Site Jabuti, in Bragança, State of Pará, in the archaeological scenario of the Amazonian coastal landscape

Abstract

Forty years after completing the archaeological investigations in the Salgado region, northeastern Pará, researchers have returned to the site to study prehistoric human occupations in the northern coastal regions of Brazil near the Amazon estuary. This article presents the first results of archaeological research at the site Jabuti, located in the Caeté-Taperuçu Marine Extractive Reserve in the municipality of Bragança. This is an open-air residential site with anthropogenic dark earths ('terra preta de índio') and ceramic remains. The archeological remains consist mostly of fragments of pottery, as well as some flaked stone tools and dye residues. The sole C14 date obtained indicates that the site was occupied at least 2,900 years BP. According to this timing, the occupation occurred in the second stage of the model established by Pedro Walfir Martins Souza Filho and collaborators, in a paper published in 2009, for the geological evolution of the Bragança zone along the Salgado coast. Thus the site was situated on the largest soil-bearing island near the mainland. The ceramic material of this site belongs to the Mina tradition. Initially two hypotheses are proposed: 1) the Mina pottery indicates contact between shell midden groups and other ceramic-making groups, or 2) shell midden groups have begun a shift in their subsistence pattern towards cultivation.

Keywords

• Archaeology
• Amazon Coast
• Amazonian dark earth
• Ceramist groups
• Mina pottery
• Shell mounds