Extreme cultural persistence in eastern-central Brazil: the case of Lagoa Santa Paleaeoindians (original) (raw)
Related papers
Latin American Antiquity, vol. 23, no. 4, pgs 533-550., 2012
Lagoa Santa, a karstic area in eastern Central Brazil, has been subject to research on human paleontology and archaeology for 175 years. Almost 300 Paleoindian human skeletons have been found since Danish naturalist Peter Lund's pioneering work. Even so, some critical issues such as the role of rockshelters in settlement systems, and the possible paleoclimatic implications of the peopling of the region have yet to be addressed. We present some results obtained from recent excavations at four rockshelters and two open-air sites, new dates for human Paleoindian skeletons, and a model to explain the cultural patterns observed so far. It is also argued that the Paleoindian subsistence system at Lagoa Santa was similar to other locations in South America: generalized small-game hunting complemented by fruits, seed, and root gathering.
Quaternary International, 2013
In order to understand the relationship between human occupation and paleoenvironmental scenario in Southern Brazil during Holocene, multidisciplinary studies were carried out in two archaeological sites located at Northeast of Rio Grande do Sul State: Sangão rockshelter (RS-S-327) and Garivaldino rockshelter (RS-TQ-58). Both sites have radiocarbon ages from 9400 to 3730 14 C BP, revealing a continuous occupation of this area by hunter-gatherer populations related to Umbu Tradition. Palynological studies conducted in areas near the archaeological sites demonstrated an increase in humidity and in arboreal taxa starting at 5400 14 C BP, providing evidence of a mosaic of grasslands and forests. These findings are corroborated by the analysis of small-sized mammals related to non-human predation associated to these archaeological sites, which present contemporary taxa typical of forests and open areas. They also demonstrated that environmental changes were slow and gradual during the Holocene. Although paleoenvironmental data suggest that the landscape of this region evolve gradually from mosaic of forest and open landscapes to diverse and densest forests, zooarchaeological analysis indicates a pattern of adaptive stability that persists throughout the Holocene, characterized by generalist strategies of subsistence focused mainly in forest resources. Therefore, the favorable weather conditions and the presence of forest environments restricted to river valleys and mountain slopes until Mid-Holocene, played a central role for the initial human settlement of this area, related mainly with riverine routes.
2017
During the second half of the twentieth century, Brazilian archaeologists organized the Paleoindian sites of southeastern and southern Brazil into an archaeological cultural unit known as the Umbu Tradition. Umbu sites were characterized by the large presence of bifacial points in the lithic industries. However, few studies have been accomplished to determine whether there is technological patterning among the Umbu-related lithic assemblages, especially patterns in flakes and other tools. This article presents new data about the Umbu-related lithic industry from the Laranjito archaeological site. Laranjito is located along the Uruguay River margin, and it has been dated to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (12,915 ± 116 to 11,904 ± 308 cal yr BP).
2016
The Itaparica tradition is a Palaeoindian cultural group identified in northeastern Brazil throughout the Brazilian Central Plateau. Palaeoindian sites are associated to Itaparica tradition because of a large presence of limaces-specific unifacial plan-convex scrapers with multiple active edges. Although some of these artifacts still can be found during the Middle Holocene in the central region of Brazil, the association of the lithic industries to the Itaparica tradition seems problematic because of the low frequency of limaces and the general technological changes on the lithic industry from the Early to Middle Holocene. This article presents a review of the Córrego do Ouro site (also known as GO-CP-17) research and the technological features that make the Itaparica tradition association problematic, such as the rarity of limaces in the region (only one), the lack of Early Holocene dates, and the lack of similarities with the Serranópolis region lithic industry.
Geoarchaeology, 2017
Lagoa do Camargo 1, a Paleoindian archaeological site located in southeast Brazil dated between 10.5 and 8.3 ka, was studied using a variety of analyses: artifact and charcoal frequencies, soil morphology and micromorphology, magnetic analysis, optically stimulated luminescence, and radiocarbon dating. Our results show that the sandy tropical Oxisol present at the site was accumulated by episodic erosion and accumulation of materials along the slope, by means of diffuse runoff (sheet wash), and that bioturbation, albeit present, played a minor role in the soil formation. From a geoarchaeological point of view, the site poses an important problem, which is the presence of a deeply buried archaeological site almost at the top of a plateau. Our conclusions are relevant for understanding the genesis of sandy Oxisols that cover a large portion of southeast Brazil, where charcoal fragments are abundant, and whose genesis is considered by some authors to be strongly related to pedoturbation. 1 INTRODUCTION The assessment of the cultural characteristics and chronology of Paleoindian sites (sites older than 8500 yr BP) in South America is of upmost importance for understanding the timing and processes related to the peopling of the Americas (Araujo, 2015; Gruhn & Bryan, 2011; Meltzer, 2003; Webb & Rindos, 1997). In the eastern portion of South America, large areas are still devoid of data, including São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil. The aim of this research is to address this gap by employing a geoarchaeological approach, based on the specific character of biological, physical and chemical processes that are often found in tropical areas (Araujo, 2014). Paleoindian sites in eastern South America are generally found inside caves and rockshelters (Araujo, Strauss, Feathers, Paisani, & Schrage, 2013) and here we avoid such bias by studying an open-air site. We conducted an intensive, systematic subsurface survey program in the vicinity of Lagoa do Camargo, a lake in Rio Claro County, São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil. The choice of Lagoa do Camargo as a pilot area was based on the hypothesis that lakes can provide a stable water source for humans and also be exploited as fishing and hunting areas. We also based this choice on our former successful attempts to find open-air Paleoindian archaeological sites in central Brazil (Araujo, Neves, & Kipnis, 2012). From a geoarchaeological point of view, lakes can be considered as traps for sediment, artifacts, and microartifacts (Sonnenburg, Boyce, & Reinhardt, 2011), and are therefore not subject to the strong erosional and depositional cycles that are common in fluvial systems. However, lake margins and the slopes that surround them can also be subject to both erosion and sedimentation, and our research design took these possibilities into consideration. The understanding of slope processes affecting tropical soils are important for establishing accumulation and erosion rates and for estimating potential depth of burial of archaeological sites. These processes can encompass a variety of factors that are well known (e.g., creeping, slope-wash, biological turnover , in situ weathering, and so on), but the role of these different factors in specific settings is not always straightforward. Results of our work at Lagoa do Camargo I are somewhat surprising, because we were able to find archaeological materials buried in a upper slope section at depths of more than
Late Holocene lithic points from a Southern Brazilian mound: The Pororó site
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology - PIA, 2022
Most lithic industries associated with hunter-gatherer groups in Eastern South America, especially the ones with points present, date to the Early Holocene, with some minor industries and lithic points typologies persisting until the Middle Holocene and, more rarely, until the Late Holocene. This is the case for the Garivaldinense lithic industry associated points typologies. In this article we present the technological analysis of the points identified at the Pororó site, located in central Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The site is an artificial mound dated to around 2,500 BP. We applied an established protocol for analysis of stemmed points considering metric, morphological and technological features that allowed us to classify the artefacts in typologies. We identified two types of points associated to the Garivaldinense lithic industry: the Montenegro and Garivaldinense types. We have also identified a new type that has never been described before and proposed to refer to it as the Pororó type. At least one Pay Paso point was identified at the site, although this type of point is not yet known at other sites of this region and chronology. The results indicate persistence of the Garivaldinense Culture from the Early to Late Holocene, as well as technological innovation during the Late Holocene.