso and aterro mean earthen mounds in Brazilian Portuguese, and the word ilha means island. Bichos refers to animals. The site is P-J-21 in the Brazilian site numbering system, meaning site number 21 on Johanes Island (an older name for Marajo) in

Para State. It lies on the Igarape dos Bichos, a loop of the Goiapi, a small, shallow tributary of the Arari River about 20 km north of the town of Cachoeira do Arari. The environs of the site consist of seasonally inun-| dated savanna, with primarily herbaceaous vegetation over most of the \

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\ area and narrow bands of gallery forest and savanna woodland along streams and paleochannels (see “Environmental Survey,” this chapter). There are several other mounds in the environs of Teso. The important multimound site of Fortaleza lies about 15 km further north on the Goiapi

River, and there is a non-mound, black-soil site near Fortaleza, called Ilha

de Fogo. The living area for the research team at Teso, is Tapereba, a tenant rancher’s house about 5 km south of the Teso. Tapereba lies on a low artificial habitation mound much disturbed by the current inhabitants’ activities. Baked clay hearths and domestic wares such as were excavated at Teso dos Bichos can be observed eroding out of the mound at Tapereba, and there is a large area littered with pottery sherds about 100 m to the south of the mound. Teso dos Bichos is about 3 ha in maximum-area.and about.7.m high, measuring from the level of the floodplain. It was apparently built out into ‘the igarape from its western edge. Today, it projects about 4 m above a slight rise in the flat, clayey soil found at the surface of the ground over much of the interior of Marajo. This rise, our excavations demonstrated, consists of colluvium and alluvium that have collected around the mound since prehistoric times, a type of deposit commonly found around Near Eastern tell sites (Davidson 1976), which the teso resembles in certain ways. The site bears herbaceous vegetation and a few trees, which were surveyed and identified during the project’s environmental survey of the area. The landscape surrounding the site is extensive flat grassland, with distant bands of gallery forest barely visible 5 to 15 km away on the horizon to the south and north [Fig. 1.9(A) ]. Teso dos Bichos has been eroded along its flanks, especially to the east, to windward, where the seasonal stream, Igarape dos Bichos, runs, and large gullies extend into the site at the east and southeast. During the rainy season, water laps at the site’s sides up to the third meter of the site’s height, and cattle trample the mound, escaping the flood that spreads like a lake over the floodplain and stands around the mound for many months. The water has never reached above the low, colluvial apron of the deposit within recent times, according to oral history. Flood levels are thought to be higher today than in ancient times because of increased sedimentation from cattle activity and a rise in sea levels. Therefore, the upper stages of the mound appear to have been built for other purposes than merely to raise the settlement out of the floodwaters. Defense is one possible rationale. On the north, east, and south, the mound is encircled by a curving depression that appears to be a borrow pit for the earth with which the mound was built. Most Marajoara sites have large borrow pits aside them, which conveniently collect and store water in the dry season. West and northwest of the site are level areas that may have served for planting; they are drained by two narrow, relatively straight streams that may be of prehistoric construction [Figs. 1.13C and 3.2(A) J. Despite a history of erosion that must have begun before 1871 (the first

\ |

| \ | '

169

The Study Site, Teso dos Bichos

recorded observation of the site was in this year) our excavations show much of the Marajoara deposit to be intact. The top surface of the site, which is apparently not eroding now, is almost entirely without archaeological objects except in the southwest, where a knoll of eroding archaeological material projects to an arbitrary elevation of about 102 m. The work \ of the project has shown that the mound is largely made up of rather hard, silty-clayey soil originally dug up from the surrounding flat alluvial lands ee raise occupation surfaces out of reach of seasonal flooding, to build 'floors and platforms for structures, and possibly to facilitate defense. The soil is darkish gray-brown when excavated from the floodplain and after being elevated in the mound becomes lighter and yellower' in color as it weathers chemically. This hard, mound-building soil is resistant to erosion. The hardness of the soil made excavation and screening a slow, difficult process. Much of the top surface of the mound is very level and represents

an occupation

surface

of particularly

resistant

clayey soil

covered with a layer of fine, white windblown sand. The complex of contemporary domestic occupation layers and features surveyed geophysically and sampled with excavation lay in a relatively level plane also. The project excavations showed that the mound has large areas of

black-soil, secondary garbage fill between earthworks and house platforms. This garbage is more subject to erosion than the earthworks and floors and easier to dig and screen, and it is in areas of this kind of deposit that the large erosion ravines have penetrated most. The soil of the site also has some bright red layers, from oxidation of iron in the soil during prehistoric fires and from the decay of oxidized, baked clay hearths. The red layers occur both in garbage and in house floors but not in moundconstruction layers. My reconnaissance and excavation at other sites and

the descriptions in publications and unpublished field notes reveal that most Marajoara sites have similar kinds of deposits in them. The material collected by previous investigators and by the project indicates that most of the site’s volume represents a long Marajoara occupation. The material deposited-below the erosion ravines is of the Phase. The ground there is richly littered with fragmentary archaeological objects that include all Marajoara types: elaborately decorated ceramics for burial and feasting, plainer domestic ceramics, round stools, figurines, spindle whorls, ceramic pubic covers, ground and polished stone tools, human and animal bones, carbonized plant remains, charcoal, and hearth fragments [Fig. 3.4(B)]. Near the surface at the top of the mound are the remains of a recent occupation dating within this century, attested to in six of the excavations by finds of cattle bone, metal, glass, and glazed pottery and a few pieces of rubber and plastic. The recent material does not occur as a massive layer over the site, but as a few patches and features containing modern objects. The primary recent occupation is suggested in local oral history to have taken place in the 1930s and 1940s (Ronaldo Cardozo, personal communication; Figueiredo and Simoes 1963; Simoes 1967).

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This site, then, represents a comprehensive and long-term occupation with a wide range of well-preserved features and strata of the kind whose patterning is informative about prehistoric lifeways and organization.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL

SURVEY

The Marajo archaeological project has included a study of the environment of Teso dos Bichos, as well as other sites. The environmental surveys of

this phase of the project included field and laboratory studies of the present vegetation, fauna, soils, and limnology in the vicinity of the study site and also in the general region of eastern Marajo. The purpose of the studies is to characterize the area as a habitat for human occupation and to provide contemporary material with which to compare and identify the prehistoric ecofacts and ultimately to reconstruct the ancient habitat. Because the great intensity and length of the prehistoric occupation of Amazonia has only been established recently, biologists specializing in the area have tended to assume that the biota, soils, air, and water were pristine and untouched by human occupation before the conquest and have only become altered and damaged by human occupations since then. Amazonian Indians are usually presented as prudent caretakers of the environment in contrast to the exploitive European settlers, who are known to have destroyed many habitats as well as native populations. It! seems indisputable that indigenous adaptations had a less destructive effect than today’s. Nonetheless, several regions of Amazonia have produced paleontological evidence of processes such as deforestation and sedimentation during prehistoric times (references summarized in Roosevelt 1990). Because of the likelihood that the Marajo plains were heavily populated and intensively exploited during the Marajoara Phase, we should probably consider that the environment may have been under some stress then, as now. Comparisons of the present and ancient Marajo habitats will help to reveal the nature of change and its causes.

Vegetation Study The botanical segment of the environmental study has involved research on vegetation communities and soils east of Lake Arari and in the Goapi and Camara River basins and study of carbonized plant remains from the excavations. The work has involved the efforts of several botanists, some who are experts in the current vegetation of the Lower Amazon and others who are specialists in the study of archaeological pollen and carbonized plant remains. The results of the continuing study of the ancient flora are reported in ‘‘Plant Remains,’ Chapter 6. A survey of vegetation and soils near Teso dos Bichos was carried out by consulting botanist to the project, Anthony Anderson of the Museu

The Environmental Survey

Goeldi in 1984, and Carlos Rosario of the same institution made collections

in 1987. To quote from Anderson’s preliminary report of 1984: We visited the major vegetational communities that occur in the vicinity of the archaeological site. These include forest on or adjacent to paleocanals, gallery forest, wet savanna, and dry savanna. I shall first discuss the two savanna types. Wet savanna is subject to prolonged inundation, whereas dry savanna is less frequently flooded. The causes of this distinct hydrology are either topographic or edaphic. In some cases, dry savannas occur on slightly elevated sites subject to decreased inundation. In other cases, dry savannas occur on more porous—and consequently better drained—soils. We examined the surface soil in detail under the two savanna types located adjacent to the Teso de Goiaba, ca. 4 km E of Aterro dos Bichos. Whereas an almost impermeable gley underlies the wet savanna, we found a 17-cm-thick layer of fine silt overlying gley in the dry savanna. This apparently fluvial surface layer has originated from the adjacent paleocanal. The coarser surface soil on this latter site permits deeper root penetration and more rapid drainage after flooding. We were unable to characterize the vegetation of the wet and dry savannas due to the ongoing drought; most of the trees were leafless and the herbaceaous vegetation withered. In a general sense, wet savanna has a marked dominance of grasses and especially sedges, whereas woody vegetation is comparatively infrequent. In contrast, trees and shrubs are much more common in dry savanna; at least one species that was flowering at the time of our visit, Tabebuia caraiba (Mart.) Bur., appears to be restricted to this vegetation type. The herbaceous algoddo bravo often marks the transition between wet and dry savannas; this species’ current abundance is probably due to the fact that it is extremely toxic to cattle. Fire appears to play a key role in the maintenance of dry savanna and its delimitation with forested vegetation types. In the Ilha de Goiaba, we carried out a quantitative survey of all the terrestrial vegetation taller than 1 m in a 180- X 5-m transect. The results of this survey are summarized in the accompanying table [Table 3.1]. One of the striking results of this survey is the lack of species that produce edible fruits. Of the 10 dominant species on the site, only Inga edulis is eaten by people. By contrast, many edible species were observed in a gallery forest ca. 1 km S of the farmhouse at Tapereba [the expedition house], including Inga edulis, I. cayannensis, I. auristellae (inga), Mouriri dumentose, M. guianensis, Talisia carinata, Hancornia speciosa, Eugenia patrisii, Genipapa americana (genipapo), Spondias lutea (tapereba), Acrocomia sp. (macauba), Astrocaryum vulgare (tucum4), Passiflora sp. (maracuja), Anacardium occidentale (manga), etc. Forest structure and diversity were exceptionally high on this site, probably due to its high soil fertility and optimal levels of soil moisture. Human activities have had a pronounced impact on all vegetational types in the vicinity of Aterro dos Bichos. Increased grazing by cattle and buffalo has dramatically altered drainage patterns, especially in the west savanna, where soil compaction severely influences drainage. As a result, the annual cycle of flooding and drought is probably more pronounced now than it was in the past. I suspect that prior to the introduction of large, grazing herbivores, trees were a more characteristic feature of the landscape in wet savanna. If our observations of the Kayapo can be extended to the indigenous inhabitants of Marajo, such trees may have been planted and tended by the Indians.

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172

Table 3.1 _____——— SSO eee

Abundance, Frequency, Dominance, and Importance of Plant Species in a Dry Forest, Ilha de Goiaba, Municipality of Cachoeira de Arari, Marajo Island, 1983° Abundance (%)

Frequency (%)

Dominance (%)

Importance (%)

Inga fagifolia (W.) Willd. Solanum jamaicense Mill. Desmoncus polycanthus Cordia tetrandra Aubl. Inga edulis Mart.

6.5 38.7 20.3 1.8 6.3

8.2 8.2 14.8 6.6 des

54.5 0.1 idl 2303 11.8

23.1 Ne Zeal 10.6 9.9

Connarus ruber (P. & E.) Planchon

14.0

10.0

$55

9.2

2.9 ile

6.6 6.6

0.6 1.0

3.4 2.9

Gustavia augusta L.

2.5

33

0.3

Z.0

Swartzia apetala Vogel Other species (II)

0.7 Dee,

a8) 20.9

1.3 25

1.8 9.3

Species

Paullinia pinnata L. Ouratea castanaefolia (DC) Engl.

2 Quantitative inventory by A. Anderson.

In addition to the fruit trees that Anderson mentions, the tall, storeyed gallery forest along the Goiapi River includes trees, such as sumauma (Ceiba pentandra), embauba (Cecropia sp.), palms, such as agai, and rubber trees (Hevea brasilensis). The low vegetation in the seasonally dry bed of the Goiapi includes water hyacinth (Eichornia crassifolia) and elephant ears (Montrichardia sp. or mange). ' The prehistoric Indians changed the landscape purposefully, building _up large habitation mounds from the clayey floodplain soil. The archaeological earth mounds on Marajo often bear a kind of anthropogenic gallery forest rich in fruit trees [Fig. 1.7(A)]. According to Anderson, that on Teso \; dos Bichos is dry and depauperate because of damage by cattle and inonly the trees Guazuma tomentosa, Sterculia alata (castanha de ——cludes piriquita); the woody shrubs Randia armata, Ipomoea carnea spp. fistulosa (algoddo bravo); the vines Capparis coccolobifolia and Ficus citrifolia; the epiphytic orchid Oncidium ceboletta; and the herbaceous Ipomoea asarifolia. Many of the plants living in the region today have been identified among the carbonized plant remains from the archaeological site. Although the archaeological specimens reflect an environment similar to that of today, the representation of species of floodplain trees indicates somewhat less seasonality in the ancient streams than there is in the area today. For example, there are among the carbonized plant remains several tree species characteristic of dry forest and dry savanna, such as tucum4, which indicate a regime of prolonged seasonal drought, as today, and the archaeological fish remains indicate a pattern of alternating seasonal flooding and _ desiccation, as today. In addition, pollen profiles for Lake Arari in the

_ center of eastern Marajo show a predominance of grassland savanna for the entire period from at least c. 1000 B.c. until today (Absy 1979). However,

The Environmental Survey

there are also in the archaeological collections abundant carbonized remains of Euterpe sp., agai palm, which occurs in abundance today only on the banks of permanent rivers. There are few permanent rivers in the area 8S around the site today. Most stop flowing in the dry season, either drying out entirely or becoming a series of stagnant pools. Acai, consequently, is rare. The present seasonality of streams today seems to be the product of the filling in of riverbeds with sediment and the construction of dams and | ponds by ranchers. Schwassman, the project limnologist, believes that the

_ raising of cattle on the Marajo plains has increased rates of sedimentation, and this may be the main reason why permanent streams have become rarer than in ancient times. In accordance with his hypothesis, project excavations adjacent to the archaeological mound of Teso dos Bichos uncovered a 1-m-thick layer of sandy recent sediment lying over prehistoric remains on the clayey gley soil of the floodplain. The gleys in the vicinity of Teso dos Bichos resemble the major soils of the wet savanna grassland and the sandy sediments resemble the fine sands of paleochannels elsewhere in central Marajo (see “The Environment of Marajo Island,” Chapter 1 for a description of Marajo soils). What appears to have happened, therefore, is that trampling by cattle has led to erosion of the soil from the paleochannel levees and deposition of the material on the floodplain. In the future, it will be important to carry out experimental cultivation on the floodplain, but this will be complicated by the fact that the ancient floodplain surface is deeply buried by recent sediments in many ‘places. In order to collect more information on environmental change in central Marajo, the project research has included the collection of sediment cores for palynological study and cores of tree trunks for dendrochronological analysis. Also, samples of surface soil have been taken to record present pollen rain. The paleontologist Dorothy Peteet and tree-ring specialist Gordon Jacoby collected both sediment and tree cores at Lake Arari, Lake Guajara, and the Camara River in 1987. Peteet, from Goddard Institute

for Space Studies and Lamont Geological Observatory of Columbia University, is extracting pollen, phytoliths, and macrospecimens from the sediment cores, and Jacoby, also from Lamont Observatory, is analyzing the patterning of tree rings in the trunk cores. Carlos Rosario, botanical researcher from the Goeldi Museum, has made a collection of study specimens of present-day trees from the area (Table 3.2), and we plan to make a collection of herbaceous plants. Several samples of plant material from selected cores will be dated by accelerator radiocarbon methods by Rupert Housley of Oxford University, to tie sediment and floral variations to the chronology. To help reconstruct recent environmental history, Robert Meade of the United States Geological Survey (Denver) has surveyed relict geomorphological features in the Marajoara area on the ground and is analyzing the Brazilian aircraft radar images of the eastern part of Marajo Island.

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Table 3.2 Plants Identified in the Municipality of Cachoeira do Arari, Margjo Island, 1987 Common name

Genus

Family

Fazenda Sao Miguel, Lago Arari: savanna with clayey soil Mimosa

Leg. Mimo.

Ipomoea carnea Ipomoea assarifolia Cordia

Compositae Convolvulaceae Convolvulaceae Boraginaceae

Genipapo Mata pasto

Genipa americana Cassia

Rubiaceae Leg. Caesalp.

Carmelitana

Lippia Bauhinia

Verbenaceae Leg. Caesalp.

Chicoria de Urubu Algodao Bravo Salsa

Serjania

Sapindaceae

Bombax

Bombaceae

Fazenda Sao Miguel: forest island with small trees Acacurana

Erythrina

Leg. pap.

Simbaba Crataevea

Simarubaceae Capparidaceae

Lago Guajara: lakeside vegetation Aninga/Para Montrichardia Eichornia Polygonum

Araceae Pontenderiaceae Graminae

Lago Guajara: grassland savanna with clayey soil Algoddo Bravo Ipomoea carnea Salsa Ipomoea assarifolia

Convolvulaceae Convolvulvaceae

Lago Guajara: forest of medium to small trees where inundation is temporary Tacacazeiro Acacurana

Sterculia Erythrina

Sterculiaceae Leg. Pap.

Burra Leiteira Mututi

Sapium Pterocarpus

Sapodaceae Euphorbiaceae Leg. Pap.

Mutamba

Guazuma

Sterculiaceae

Cordia

Borraginaceae

Ficus

Moraceae

Capparis Ceiba pentandra

Capparidaceae Bombaceae

Fazenda Santa Maria: floodplain forest on the banks of the Rio Camara, a tidal river

Mamoreana Seringa

Agai Veronica Mangue

Pachira aquatica Hevea Macrolobium Euterpe oleracea Dalbergia monetaria Rhinzophora mangle Cassiporea

Bombaceae Euphorbiaceae Leg. Caesalp. Palmae Leg. pap. Rhinzophoraceae Rhinzophoraceae

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Table 3.2 Continued Common name

Genus

Family

Ciriuba

Avicennia

Avicenniaceae/

Ucuuba Maraja agu

Acapurana

Virola Bactris Arrabidea? Coccoloba Swartzia Amaryllis Talisia Campsiandra laurifolia

Verbenaceae Myristaceae Palmae Bignoniaceae Polygonaceae Leg. Caesalp. Amarylidaceae Sapindaceae Leg. Caesalp.

Empigeira

Vatairea Guianensis

Leg. Pap.

Andiroba Cinzeiro Ipe da varzea

Carapa guianensis Buchenavia Tabebuia

Meliaceae Combretaceae Bignoniaceae

Inga Mututi

Inga Pterocarpus

Leg. Mimo. Leg. Pap.

Aturia Geniparana Arapari

Macherium Gustavia augusta Macrolobium

Leg. Pap. Lecythidaceae Leg. Caesalp.

Jacitaria Jarandeua

Desmoncus Pithecellobium cauliflora

Palmae Leg. Mimo.

Pithecellobium folha miuda

Leg. Mimo.

Fazenda Santa Maria: grassland savanna salsa Ipomoea assarifolia Cordia Mimosa Cyperus Cissampelos Hybiscus Imbauba Cecropia Genipapo Genipa americana

Convolvulaceae Boraginaceae Leg. Mimo. Cyperaceae Menistermaceae Malvaceae Moraceae Combretaceae

Faunal Study The predominant native fauna of the interior of Marajo today is aquatic, and the archaeological faunal remains recovered in the project suggest that this was also the case in late prehistoric times. In order to investigate the nature of Marajo aquatic biomes, in 1983 and 1984, Horst Schwassman of the Department of Biology, University of Florida at Gainesville, and the Ichthyology Department of the Museu Goeldi carried out research funded by the project, on Marajo and in the laboratory. During that time he was assisted by graduate student and Goeldi research assistant, Maria Ivaneide da Silva, who also carried out independent field research on Marajo.

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Schwassmann, who had previously carried out a study ogy with Egler (Egler and Schwassmann 1962), made study of water quality in a transect through the Bay Camara River and sampled the water of the Arari River

of Marajo limnola comprehensive of Marajo up the and its tributary,

the Goiapi, where Teso dos Bichos lies. He recorded both salinity levels

and electrolyte content of the water (Fig. 1.5) in the study. This study revealed that, though fresh water predominates in the Bay and tidal rivers because of the great volume and force of water pouring out at the Amazon and Para debouchements, in some coastal rivers such as the Camara, narrow threads of marine water sometimes penetrate a few kilometers into the area at certain tide levels during the dry season. No evidence was found that marine water enters into the interior of Marajo today, and it should therefore probably be considered a freshwater ecosystem. The brackish water sometimes detected in the sediments of eastern Marajo derives from deeply buried fossil water or evaporation salts, not from current influxes of marine water (Gonzales-Carrasquilla 1984). According to Schwassmann’s tests, surface water in the area of Teso dos Bichos, particularly in the Goiapi River, is not particularly high in dissolved salts, though the montmorillonitic hydromorphic soils in the area have salty crusts when the floodwaters evaporate. One possible explanation for this is the tendency for soils with expanding lattice clays to actively adsorb salts from water. To study the composition, biomass, and behavior of the fish fauna in the area and acquire faunal specimens for comparison with the archaeological collections, both Schwassmann

and da Silva have made several

research trips to the study area for the project, both in the rainy season and the dry season. Both also have studied the Teso dos Bichos area in other research projects in the past. About 2000 examples, representing 19 families and 45 species and identified by comparisons with the literature and Goeldi study collections, have been collected for the project. The researchers have collected specimens by nets, hooks and lines, and poison. The specimens were weighed, measured, separated into taxonomic groups, counted, and photographed. The collection records were annotated with the date, hour, depth of water, weather conditions, and manner of capture. A portion of the fish collected have been preserved with formalin and stored in the Museu Goeldi. About 500 other specimens have been defleshed for the osteological study. (The details of the study on fish fauna are given in da Silva’s report of 1988.) Species that have been identified by these researchers among living fish of the Goiapi River today are listed in Table 3.3. P MT Although the fauna includes some very large species, such as pirarucu /and aruana, the majority of the biomass of the aquatic fauna in the vicinity .of the study site is made up of small fish, and these also made up the majority of the fauna consumed at the site during the Marajoara Phase, according to the faunal remains from the excavations. Among the archaeological fish remains excavated, very small species predominated in the

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Table 3.3

List of Fishes Collected from the Goiapi River, Marajo Island, 1983—1987 Latin name

AGENEIOSIDAE Ageneiosus brovifilis ANOSTOMIDAE Schizodon sp. Leporinus sp.

APTERONOTIDAE Apteronotus albifrons Apteronotus sp.

Adontosternachus sp. AUCHENIPTERIDAE Parauchenipterus sp. Auchenipterus nuchalis CALLICHTHYIDAE Hoplosternum littorallis Callichthys callichthys CHARACIDAE Triportheus sp. Moenkausia sp. Acestrorhynchus sp. CICHLIDAE Astronotus ocellatus Cichla ocellaris Crenicichla sp. CLUPEIDAE Pellona sp. DORADIDAE Anadoras sp. ELECTROPHORIDAE Electrophorus electricus ERYTHRINIDAE Hoplias malabaricus Erythrinus erythrinus GYMNOTIDAE Gymnotus sp.

Common

name

Mandube

Aracu listrado Aracu preto Itui cavalo Itui cavalo Itui

Cachorro de padre Cabaga dura Tamoata branco Tamoata muruxi

Sardinha Matupiri Aueua

Apaiari Tucunare

Jacunda Sarda Rabeca Puraqué Traira

Jeju Manjerona

LORICARIIDAE Plecostomus sp. Loricaria sp.

OSTEOGLOSSIDAE Osteoglossum bicirrhosum PIMELODIDAE Pimelodus blochii Pimelodus ornatus Pimelodella sp.

Acari pedra Acari cachimbo Aruana

Mandii bode Mandii dourado

Jandia (continued)

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Table 3.3 Continued Latin name

Common

name

POTAMOTRYGONIDAE Potamotrygon motoro Potamotrygon hystrix

Arraia Arraia

RHAMPHICHTHYIDAE Rhamphichthys sp. SCIAENIDAE Plagioscion sp. SERRASALMIDAE Serrasalmus rhombeus Serrasalmus sp.

Piranha Piranha

Pygocentrus nattereri

Piranha

Itui tergado

Pescada

STERNOPIGIDAE Eigenmannia sp.

Itui manteiga

E. humboldtii Rhabdolichops troscheli

Ttui Itui

Sternopygus macrurus

Ttui

|extensive garbage, and large species occurred only in rare caches or pits. | The predominance of small fish represented in the prehistoric collections | from the garbage of the archaeological site are typical of faunal assemblages of dry season pools and streams, according to Carl Ferraris and Gareth

Nelson of the Ichthyology Department of the American Museum of Natural History. Since the archaeological collection seems to represent the natural species assemblages of these waters, it is likely that the prehistoric fish were procured by a comprehensive harvesting method involving poisoning or netting, according to the ichthyologists. Fish poisoning and netting are both primarily dry season activities in the Amazon floodplain, because the waters are too large in volume during the rainy season to be harvested effectively with those methods. Thus, the majority of the archaeological faunas seem to represent intensive dry season fishing. Today, the dry season tends to be the most productive fishing season for any method in the Amazon. The study of both archaeological and modern fauna is in process. Schwassmann enlisted da Silva in the task of preparing study collections for identifying the faunal remains from the excavations in 1983, and she has continued to work on them throughout the course of the project. In 1985, she decided to make the study the subject of her master’s thesis. The plan and methodology for the identification of the Marajo fauna was framed with the help of Elizabeth Wing of the Florida State Museum, University of Florida at Gainesville, a zoologist specializing in tropical American fauna. Da Silva plans to complete the analysis of the archaeological material in Wing’s zooarchaeology laboratory in Gainesville. Her

The Environmental Survey

thesis will be based on the first zooarchaeological study carried out by an experienced Amazonian field zoologist. For purposes of comparison, she will take with her the study collections of recent fauna from the Goiapi and from other study areas in the Lower Amazon. Half of the study collections will be donated to the University of Florida, and half will be returned to the

Goeldi when the study is completed. During the study, the zooarchaeologists will have the opportunity to review for the first time a large collection of recent and ancient aquatic fauna from the Amazon. This collection will expand the geographic extension of the Florida museum’s collections, which have been focused previously on the faunas of the Caribbean, Central America, and the south-

eastern United States. Wing supervised the identification of the zooarchaeological collections from the Parmana project in the Orinoco (Roosevelt 1980), and those collections have become part of her study collections at the Museum. During the Marajo study, there will be an opportunity to compare those with the Amazonian archaeological specimens, to gather information about the similarities and differences between the two rivers’ fauna during late prehistoric times. Such a study has never been possible before because of the lack of comparative material. The archaeological faunas from the Marajo excavations are the first systematically collected assemblages available from the Amazon drainage. The Lower Amazon faunal studies will also give an opportunity to collect information about the phylogenetic and physiological status of aquatic faunas during prehistoric and contemporary times, documenting the effect of both indigenous and neo-Brazilian occupations on aquatic ecosystems. This use of archaeological faunal remains as evidence for recent evolution of biota and ecological adaptation by humans is one of the first projects of its kind in the tropics. The archaeological fauna can thus help inform the general study of the history of life forms in greater Amazonia, as well as the study of the prehistoric subsistence system and environment in the study locality. The Marajo project has also supported a study of ant fauna in the archaeological mound, in order to understand its effect on the stratigraphy of the archaeological deposit. William Overal of the Zoology Department of the Museu Goeldi concluded, after studying the insects living in the mound, that the majority of nests were those of a red fire ant, a species of the genus Solenopsis. Overal wrote (letter, 1984): “This fire ant makes relatively deep nests, which went as far as one and one half meters into the soil, not reaching the water table, however. I suspect that they go after the capillary water in the soil.”’ The project excavations at the site encountered both active and fossil ant nests, as well as other insect remains, and there were fossil insect burrows in ancient stove fragments. The ant nests in particular have the potential to confuse chronology and alter the distribution of plant remains because the ants transport small objects encountered during nest construction into a midden halfway down the tunnel. Their

179

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THE MARAJO ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

middens, therefore, concentrate material from many different archaeologi-

cal and modern contexts and would be important to avoid during sampling aimed at original assemblages. The ant nests were not difficult to identify and isolate stratigraphically during excavation, and only one of the radiocarbon dates from the site appeared to have been affected by contamination with recent material. The major fauna on Marajo today, other than fish, is cattle, which have been a focus of the economy for more than 200 years. Since the present occupation of Marajo has never been studied by anthropologists, it will be a high priority for ethnologists to study the present economy of the region. Marajo, though linked to Brazilian economy through fishing and the cattle industry, is quite isolated—8 to 10 h by boat from Belem. Reports from the last century record a feudal (Holdridge 1939) system of tenant ranching that seems quite similar to that observable today. This apparently quite stable system of exploitation deserves to be studied. Emilio Moran of Indiana University is undertaking an independent research project on this subject.

PREVIOUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL WORK AT TESO DOS BICHOS The site of Teso dos Bichos was visited by J. B. Steere in 1871 (Meggers 1947; Steere 1927), by Simoes and colleagues in 1962 and 1964 (Figueireido and Simoes 1963; Simoes 1967), and by Lourengo and colleagues in 1977 (Alves and Lourencgo 1981). When Steere visited the site, it was covered with trees. He found stratified occupation features and decorated burial urns there, now in the University of Michigan (though not yet available to me for study). He made both surface collections and excavations (carried out by slaves with hoes and crowbars) at the erosion ravines of the site and described several building stages composed of occupation layers and cemeteries separated by thick, sterile mound-building layers. He mentioned burned clay floors, ash lenses, charcoal, sherd pavements, and numerous covered burial urns in the occupation layers. The illustrations of the pieces that he collected from the site (about 16 whole vessels | and some sherds) show styles of the Pacoval Subphase of the Marajoara Phase. In 1962 Simoes and colleagues excavated one 1- X 1-m artificial level test pit (Cut A) at the center of the eastern part of the site to obtain stratified samples of pottery for stylistic study and charcoal for dating (Figueiredo and Simoes 1963). The artificial levels were 25 cm deep. The archaeologists described but did not illustrate layering in soil color and artifact content. They seemed to be unaware of the structural remains at the site—earthworks, floors, posts molds, and hearths, but their description includes stratigraphic entities that we now know are hearths and house

Previous Archaeological Work at Teso dos Bichos

181

floors. Excavation was suspended when “‘sterile’’ soil was reached, but later excavations have shown that this layer must have been a prepared floor. It is likely that the small test pits, cut in the hard soil by workmen with heavy tools, would not have facilitated observations of the stratigraphy. A published photograph of the test pit (Figueireido and Simoes 1963: plate 1B) shows the sidewalls too roughly cut to reveal stratigraphy well. The sketch map, made without a surveying instrument, did not accurately record the spatial dimensions of the site. The test pit did not reveal any significant chronological patterning of artifacts because it passed mainly through domestic remains, rather than garbage. Pottery was of relatively low frequency and the occurrence of different ceramic types through the levels of the pit was sporadic (Figueiredo and Simoes 1963: Cuadro 1 and Cuadro 2), as in project excavations in such contexts. Later realizing the potential of deeper stratigraphic excavations, Simoes and colleagues returned to the site in 1964 and cut two more test pits, this time in natural levels, penetrating the deposit down to about 3.25 m (Simoes 1967; M. Simoes personal communication; C. Correia, personal communication). These excavations have not yet been published, presumably because of the unfortunate death of the senior investigator, but his colleagues hope to do so in the near future. Three radiocarbon dates were obtained from charcoal samples from these excavations, the first to be obtained from a Marajoara site. They are 70 B.c. + 280, SI-202 (Cut B, 200—225 cm deep), A.D. 1400 + 500, SI-200 (Cut C, 135-175 cm deep), and A.D. 690 + 200, SI-199 (Cut C, 78-98 cm deep). The dates have a wide range, from about 400 B.c. to A.D. 1900 and are not stratigraphically consistent, suggesting that the charcoal may have been contaminated with both earlier and later material, through ancient mound-building activities and modern intrusions. The a.p. 690 date fits best with those from Marajo Project excavations in Pacoval Subphase deposits at the site and with other dates from Marajoara sites (see “‘Absolute Dating,’ Chapter 1, Table 5.1, Chapter 5, and ‘‘Ceramic Seriation,”’ Chapter 6). Despite the problems with these radiocarbon dates, the material from these excavations will be useful when published, since the excavations were stratigraphic and extended down deeper than any others of which we are aware. Analysis of the material from the deepest strata would be useful for verifying the tentative periodizations that have been suggested for the Marajoara Phase. In 1977, as a pioneering experiment in geophysical prospection in a tropical archaeological site, Brazilian geophysicists Alves and-Lourengo (1981) conducted a low-resolution geophysical survey at Teso dos Bichos by magnetometry and electrical resistivity [Figs. 4.3(A) and (B) and 4.10(A) through (E) ], and carried out informal excavations at erosion features. This work defined the possible limits of the archaeological deposit and mapped significant features and areas of domestic occupation. Their proton magnetometer

survey,

carried out in transects

5 m_apart, discovered

numerous

intense magnetic anomalies of the type characteristic of large baked clay or

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THE MARAJO ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

brick masses, and the erosion profile of the site exposed numerous mag-

netic, brick-red, fired clay features that the investigators thought might be ovens. The possible ovens were associated with food remains, which the geophysicists observed but did not collect. As part of the survey, a limited

electrical resistivity survey was carried out across the middle of the mound in 6 east—west transects 5 m apart. It defined a cultural deposit of several thick strata more resistant than the base soil of the region, and visual inspection of the erosion profile of the site revealed several thick moundbuilding stages and associated occupations that correlated with the pat-

terning in the resistivity sections. Both magnetic and resistivity surveys showed that the eastern section of the site was more anomalous than the western section and peripheries and thus was more likely to have disturbances characteristic of domestic — occupation. There was a lack of anomalies in the floodplain outside of the site. This work at Teso dos Bichos suggested that low-resolution geophysical surveys could detect major archaeological stratigraphy and broad activ—— ity areas within a tropical site and define its limits. The work also revealed that the site had significant, well-preserved prehistoric stratigraphic patterning, features, and biological remains. The survey results, however, were insufficiently precise to map the size, shape, and arrangement of the features, and the archaeological correlations of the geophysical patterns

had yet to be investigated systematically by stratigraphic excavations.

PROJECT SURVEY AND EXCAVATIONS AT TESO DOS BICHOS IN 1983 In 1983, with NSF and CNPq Cooperative Science funding, a field season of two weeks survey and about three months of excavation was carried out to follow up on the earlier work (Lourencgo 1985; Roosevelt 1985). The ; broader purpose was to gain detailed information about the composition, organization, activities, and conditions

of life of the ancient people by

investigating the archaeological patterning of the site. The presence of domestic structures and hearths suggested the possiblity of studying the composition

of households,

and the abundant

food remains

would

be

evidence of diet and habitat. The patterning of artifacts and biological remains within the site and the burials in the cemeteries would be sources of information about social and economic differentiation in the society Perera through time. The strategy of the field project was to use selective high-, resolution magnetic survey to determine the detailed patterning of stra- | tigraphy and features and then test the interpretation of the survey with » stratigraphic excavation using intensive soil-processing to recover mate-

rial for analysis. Six excavations were carried Though transportation was hindered by Nino weather conditions during this season, archaeological significance of the geophysical

out for these purposes. unusual flooding due to El the work demonstrated the results and produced docu-

|

Project Survey and Excavations at Teso dos Bichos in 1983 {}

mented finds of domestic strata and structures, cooking facilities, and |biological remains for the first time. By mapping in detail differences in magnetic intensity and electrical resistivity at selected locations at the site, the geophysical survey by Lourenco (1985) and colleages revealed the size, depth, and location of the archaeological deposits and confirmed that the site is composed of several thick occupation and building layers. The new geophysical maps indicated that the site had two distinct

reas of activity: a highly anomalous eastern and central area crowded with magnetic hearth anomalies and a western area lacking these features enirely. The selective high resolution magnetic survey at 1-m and 3-m intervals in the center and east revealed for the first time a consistent spatial clustering of the magnetic anomalies. Further, our three excavations at anomalies revealed groups of baked clay hearths and traces of structures with earthen floors and foundations, wooden posts, and thatched roofs.

The magnetic maps also revealed several apparently unique anomalies of large magnitude, which the geophysicists interpreted as a large burned pit, a possible large clay oven or large storage jar, and a possible burned adobe platform or subterranean room. Three test pits dug outside the mound showed that the lack of anomalies there was correlated with an absence of in-place cultural remains. The lack of anomalies along the west, where the}

surface had raised areas lacking features, artifacts, and biological remains, } suggested the presence of earthen constructions, possibly a ceremonial | platform or enclosure [see Figs. 4.3(C—F) and 4.4]. These results showed that a ground-probing remote-sensing survey could effectively map Amazonian archaeological sites non-destructively fin advance of excavation, delineate macrostrata and activity areas, and pinpoint both small and large burned clay features. The high-resolution survey showed that it was possible to map in detail the shape and arrangement of these features. The results also revealed that numerous food remains, stratigraphic features, functionally distinct activity areas, and large-scale permanent facilities do exist in prehistoric Amazonian sites. The existence of such remains and the demonstrated effectiveness of a geophysical survey to map them give Amazonian archaeology a greater potential for producing theoretically significant information than has been previously thought possible. The prospect of exploiting this potential with further work was exciting and led to a plan for continuing work at the site. The extraordinary spatial control achieved by the selective high-resolution magnetic survey convinced the project members of the value of extending the detailed survey and test excavations over the entire site to try to recover the settlement plan in more detail. Also, some specific research problems remained that could not be dealt

with during the field season because transportation problems led to loss of field time. Several important geophysical anomalies or anomaly areas could not be excavated in the time available: the possible kiln or large oven anomaly in the southeast of the site, the geophysically nonanomalous area

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in the western part of the site, and the possible burned adobe platform or structure in the southwest. To understand the nature of the ancient settlement, it was important to sample these possible special-purpose features and areas. Also, there was clearly a need for better ground control by detailed topographic survey. The geophysicists’ method of chaining with tapes, which was the customary mapping method of the geophysicists, was not accurate enough for archaeological purposes. In addition, the results of our survey and excavations, so far, indicated that although the survey detected fired features and major occupation layers, it apparently did not detect several important kinds of features: microstrata, unburned pits, for burial or other purposes; and earthen struc-_ tures. Two other methods of geophysical survey were available for mapping such features. The literature indicated that ground-probing radar was able to detect intrusive earth features and pits and map their horizontal and vertical extent. Results of previous work with radar indicated that it would be superior to other methods for this purpose because it is rapid, sensitive to small-scale soil variations, capable of fine vertical and horizontal mapping resolution, and analyzable in the field by computer. I consulted Bruce Bevan of Geosight, who suggested that an electromagnetic (EM) conductivity survey would effectively map the earthworks, which the resistivity survey suggested were of higher conductivity than the domestic areas. The advantage of EM conductivity over resistivity was that it could map these contrasts rapidly enough to be used for a high-resolution survey over the entire site. Accordingly, we decided to add groundprobing radar and conductivity surveys in order to get the missing information about the layering and layout of the site. In order to carry out the high-resolution survey and to complete the original excavation plan, four more months of fieldwork were planned. In summary, the 1983 research indicated that high-resolution geophysical survey and stratigraphic excavation had the potential to detect culturally significant nonrandom spatial patterning within the archaeological settlement. In order to investigate the whole settlement in detail, an intensive survey would have to be extended over the entire site. Characteristics” of the stratigraphy of the site suggested that an additional survey with radar and conductivity instruments would, in conjunction with resistivity and magnetometry surveys, yield additional information about the location of earthworks and pits, such as burials.

PROJECT SURVEY AND EXCAVATIONS AT TESO DOS BICHOS IN 1985 In 1985, with funding from the NSF anthropology program, I organized another 4 months of survey and excavation to investigate the detailed patterning of stratigraphy and features over the site as a whole and com-

Project Survey and Excavations at Teso dos Bichos in 1985

plete the test excavations of geophysical features and anomaly areas. The research strategy consisted of a high-resolution, multiple-instrument survey and extensive stratigraphic sampling by excavations keyed to sampling strata based on survey results. For ground control, a detailed topographic map was made with a total station electronic theodolite at 25-cm contour intervals. The entire site was surveyed in detail with magnetometers,

electrical resistivity, radar, and conductivity, and 26 more

excavations were carried out, for a total of 32. Geophysicists Bevan and William Sauck and Geraldo das Virgens of the University of Para carried out the survey with the help of the archaeologists, and the latter group. carried out the excavations. The surveys and excavations gave a com-/ prehensive picture of the composition of the archaeological site, including, the disposition of domestic structures and kitchen facilities, garbage dumps, and monumental earthworks within the layout. This information | permitted interpretations of population size, subsistence, and aspects of’ the organization of the ancient settlement. The magnetic maps and excavations at magnetic anomalies revealed almost all the anomalies to be discrete groups of east—west aligned hearth groups, with numerous individual hearths in each group. The hypotheses of Lourengo about buried kilns and kivas were thus disconfirmed, though the hearth hypothesis was confirmed. The excavations showed that the } hearths were usually built into prepared house floors, some of which had | traces of structures, such as posts, or burned thatch. The extensiveness of |

the floors and the large groups of hearths in each group suggested that the > houses were large, extended family houses. The maps showed that the / hearth groups were arranged in a rough oval around an area yinou | magnetic anomalies and that the mound was almost encircled by monumental earthworks, detected as highs in the conductivity survey and confirmed by excavation. The excavations also revealed, in areas without strong magnetic anomalies, large, black-soil secondary garbage deposits with abundant biological remains and both ceremonial and domestic pottery sherds. Excavations on the apron outside of the mound, also an area without magnetic anomalies, uncovered about a meter of interleaved deposits of sandy

colluvium and alluvium lying over sparse Marajoara Phase material in clayey alluvium. The radar survey revealed a scattering of shallow features over the site. A sample of these anomalies were shown by excavation to be intrusions filled with high resistivity sandy soil, lying in the low resistivity clayey matrix of the mound. Since none of the geophysical anomalies excavated were burials, and no intact burials were found in the nonanomalous areas of the site, it was concluded that the cemeteries observed 100

years ago had largely been destroyed by the erosion ravines. The results of the survey, excavations, and analyses suggest possible interpretations of the site. The geophysical maps and excavations indicate a long-term, permanent occupation by a large population of from 500 to

185

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Chapter 3

THE MARAJO ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

| 1000 people organized in extended family households with communal _ kitchen areas. Analogies with the layout of ethnographic houses and settle_ ments in Amazonia suggest the possibility of matrilocal residence, and the east-west orientation of domestic facilities suggests a ritual focus on the sun, as is found in some Amazonian groups today. The iconography of art yhints at the possibility of matrilineal ranking and shamanistic ancestor worship. The overall size and structure of the mound point to a defensive function, as well as a function to protect the settlement from flooding. The contrasting distribution of domestic and ceremonial artifacts suggests a possible male-female division of activities, and the biological remains iim | suggest subsistence based on intensive seasonal fishing and crop cultivation, possibly carried out primarily by women, and external warfare,

- carried out primarily by men. An alternative interpretation of these patterns is that the society was divided socioeconomically between elites and commoners, rather than primarily by age and gender, as in present Amazonian Indian communities. General considerations based on Marajoara iconography and regional settlement patterns tend to support the latter inter_ pretation. Future work to help evaluate these interpretations will involve . the construction of a chronology, more extensive stratigraphic excavations ‘ at houses and earthworks, and investigation of cemeteries at other sites. Our research at Teso dos Bichos and its results are described and illustrated next, followed by a discussion and an outline of plans for future research. The general description of the Marajoara Phase and the methodological and theoretical background of the project were given in Chapters 1 and 2, respectively.

PAST AND CURRENT RESEARCH BY THE PROJECT AT OTHER SITES From 1983 to the present the project has conducted preliminary reconnaissance at 15 other Marajoara sites, including Os Camutins, Tapereba, Fortaleza, Ilha do Fogo, Salitre, Ilha dos Marcos, Pacoval do Arari, Teso do Sitio, Matinadas, Santo Andre, Laranjeiras, Macaca6, Teso dos China, Sanharao, Tapera, and other sites. This research has involved examination of the surface and vegetation of sites, collection of samples of surface objects, and recording by photographs. Study of surface collections and the collections in the ranch houses near sites support the hypothesis that the Camutins and Pacoval Subphases are mutually exclusive geographically. It also showed that the majority of the famous so-called Marajoara cemetery sites were actually mound villages with numerous houses, hearths, and garbage. In addition, in 1987 and 1988, the project began geophysical surveys and excavations at the site of Guajara in the Monte Carmelo mound group on the Anajas river in south central Marajo, to investigate a cemetery in the

Past and Current Research by the Project at Other Sites

Camutins culture area. In 1987, 4 low-resolution geophysical surveys and topographic mapping were accomplished, and a test excavation was dug. The mound mapping showed the mound to be about 2.5 ha and 10 m tall. In 1988, 5 high-resolution geophysical surveys and 9 more excavations were Carried out to a depth of between 1 and 2 m. The surveys revealed 11 large east-west elongated magnetic anomalies and adjacent areas of contrasting resistivity and conductivity. The excavations revealed a deeply | stratified deposit with Guajara Subphase deposits superimposed upon ' Camutins Subphase deposits. Large hearth groups embedded in house floors were uncovered at magnetic anomalies. The hearth groups contained trough-shaped hearths connected in a criss-cross pattern. Between _ the domestic structures were deep, black-soil garbage dumps. Numerous burials were uncovered, mainly in the garbage dumps. The high conductivity areas correlated with peripheral earthworks. Three radiocarbon dates from the site (Table 5.1) demonstrated that the Guarajara Subphase / was contemporary with Pacoval and that the Camutins Subphase dated immediately before Guajara. The preliminary results from these investigations are mentioned and illustrated in this book where relevant to the discussion.

187

GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS AT TESO DOS BICHOS

INTRODUCTION At Teso dos Bichos, the Marajo Project carried out a series of geophysical surveys to investigate the stratigraphy of the mound and identify significant archaeological patterning in advance of excavation. One purpose of the project was to test systematically the utility of the geophysical survey methods with excavations. The other major purpose was to reveal the distribution of significant features and strata in the site plan so they could be exploited for basic archaeological information relevant to theoretical questions about the Marajoara Phase. Our results have provided abundant information in both areas of interest. In terms of the first goal, we found that the selective, low-resolution geophysical survey was effective at mapping major stratigraphic areas, such as domestic areas and earthworks, but that total, high-resolution surveys were necessary for accurate delineation of specific features within those areas. We also found that different geophysical methods tend to give somewhat different but complementary information about soil patterns, and that using several techniques together synergistically increased the amount of information that could be gained. Therefore, in the Marajo project work at Teso dos Bichos, four different methods of ground-probing geophysical surveys have been used: magnetic, electrical resistivity, conductivity, and radar. We also found that, if the geophysical surveys are tested systematically by archaeological excavation, the findings from the excavation can then be used to reinterpret the survey results and extrapo-

188

Introduction

late interpretations to areas of the site not excavated. In terms of the second purpose, we found that the geophysical survey helped us to locate, measure, and count stratigraphic features of interpretive importance for learning about the Marajoara culture. The important archaeological features that the surveys led us to were the cook stoves, the earthworks, and the garbage fill areas. These features, in the context of the overall site plan and other knowledge of the culture, yielded information about household composition, population and community organization, subsistence, cosmology, warfare, and the history of the settlement.

Previous Geophysical Work at Teso dos Bichos Until recently, geophysical methods had not been used for archaeology in Brazil, though they are extensively used in regional geographic mapping and mineral, oil, and water exploration there. In 1977, Joe Seixas Lourengo, then director of the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi and professor of geosciences at the Federal University of Para, carried out the first

attempt to apply methods of geophysics to archaeological sites at Brazil (Alves and Lourengo 1981). His studies showed that many archaeological features detectable by geophysical survey methods exist in sites in the Amazonian tropical lowlands. One of the sites Lourengo and colleagues worked at in 1977 was Teso dos Bichos. They had surveyed the site with both electrical resistivity meters and with proton precession magnetometers. This work showed that the site had significant geophysical variability that was interpretable archaeologically. Both methods revealed an area of numerous geophysical anomalies in the center and east of the mound. This area showed numerous substantial disturbances in the intensity of the magnetic field and in electrical resistivity. Lourengo’s physical examination of the deposit at Teso dos Bichos indicated that the geophysically detectable features at the site included areas of burned soil, fired clay masses, major strata, and pits. These geophysically detectable features were associated with other significant archaeologic features, such as house floors, an urn burial, ash lenses, and patches of animal bones and carbonized plant remains. Thus, the preliminary survey at Teso dos Bichos in 1977 by the Brazilian geophysicists found evidence of significant prehistoric cultural features that were generally believed not to exist in Amazonian archaeological sites. Lourengo’s conclusions about the existence of geophysically detectable archaeological features at Amazonian sites were rejected by archaeologists working in the Brazilian Amazon as mentioned. They doubted the efficacy of the geophysical methods and doubted that the ancient Marajoara people had left such substantial features as Lourengo described. Though Lourengo had excavated informally and found stratigraphic indications of the features, his findings were not credited, because

189

Chapter 4

190

GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS AT TESO DOS BICHOS

he was not an archaeologist and could not make standard samples and records of the finds. When Lourenco described his findings to me, I became interested both features that he had apparently found and in the methods by which the in he had found them. Because Lourengo wanted to try to interest archaeologists in his work, he then invited me to collaborate in a research project on

Marajo Island. I suggested that the geophysical survey could be refined and expanded and that the problem of the documentation and identification of the features and strata indicated in the geophysical maps could be approached by use of probability sampling. Considerations of both method and theory were persuasive in suggesting that this work was of high priority archaeologically, because of the interpretive significance of the kinds of features apparently present—domestic facilities, earthworks, and burials. (See ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to Sites,” Chapter 2, for a discussion of geophysical techniques for archaeology.) It appeared from Lourengo’s preliminary findings that the geophysical methods had produced evidence of important ancient occupation features often assumed to be absent from tropical archaeological sites. The information to be gained from knowledge of site layout and the characteristics of structures,

activity areas, and cemeteries

was

the kind needed

to test

current theoretical questions about prehistoric life in Amazonia. Therefore the techniques seemed to have considerable potential for aiding Amazonian archaeology. It also seemed that a geophysical survey could be a valuable routine aid to archaeology in general and might gain more currency if tested more explicitly with meticulous archaeological excavations. So in 1983, with joint NSF and CNPq Cooperative Science funding, we carried out a selective, high-resolution survey and the first stratigraphic excavations designed to test the survey (Lourengo 1985; Roosevelt 1988d). In 1985, I expanded the high-resolution survey and the excavation program with funding from a grant from NSF Anthropology, with Bruce Bevan and William Sauck serving as project geophysicists.

The Marajo Project Surveys at Teso dos Bichos The Marajo Project carried out two seasons of survey at Teso dos Bichos, in 1983 and 1985. In August of 1983, geophysical investigation took place at Teso dos Bichos with the participation of field school graduate students and technicians of the Department of Geophysical Sciences of the Federal University of Para, under the direction of professors Jose Seixas Lourengo, Jose Geraldo das Virgens, and Jose Gouvea Luiz. The survey verified, refined, and expanded the results from the earlier work. A high-resolution magnetic survey was carried out in four places at the site. With the help of Fernanda Costa and Cristina Miranda, I carried out six stratigraphic excavations to test the inferences based on the geophysical patterns. Three

Introduction

of the magnetic anomalies that had been mapped in detail were excavated, and three excavations were carried out in the floodplain outside the mound to verify that domestic features were absent. The excavations identified baked clay hearths and a burned earthen floor at the major magnetic anomalies. The archaeological tests of the selective high-resolution geophysical survey showed that it was indeed possible to map subsurface archaeological features in detail. We thereupon resolved to extend the high-resolution survey to the whole site and to extend the excavations to sample more magnetic anomalies and the nonanomalous areas of the site. In October and November 1985, with funding from NSF Anthropology, a more comprehensive survey was carried out by the Marajo project team. I planned the 1985 survey, and it was carried out by the entire research team under the direction of Bevan, Sauck, and das Virgins. Lourenco had be-

come president of the University of Para and his administrative duties prevented him from taking part. The geophysical and archaeological interpretations of the survey were formulated by Bevan and Roosevelt, respectively. The survey field team was made up of Bevan, Sauck, das Virgens, Roosevelt, Cristina Miranda, Felice Mueller, Carlos Fitzgerald, Cintia Jalles, Marcos Magalhaes, Christina Senna, Dirse Kern, and Maura Imazio da

Silveira. Nontechnical assistance was given by a team of 10 ranch hands from the Cardoso Ranch, and the crew was fed by a cook, Oneide Rodrigues, from Marajo. Their participation was facilitated by Dr. Ronaldo Cardoso, manager of the Santa Maria ranch, who also helped with the geophysical surveying several times when visiting the site. Four different instrument surveys were carried out at the site in 1985: a magnetometer survey, an electromagnetic conductivity and susceptibility survey, an electrical resistivity survey, and a ground-probing radar survey (Fig. 4.1). The site was resurveyed intensively with the magnetometers and resisitivity meters, and it was surveyed for the first time with groundprobing radar and an electromagnetic conductivity meter. According to the geophysicists, probably no archaeological site had ever received such detailed and comprehensive multi-instrument surveying. During the 1985 survey, a total of 22,000 survey measurements were made by a team of 15 researchers with the help of the 10 local men. The purpose of the survey was to gain more information about the patterning of stratigraphy and features at the site in order to reconstruct the site plan and to selectively excavate those of archaeological significance. In addition, a test of the efficacy of the geophysical surveys was made by comparing their results with a systematic program of excavations keyed to the anomaly patterns. The results of the 26 additional excavations of 1985 show that the geophysical methods effectively detected the major stratigraphically distinct areas of the site and located important domestic facilities, major and minor intrusions and disturbances, monumental earthen structures, and secondary garbage fill areas. The results of the two seasons of survey and excavations show that the

191

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