Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas (Aug 2013)

Cultural territory and the transformation of the forest into a social artifact

  • Marcos Pereira Magalhães

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 2
pp. 381 – 400

Abstract

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The perspective of landscape archaeology views all cultural territory as a space whose landscapes are constructed and environments transformed into social artifacts. The space that a society uses consists of localities with diverse material objects and natural resources that make up a cultural territory with related anthropogenic environments. Much like material artifacts, the landscapes reproduce the spiritual, political, and economic representations of a society. Recent archaeological studies conducted in the region of Porto Trombetas (Pará state) have looked into the manner in which societies related to the Konduri ceramic tradition altered the environment by modifying, planting, or cultivating selected plant species according to their particular cultural norms. A botanical inventory and archaeological excavations carried out at the site Greig II, associated with the Konduri tradition, indicate how specific cultural activities create more productive environments as well as familiar landscapes with a specific cultural identity. Independent of the possible stylistic variations present in material culture, societies construct landscapes where they organize and create social and territorial identities.

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