Institute of Archaeology, University College London

MA Archaeology Dissertation

Research question: What can ceramic decoration tell us about the pre- and post- colonial past on the Upper Tapajs River?

Bruna Cigaran da Rocha

Supervisors: Dr. Jos Oliver, Dr. Manuel Arroyo-Kalin Degree Coordinator: Dr. Karen Wright

September 2012

DECLARATION

This dissertation is the result of my own work. Work done in collaboration is specifically indicated in the text. Excluding title page, contents pages, lists of figures and tables, abstract, acknowledgements, bibliography, captions and contents of tables and figures, appendice, the main text of the dissertation consists of 15,134 words. Unless otherwise stated in the reference list, all translations into English were undertaken by myself. Unless otherwise stated, all photographs were taken by Vinicius Honorato de Oliveira or by myself. Unless otherwise indicated, all illustrations are my own.

What can ceramic decoration tell us about the pre- and post- colonial past on the Upper Tapajs River?
Bruna Cigaran da Rocha Abstract The aim of this research, conducted in an as yet little known area of the Brazilian Amazon, is to provide a first step in inserting the archaeology of the Upper Tapajs River, in the southwest of Par state, into the wider regional context. Its focus is on the analysis of ceramic decoration from pottery collected from sites worked on, and its subsequent comparison to that of adjacent areas and to the wider region. Following an overview of theoretical concepts and tendencies pursued in the Brazilian Amazon, two distinct traditions are identified through comparisons of pottery from other areas and consultation of historical accounts, and interactions between their producers are postulated. This opens up a series of questions to be investigated in the future. Key words: Amazonian Archaeology, Tapajs River, Mangabal, Pimental, forest peoples, Incised Punctuate tradition, Munduruku indians.

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Acknowledgements
This dissertation is the product of a trajectory that began six years ago. The project was made possible because of the help of many individuals. I only hope to do justice to their efforts. Eduardo Ges Neves welcomed me into his team and has been an unwavering source of optimism and encouragement, providing me with intellectual guidance and the motivation to make indigenous history throughout the years I have known him. I cannot thank him enough. I will always be grateful to Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, who recommended I study archaeology, and who I admire for her commitment to the cause of the rights of forest peoples in Brazil. I thank friends of the Central Amazon Project and Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, who introduced me to Amazonian Archaeology in practice and shared experiences with me that will always be cherished: Carla Gibertoni, Tereza Parente, Helena Pinto Lima, Marcos Brito, Fernando Costa, Bernardo Lacale, Mrcio Castro, Thiago Trindade, Jaqueline Belletti, Eduardo Kazuo Tamanaha, Mrjorie Lima, Leandro Camilo, Guilherme Mongel and Agda Sardinha. The staff at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnologys Library at the University of So Paulo, in particular Hlio Rosa de Miranda and Eleuza Gouveia, always bent over backwards to help me. Marcos Brito Castro digitalised our excavation profile drawings beautifully. Vinicius Honorato created the other maps used here. Denise Gomes allowed me to reproduce images from her book, Cotidiano e Poder na Amaznia Pr-Colonial, for which I am most grateful. Klaus Hilbert assisted me immensely by scanning and sending me Peter Hilberts articles. Francisco Pugliese was generous with his time and advice. Fernando and Dani, thank you for your help in so many ways. Malu Camargo, I really appreciate your assistance. Daniel Frechoso, thank you for rescuing my dissertation from the computational void! I greatly value Fabola Andrea Silvas and Francisco Noellis encouragement and support of our research on the Tapajs. You have set a high intellectual and ethical standard to be followed. Moving to the Tapajs, I am eternally indebted to Maurcio Gonsalves Torres, our very own Rei da Selva, who has dedicated his life to justice for forest peoples. Thank you for taking us to Mangabal and providing us with the logistical support, good humour and critical perspective we needed. This project wouldnt have existed without you. Eduardo Neves and Fernando Ozorio de Alemeida, thank you for agreeing to coordinate the Projeto Alto Tapajs. Thank you to those who made up the team: Eduardo Kazuo Tamanaha, Mrjorie Lima, Leandro Camilo, and Gilmar Henriques. I am extremely grateful to Rosanna Delellis and to Alfixit for pledging to support the project. Natlia Guerrero kindly revised our first report to the IPHAN.
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The people of Mangabal and Pimental who received and fed us, and took us to the sites in their territories will forever be in my thoughts. Two strong women of the Tapajs, Odila Braga and Gabriela Maria Bibiana da Silva symbolise the dignity of forest peoples and a way of life that must be fought for. Pedro Braga da Silva, Raimundo Colares dos Santos, Francisco Firmino da Silva, Solimar Ferreira dos Anjos, Josu Lobato Cirino and Tefilo Braga Cirino took us to archaeological sites in 2010, when we stayed with Nildete Cardoso, Raimundo Colares and at the Machado community. In 2011 we stayed with Dona Odila, Pedro, Conceio, Odon and Tayrine at Sapucaia in Mangabal, and Pedro worked with us at the Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site, to where he transported us every day. Edmilson Ribeiro Azevedo and his son Ded, Eudeir Francisco da Silva Azevedo, worked with us on some days at the Paja site, introduced us to their grandmother and took us to the historic site of the rubber period near Pimental, where we stayed with Marinildo de Sousa Robertino, his wife Bete and their family. Geizy Carla Ribeiro Azevedo donated the projectile point her son found among the rocks to us: thank you. I am beholden to Denise Pahl Schaan for support in Santarm, by allowing the material we collected to be stored, washed and analysed at the Curt Nimuendaju lab, whose team made our stay so productive and enjoyable. Mrcio Amaral, thank you for the friendly reception and exchange of ideas. I hope this is just the beginning of a long collaboration. I similarly thank Gizelle Morais and Cristiane Martins for the goodwill shown. Still in Santarm, our good friends Anne and Claide helped us in every possible way they could; I hope we can one day return their generosity. Rogrio Andrade dos Santos dedicated time and care to the analysis of the pottery, with Claides help, making all the difference to this research. I am thankful to tala Nepomuceno and Cndido Neto da Cunha for the hospitality. Muito obrigada. In Itaituba, our stay was made infinitely more interesting and comfortable by Juan Doblas Prieto, Maite Guedes, Brbara Campello Silva and Leidiane Brusnello. In London, the Institute of Archaeologys Masters Award made a huge financial difference. My lecturers during the MA course were fantastic: Arlene Rosen, Bill Sillar, Todd Whitelaw, Karen Wright, Norah Moloney and Patrick Quinn. Jos Oliver and Manuel Arroyo Kalin, my supervisors at the Institute, have given me all the support, reassurance, guidance, critique, ideas, suggestions, comments and good humour I could possibly hope for, and more. I am privileged to have you as my orientadores. Gracias, professores! And finally, my overwhelming expression of gratitude is to my family. My brother and sister, Camilo and Ali, have constantly cheered me on and believed in me, along with my sister-inlaw, Juliana. Thank you to Lourdes for your care and affection. To my parents-in-law, Lcio and Hulda, I greatly appreciate your endorsement and encouragement. To my parents Jan and Plauto, I am grateful for the love, support and sense of what is right. To Vinicius husband, friend and companion who has accompanied me from the beginning of my archaeological career, and who partook in every stage of this project which is yours as much as it is mine the biggest thank you of all.
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Contents

1. Introduction Portuguese and Brazilian Colonisation of the Tapajs River Background to archaeological research in the area 2. The role of ceramics in Amazonian Archaeology Horizons, traditions, phases and related concepts used to determine cultural units The Incised Punctuate Tradition Decoration vs. form Justification for focus of research 3. Beiradeiros, cachoeiras and terra preta Introduction Characterisation of the area Methodology: survey, site delimitation and excavation Montanha and Mangabal Ponta do Jatob archaeological site Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site Survey along the Transamazon highway Boa Vista archaeological site Cocalino archaeological site Pimental Paja archaeological site The Aracy-Paraguau museum in Itaituba Conclusion 4. Pottery from the Upper Tapajs and beyond Methods of ceramic analysis Results Terra Preta do Mangabal pottery Paja pottery Cocalino pottery Discussion Comparisons to ceramic decoration from the wider region The pottery of Parau, Lower Tapajs The Tapajs-Trombetas area Santarm pottery Pottery from the Madeira basin Pottery from the Xingu basin Pottery from the Orinoco basin Interpretation of results Paja and Cocalino Terra Preta do Mangabal 5. Conclusion Bibliography Appendix Annexes 1-11 Plates 1-9

1 3 5 8 11 12 13 14 16 16 17 19 20 23 24 26 27 27 28 30 30 31 32 32 34 34 36 37 38 39 39 40 40 44 45 47 48 48 49 52 54

List of figures
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Advert by Queiroz Galvo Agate arrowhead found on the beach at Itaituba by Barbosa Rodrigues Funerary urns from the Curur River Arrowheads from the Upper Tapajs Map showing rivers mentioned in text Nimuendajus Ethno-historical map Distribution of sites representing the four horizon styles Examples of the Incised Puntuate Tradition according to Lathrap Pedro taking Vinicius and I to work on the Terra Preta do Mangabal site in his boat Odila Braga in her kitchen with some of the ground stone axes she had collected Pedro carrying a paneiro loaded with bananas Josu preparing his roa to be planted with manioc Sites identified in Montanha and Mangabal in 2010 Ceramic vessel found in the river by a diving gold miner Josu and Bruna observe the surface of a campo area integrating the TPM site Galdino: Francisco examines pottery fragments strewn in front of his home Maloquinha: contrast between anthropogenic soil containing pottery and natural soil Maloquinha: detail of rim within anthropogenic soil Maloquinha: Francisca da Silva scrutinises ceramic pots buried in front of her house Mangueira: ground stone axe and pottery Buried urn (?) and ceramic fragments at Praia Chique Buried urn (?) and ceramic fragments at Os Quirino The Ponta do Jatob community and archaeological site Auger hole at The Ponta do Jatob Terra Preta do Mangabal: view to Tapajs River Terra Preta do Mangabal: view from the campo area to Mangabal rapids Terra Preta do Mangabal: the steep ascent up to the site Terra Preta do Mangabal: marking out the grid Terra Preta do Mangabal: midden/mound Terra Preta do Mangabal: auger hole Terra Preta do Mangabal: drawing one of the profiles of unit N1000 E1074 Boa Vista: Vinicius augering with Tapajs in background Boa Vista: auger hole Cocalino: general view of the site Cocalino: auger hole Pimental: Dona Gabriela and descendants Pimental: view to the community from the river Pimental: Geizy Carla Ribeiro Azevedo's son and siblings with biface Bifacial lance head by Claide de Paula Moraes Pimental port, with view to Bananal Island Vinicius and Marinildo augering dark earth area Non-anthropogenic? dark earth Pottery located on Bananal Island, in front of Pimental The barraco seringueiro at Pimental View to Paja site Paja: Edmilson cuts back thick vegetation so that the site can be delimited Paja: yellow flags mark pottery fragments on the surface Aracy-Paraguau museum: wooden anthropomorphic artefacts 3 5 6 6 7 8 10 13 16 20 20 20 21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 23 23 24 24 24 24 25 25 26 26 26 27 27 27 27 28 28 28 28 28 29 29 29 29 30 30 30 31
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49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Cont. Aracy-Paraguau museum: polished and ground stone axes and adzes Aracy-Paraguau museum: silex projectile point Lower Tapajs: Pottery from the Lago do Jacar site, Parau Ceramic vessels from Santarm collected by Nimuendaj for Gothenburg Museum Nhamund-Trombetas: Pottery from the Erepecur River and Sapuqu Lake Nhamund-Trombetas: Typical elements of Konduri style decoration Hollow rims in profile Madeira: Pottery from the Itapirema archaeological site Xingu: Decorated rims & Arauquinoid-like adorno Xingu: Sherd from Lower Iriry and rim found in Altamira Orinoco: Pottery from the Valloid series Hrcule Florence watercolours of the Munduruku Incised decoration on sherd found at the TPM site Map produced by William Chandless (1862) Engraving of Munduruku tattoos

31 31 39 41 41 42 44 45 46 47 47 49 49 50 50

List of tables and charts

Percentages of pottery from each site Quantities of pottery from TPM Quantities of pottery from Paja Quantities of pottery from Cocalino Overall characteristics of pottery analysed Comparison between Santarm and Konduri pottery

33 34 36 37 39 43

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What can ceramic decoration tell us about the pre- and post- colonial past on the Upper Tapajs River?

1. Introduction
Archaeology has a vital, urgent role to play in constructing an alternative idea in the popular imaginary about Amazonia, its people, and their past. Written records for the area under investigation the Upper Tapajs River, south-western Par state in the Brazilian Amazon only began after two centuries of conquest, by which time the demographic collapse of Amerindian populations was well underway (Denevan 1992). This dissertation is an initial step in what we hope will be a long term archaeological research project in this region. As such, more questions will be asked than answered. On travelling to Montanha and Mangabal on the Upper Tapajs River in March 2010, our expectation was to find pottery similar to the painted wares identified by Almeida (2008) in south-eastern Amazonia, associated by him to Tupian groups. Linguistic and archaeological theories postulate that groups belonging to the Tupi language stock would have traversed the Upper Tapajs region from their centre of origin thought to lie around the upper reaches of the Madeira basin (Miller 1983) , towards the east (Almeida 2008, Brochado 1984, Urban 1992). However, what we have found instead so far is quite different, and apparently much more recent (I say apparently because we have yet to date the sites worked on). In this dissertation I will attempt to relate the pottery of these sites, located in the municipality of Itaituba, to a wider context by comparing the decorative patterns found on their ceramics to those of adjacent areas (fig. 5). My justification for this can be found in the following chapter, where I will situate this research within a wider theoretical framework related to the role of ceramics in Amazonian archaeology. In the second chapter I will narrate the two field expeditions undertaken and present their findings. Chapter three will present the pottery collection analysed and compare its decorative patterns to those of adjacent regions, after which I offer an interpretation of my findings; ethnohistorical literature has also been consulted towards this end. Following this, some concluding remarks will be made.

We originally reached Montanha and Mangabal thanks to our friend Maurcio Torres a geographer working for local communities land rights in the Brazilian Amazon.1 Maurcios research had been focussed on proving the beiradeiros (riverbank dwellers) of Mangabal had legitimate claim to their territories, which they had historically occupied since the nineteenth century (Torres 2008), but from which they were being threatened with expulsion by landgrabbers from the south of the country. He demonstrated the longevity of the communities in the area through their profound knowledge of their territories and its environment, inherited from their Amerindian forebears; he also scoured historical documents that could have recorded names of the present beiradeiros ancestors. Although the beiradeiros are still there, their way of life is now being threatened by a far more powerful force: the Brazilian Federal Government and a yet-to-be-defined consortium of state and privately owned companies, which plan to build a series of hydroelectric dams on the Tapajs.

1. The advert to the left, published in 1971, announces the first birth of a child in that brave new world we are helping to build in the greatest green space on the planet. Where only forests existed. And legends. Myth and fear. The then military governments program of integration of the Amazon, to be facilitated by the opening up of the Transamazon Highway, promised "a land without people for people without land" (Torres et al. 2005). The child, Transamaznico, was born exactly where we are beginning. Or rather, where Brazil is being discovered again. In: Torres 2008, 287.

There is something in common between the assumptions of the landgrabbers and of the government; they are based on the premise that this is an empty space, a place without history (fig. 1). Forest peoples are perceived to be impoverished and uncultured, people who do not

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

have a past, a stock of reserve labour waiting for development to turn them into workers, if they are lucky. This situation, a re-edit of the last 500 years of Brazilian history, is repeated along similar lines throughout the Amazon today. Before I proceed, some background on the colonial history of the area in question is needed, followed by a summary of the archaeological research conducted near the Upper Tapajs to date. Portuguese and Brazilian Colonisation of the Tapajs River Up until the nineteenth century, sources referring to indigenous groups around the Lower Tapajs River were invariably written by missionaries or colonial officials. Irrespective of their Christian, European and male perspective, their observations provide us with glimpses of this period and the Amerindian peoples with whom they engaged. These and later sources suggest a high demographic density for the Lower Amazon and Tapajs, given the great quantity of ethnonyms recorded (Menndez 2006 [1992] 281). In the sixteenth century, Gaspar de Carvajals (1941 [1546]) account of the expedition led by Francisco de Orellana in 1541-2 introduces us to the female warriors who would give the Amazon River its name, near the mouth of Nhamund River, and describes the volley of poisoned arrows that greeted the explorers one of whom died within 24 hours of being struck fired by the Tapaj, thought to be the producers of the famous ceramics from Santarm. The following century is represented by a greater number of written sources. The missionary Joo Felipe Bettendorf (1910 [1693-1699]) located several indigenous groups along the banks of the middle Amazon River, and depicted their subsistence practices and interethnic contact and trade (Menndez 2006 [1992], 294). Visiting the Tapaj in 1661, the Jesuit required a translator to communicate with them: this indicates that, unlike many of their neighbours, their language did not belong to the Tupi language stock, since Bettendorf spoke the lngua geral based on Tupi (In: Nimuendaju 1952, 6). Another aspect of note relates to observed burial practices. Narrating his travels with Pedro Teixeira two decades on, the judge Heriarte (1662) wrote that the Konduris on the north bank of the Amazon had similar forms of government, analogous ceremonies and worshipped the same idols as the Tapaj (In: Guapindaia 2008, 14). He also noted that the Tapaj practiced endocannibalism, consuming the ashes of their deceased (In: Nimuendaju 1952, 7). 3

It appears that the Tapaj and their neighbours, the Tupinambaranas, were expanding their dominion along the Lower Tapajs until the mid-seventeenth century (Menndez 2006, 282). Contact with Europeans however resulted in subjection, slavery and movement of groups (Menndez 2006, 282); the Tupinambaranas were extinct by the end of that century. Ruthless Portuguese colonial agents forced the Tapaj to raid other groups for captives (see Acua 1894 [1641]). Portuguese violence allied to devastating Old World diseases meant it was only a matter of time before the Tapaj were also wiped out. Living with members of other groups in mission settlements, survivors would lose their identities. Some being captive, others having fled, the rest having been led to death, this beautiful tribe was extinguished, leaving its memory perpetrated in the name of the Amazon [Valleys] most beautiful river, the naturalist Barbosa Rodrigues lamented a century later (1875, 130). Just as the Tapaj had been feared along the Lower Tapajs, upstream, the Munduruku2 headhunters (Murphy 1958) terrorized other ethnic groups and Christian missions downstream from the 1770s (Ribeiro Sampaio 1825 [1775] In: Menndez 2006 [1992], 284). The Munduruku language family belongs to the Tupi language stock. Barbosa Rodrigues (1875, 130) writes that the dwindling Tapaj could not resist their incursions. From this we can infer a degree of interaction between them. This also demonstrates how the demographic collapse downstream resulted in greater mobility of groups such as the Munduruku (F. Noelli, pers. comm. 30/08/2011). The upper course of the Tapajs River was to remain terra incognita to the white man until the eighteenth century (Menndez 2006 [1991], 286), only being navigated in its entirety by a member of colonial society (a miner called Joo Sousa de Azevedo) in 1748 (Tocantins 1877, 76). It is still difficult to ascertain the degree to which the effects of colonisation in the form of disease, warfare and slave raiding were felt further upstream following conquest. The Munduruku today have in memory the first approach made by a white man into their territories in the hinterland campinas (grasslands). The man was Antnio Gonalves Tocantins, who visited the Munduruku in 1875 and published a report of his expedition, detailing his trajectory and Munduruku customs (1877). In 2004 a Munduruku man was recorded stating that Antonio Tocantins was the first white [to come]. He left salt, machetes, hoes, [metal] axes. The Munduruku would take these things and grow to like them. Then they
2

Their self-denomination is in fact Wuy jugu. The name Munduruku comes from the eighteenth century, when the Parintintins, their enemies, called them Munduruku: red ants, because of their aggressive raids against rivals. (Ramos 2003. In: http://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/povo/munduruku/794)

became very ill. The white man brought measles and many people died (In: PPTAL 2008, 40). By the late nineteenth century, a number of Europeans and Brazilians were navigating the Tapajs, which would have resulted in the spread of diseases to hinterland areas. This increased Euro-Brazilian presence along the river was due to the arrival of the Portuguese Court in Brazil. Having fled from the Napoleonic wars, the monarch Dom Joo VI opened Brazilian ports to friendly nations, thus unleashing a wave of scientific expeditions throughout the territory. Some of these would travel down the Tapajs, navigating its entire length from its tributaries in Mato Grosso. Through the watercolours of Hrcule Florence, the Russian Empires Langsdorff expedition (1820s) would deliver a fascinating register of the places passed, its people and plants. The explorer William Chandless (1862) would describe the peoples he encountered, their economic activities and other geographical and botanical aspects of interest. Coming from the other end of the river, Barbosa Rodrigues (1875) got as far as Montanha in 1872, before ill health forced him to return to Itaituba. The aforementioned Tocantins (1877) left Belm with the express motive of visiting Munduruku territories. Henri Coudreau (1895) was commissioned by Lauro Sodr, the state of Pars Governor, to undertake a scientific survey along the river. By this time, occupation of the area by national society was underway, and the extraction of latex from rubber trees had become a profitable enterprise for rubber barons, who exploited the labour of northeastern migrants lured to the area with promises of wealth, only to be exposed to conflict with Amerindian groups and treated as slave labour. The account by Raimundo Pereira Brasil (1910), one of the rubber lords of the Tapajs, elucidates the fast changes underway at the time. He remarks how Munduruku indians living the Bacabal mission further upstream were made to work. They died in great numbers (1909, 62). Background of archaeological research in the area

2. Agate arrowhead found on the beach at Itaituba. Reproduced from Barbosa Rodrigues 1876, Plate II.

The Brazilian naturalist Barbosa Rodrigues (1876) observed that the rocks along the river near the port of Bobur had been used as workshops in the fabrication of ground stone

axes; he also found an arrowhead made of agate (fig. 2), on the beach in front of the village of Itaituba (1876, 111-112). In the 1920s Nimuendaju (2004, 124) noted remains of funerary urns in the square of the intendancy at Itaituba; where he also collected some sherds (2004, Plate 177). In the 1950s, Protsio Frikel, a Franciscan friar stationed at the So Francisco do Curur mission on the Upper Tapajs, disinterred ceramic funerary urns and sent them to archaeologist P. Hilbert at the Goeldi Museum in Belm (fig. 3). They were found within a dark earth layer without an apparent pattern in their disposition (Hilbert 1957, 3). The Munduruku indians with whom the friar conversed stated that the urns were pariwat t a pots belonging to other, foreign
indians; the Munduruku do not practice secondary burial (1957, 11).

3. Funerary urn with lid improvised by three pot sherds, used to bury a child; Composite funerary urn: A, the urn proper; B and C: base sherds used as lids; D: pot fragments substituting base. Adapted from Hilbert 1957, 4-5.

In 1976, Simes would publish a brief description of two arrowheads donated to geologists travelling along the river (fig. 4). Roosevelt et al. (1996) would revisit these projectile points twenty years on, although they incorrectly attributed their provenance to the Lower Amazon (1996, 375).3 They wrote that their morphology and the technique used in their manufacture continuous pressure retouching, well-articulated stems, and down-turned wings linked them to late Pleistocene triangular points of eastern South America (1996, 375).

4. A: hyaline quartz arrowhead found on Upper Tapajs left margin, below Chacoro rapid; B: silex arrowhead found at cassiterite mine called Grota do Caaba located at headwaters of Tucano stream, which flows into the Mutum, a tributary on the right margin of the Upper Tapajs. (Adapted from Roosevelt et al. 1996, 373).
3

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

Under the National Program of Archaeological Research of the Amazon Basin (PRONAPABA), Celso Perota surveyed sites along the Transamazon Highway in the late 1970s between Itaituba and Jacareacanga (Simes 1978-1982, 57-60). Near Itaituba he found anthropogenic dark earth and pottery decorated with polychrome painting, incisions and excisions. Other sites contained funerary urns and lithics. He attributed some of the pottery to the Incised Punctuate Tradition. However, no further details have been located about these finds. Sites have also been registered along the Transamazon Highway to the east of the Tapajs, containing anthropogenic dark earth (Kern 2003, 63). More recently, the Federal University of Pars Centre for Archaeology has also been working along the Tr ansamazon (Martins 2010, 2012 and forthcoming) under the coordination of Denise Schaan, in the municipalities of Itaituba and Rurpolis. It is hoped that we will be able to compare data in order to begin building a fuller panorama of the regions Amerindian past.

5. Rivers referred to in the text. Map by Vinicius Honorato, adapted from Natural Earth online website: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

2. The role of ceramics in Amazonian Archaeology

The culture historical framework has dominated the study of Amazonian archaeology during the twentieth century, and still does today, albeit with increasing revision and critique. The inescapable fact that languages belonging to the same stock or family have dispersed throughout lowland South America is evidence of communication networks or migration having taken place in the past, as can be seen in Nimuendajus 1944 ethno-historical map below (fig. 6).

6. Reproduced from Nimuendaju 1944.

Edited by Julian Steward, the Handbook of South American Indians (1940-1947) is a testament to this approach. Based on technology and perceived socio-political complexity, the volumes addressed the Marginal Tribes; the Tropical Forest Tribes, the CircumCaribbean Tribes and the Andean Civilizations. In volume 3, Robert Lowie (1948) outlined the characteristic traits of The Tropical Forest Tribes: cultivation of tropical root crops (in particular, bitter manioc); effective river craft; the use of hammocks; and the manufacture of pottery (1948, 1). This understanding of culture as a structurally and functionally stable entity with hard spatial boundaries (i.e., the concept of culture area) has been surpassed in recent decades (J. Oliver, pers. comm. 11/09/2012). Projections into the past based on ethnographic observations (the direct historical approach) of Amerindian groups who, in effect, were survivors of unparalleled demographic collapse (Denevan 1992) are likewise untenable. In spite of these acknowledged problems and shortcomings, vols. 1 and 3 were and can still be a useful starting point for anthropologists and archaeologists working in Amazonia.

The theme of environmental determinism would permeate discussions on human adaptability in the Amazon for decades to come (e.g. Lathrap 1970; Meggers 1971; Roosevelt 1980). Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans of the Smithsonian Institution favoured Leslie Whites (1949) materialist approach in particular. Because they headed Brazils National Program of Archaeological Research in the Amazon Basin (PRONAPABA) and trained a generation of Brazilian archaeologists, this theoretical approach would set the agenda of Brazilian archaeology for decades to come.

Borrowing the Horizon-Style concept Kroeber (1944) had applied to the Andean area, Meggers, Evans and associates compiled a panorama of Amazonian archaeology based primarily on ceramic decoration (Meggers and Evans 1961, 373). They interpreted their results as demonstrating four distinct and successive cultural influences (1961, 381), all of which originated outside Amazonia.

7. Distribution of sites representing the four horizon styles. 1: the zoned-hachure horizon style; 2: the incisedrim horizon style; 3: the polychrome horizon-style; 4: the incised-and-punctuate horizon style. The arcs designate the postulated area of origin and the arrows show the suggested direction of spread (Adapted from Meggers and Evans 1961, 375-380).

From oldest to most recent, the horizons defined (fig. 7) were: 1) the Zoned Hachured Horizon Style, dated at approximately 500 BC (Meggers and Evans 1961, 382) in which the use of broad line incision to outline areas that are filled with fine, parallel strokes or crosshatching was often combined with painting in the form of a red band at the rim or bands on the body of the vessel (Meggers and Evans 1961, 375); 2) the Incised Rim Horizon Style, dated from around Anno Domini (1961, 382). Its diagnostic elements were a broad, flat-topped rim produced by interior thickening, giving a heavy, trianguloid cross section [the] rim surface is usually decorated, typically with rather broad, incised lines red paint or red slip was used to cover the exterior and/or interior surface of some vessels (1961, 378); 3) the Polychrome Horizon style, dating from c. AD 600 (1961, 382), identified by a white slip and polychrome (red-and-black-on-white) painting [and] relatively complex techniques, such as excision, incision retouched with red or white before firing, and grooving. Incision or excision on a red slipped or white slipped surface is also characteristic, whereas in all the other horizon styles the decorated surface is typically unslipped (1961, 379), and finally; 4) the Incised and Punctuate Horizon Style, dating from AD 1000 (1961, 382), characterised by the use of incision, punctuation and modelling in several consistent
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ways and for convenience it has been named for the most universal trait, a combination of incision and punctuation as alternating elements (1961, 381).

Horizons, traditions, phases and related concepts used to determine cultural units It was contemplated that the aforementioned traits had been rapidly diffused, which is why they were named horizons. Twenty years later however, Meggers and Evans would be referring to traditions instead of horizons (1983 [1978]), recognising that there had been greater time-depth involved in the spread of traits than they had originally postulated. They used Willey and Phillips (1958) definition of a tradition as a (primarily) temporal continuity represented by persistent configurations in single technologies or other systems of related forms (1958, 37, italics in original). Meggers and Evans (1983 [1978], 290) equated traditions with the series concept first employed in Venezuela and the Caribbean by Cruxent and Rouse (1958). At the other end of the temporal and geographical scale, a complex was the local chronological unit (Boomert 2000, 4), often referred to as phase in Brazil. Willey and Phillips defined a phase as an archaeological unit possessing traits sufficiently characteristic to distinguish it from all other units similarly conceived spatially limited to the order of magnitude of a locality or region and chronologically limited to a relatively brief interval of time (1958, 22, italics in the original). Given the requirement of relatively short temporal spans, phases were defined by the PRONAPABA by means of Fordian seriation methods (Ford 1954). Temper was the principal attribute in developing their taxonomic classification.

The creation of new phases seems almost to have become an end in itself; Schaan (2007) writes that phases would become a straight jacket, stopping other relevant questions beyond pottery from being studied (2007, 78). It was often assumed that phases equated ethnolinguistic groups. Migration from external locations became the automatic explanation for perceived change in pottery characteristics (Schaan 2007, 78). Notwithstanding, Meggers and Evans so-called Experimental Formulation is still with us today and continues to provide a guiding framework for archaeologists working in the region, although phases and traditions established by the PRONAPABA are being revised throughout the Brazilian Amazon. For instance Schaan exemplifies how, by allying data on ceramic
11

decoration to other factors settlement patterns and technological attributes she was able to reach a different conclusion about cultural changes on the island of Maraj (2007, 2004), which were not solely a result of migration from outside Amazonia. Similarly, Lima (2008) has argued for contextualising ceramic data which does not mean scrapping everything that came before. Limas contextualisation in fact drove her to split the Manacupuru phase established by P. Hilbert (1968) into two phases, Manacupuru and Autuba (2006), the latter being found deeper in the stratigraphy, prior to the formation of dark earth. Classification is integral to scientific activity, so that patterns and groupings can be understood (Schaan 2007, 87-88). The creation of typologies and groupings are a means to an end, instruments to aid us in reconstructing historical contexts (2007, 88). However, Lima (2008) herself has proposed a flexibilisation of these categories, acknowledging that the limits of such archaeological units will never be reached, because the mechanisms involved in the establishment, maintenance or change and spread of technological traditions are varied and dynamic (2008, 160).

The Incised Punctuate Tradition Much of the focus of this work is with the last of the four traditions defined by Meggers and Evans (1961, 1983 [1978]), the Incised Punctuate Tradition, seen to be distributed along the Orinoco and Amazon basins, British Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amap. Following on from Cruxent and Rouse (1958), Lathrap (1970) correlated the Incised-Punctuate Tradition with the expansion of Carib speakers from the northeast quadrant of the Amazon Basin (1970, 164-165). Although the archaeological equivalent to the Carib expansion has at times seemed elusive, nonetheless, certain elements are sufficiently coherent for them to be perceived as a ceramic tradition, but it is a tradition that cross-cuts several of the other horizons and traditions recognized (1970, 165). Among these diagnostic traits (fig. 8) Lathrap identifies
thin, deep incision, executed with a sharply pointed stylus This mode of V shaped incised lines is almost always organized into rectilinear designs By far the most common germinal motif in all of the fine-line incised styles is a continuous band of contiguous isosceles triangles (Lathrap 1970, 165).

The peculiar use of appliqu was another distinctive characteristic: The total effect could well be simulated by using the ribbon of cake icing exuded from a pastry tube (Lathrap 1970, 168). He also made the link between the use of cauix temper and Carib speakers (1970, 165).

12

8. Examples of the Incised Puntuate Tradition according to Lathrap (1970), from left to right: Matraquero Style, Middle Orinoco, Venezuela; Apostadero Style, Apostadero site, Lower Orinoco, Venezuela; Arauqun Style, Lower Rio Aruaca, Llanos de Orinoco, Venezuela. ( Adapted from Lathrap 1970, 165-166).

The Incised-Punctuate Tradition was related to the dissemination of the Arauquinoid series from Venezuela to Amazonia:
The Incised and Punctuate tradition expanded down the Amazon and up the southern tributaries. The most flamboyant member is the Santarem culture, which flourished at the mouth of the Rio Tapajos until European contact. The evenly spaced, parallel incisions terminating in punctuates or alternating with areas containing rings or punctuates, which are diagnostic of this tradition, became widely disseminated during the final centuries prior to the discovery of America (Meggers and Evans 1983 [1978], 324).

Zucchi (1985) would refine this scenario, establishing three stages of occupation for makers of cauix-tempered pottery in the Middle Orinoco, from AD 400-500 (early stage), to AD 500-1000 (middle stage) and finally to AD 1000-1400 (third or domination stage) (Zucchi 1985, 25-39).

Decoration vs. form This dissertation is centred on the observation of the ceramic decoration of the samples collected and a comparison to those of adjacent areas; where possible, contextual and technological data have also been considered. The term decoration is not ideal, because it can imply an embellishment that does not have any further meaning something that cannot be assumed. However, it has been chosen because it is an overarching term that encompasses varied techniques and motifs, and in order to keep the same terminology as is used in the literature. Roe (1976) demonstrates that neither surface decoration (contrary to Meggers and Evans argument [1961]) nor vessel form (as Lathrap [1970] proposed) is necessarily the paramount indicator of cultural continuity and comparability. The main variables to identify include the
13

degree to which either component partakes of social identification, e.g., ethnicity, or, the degree to which emphasis is placed on form or decoration along a behavioural and cognitive continuum between art and craft in the culture of the group involved (1976, 85). He further states that from an information theory point of view a nonliterate culture has the capacity to store, retrieve and recombine fewer data bits than one possessing writing, and that the art of nonliterate peoples will be characterized by slow, incremental changes of circumscribed magnitude (1976, 88, ft. 39). However, Roe acknowledges that shape is not so central to identity, partaking as it does of a higher degree of technological utility (1976, 82).

Justification for focus of research I believe that as a starting point in an unknown area, the study of ceramic decoration is highly profitable. Brazilian anthropologists and archaeologists have long considered that in preindustrial societies, the ambition of art is to signify, not simply represent (Vidal & Lopes da Silva, 2007 [1992], 281). Writing on the current Asurin, Silva (2008) explains that pottery is an essential item in preparation of daily food preparation and ritual performance, in addition to being one of their primary supports for graphic art, expressing fundamental principles of this populations world view (Silva 2008, 222). Meggers (1997) further argues that The most reliable evidence for historical relations can be obtained by the observation of characteristics that are not susceptible to environmental or technological limitations, in particular, decorative methods and motives (1997, 11). Van der Leeuw (1993) postulates that not nature but culture is the main constraint of technique; The choices, rather than the materials and tools, are crucial in determining the nature and shape of [the potters] product (1993, 241).

If recurrent decorative patterns are found, they may indicate a common grammar (Roe 1976) being shared by peoples of a region. Although it is important to bear in mind Sassamans (1998, 96) recognition that to base an idea of identity upon limited material traits or behaviours is nothing more than an archaeological construct, ethnographic examples support linkages between language group and material culture in Amazonia. Along the Uaups River in the central northwest Amazon, Chernela (1992) found a system of craft monopoly in which differences in design repertories and artifact form are greater between adjacent settlements of different language group affiliations than among members of the same affiliation, despite vast distances between them (1992, 118). This is because artifact manufacture is (with language) the most salient feature identifying social groups and
14

distinguishing one group from another (1992, 121). This observation opens up various possibilities for us to consider in correlating similar or disparate ceramic decorative patterns, which will be turned to later, following the comparison between decorations found by us and those from other locations. Similar to Limas (2008) application of the interaction sphere model in the Central Amazon (as utilised by Boomert [2000] for Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco River), I will favour this idea in my interpretations, because it allows for the contemplation of developments as influenced by local and external forces, and can help us to escape a normative view of culture (Sassaman 1998, 94) by encouraging a consideration of archaeological units as fluid, flexible entities.

15

3. Beiradeiros, cachoeiras, terra preta*

9. Pedro taking Vinicius and I to another day's work on the Terra Preta do Mangabal site in his boat, on the Tapajs river; in the background, an illegal gold mining river dredge.

Introduction
as soon as [the Island of] Goiana is passed, immediately above the Island of Lauritnia, the first currents of the Maranhzinho rapid are reached. From then on, there is nothing but rapids [and] cascades up until its limits, and even up until the heart of Mato Grosso. Below the two islands, the river is free, accessible to steamers; upstream, the river is obstructed, it leaps from fall to fall, runs from rapid to rapid. Downstream is the Amazon Valley; upstream lies the Brazilian Central Plateau (Coudreau 1977 [1897], 24).

Henri Coudreaus lyrical depiction of the geological encounter between the Amazon Valley and Brazils highland shield is culturally recognised today by the denominations Alto (Upper) and Baixo (Lower) Tapajs. The Upper Tapajs stretches for over 400km, from the south-western portion of the state of Par up to its tributaries, the Juruena and Teles Pires, which delimit the borders of the states of Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Par. The difficulty of navigation Coudreau so beautifully encapsulates is partly responsible for this area being largely ignored scientifically, in contrast to the Lower Tapajs. The stretch of the river along which we

16 *(Riverbank dwellers, rapids and anthropogenic dark earth)

worked begins at the town of Itaituba and follows the river southwards until the Misso and Rato igaraps (streams), where the territory of Mangabal ends.

Two field expeditions have so far been undertaken for this project by Vinicius Honorato and I. In 2010 we conducted a surface survey at Mangabal, a territory situated on the left margin of the Tapajs, 120km south of the town of Itaituba. Upon return we wrote a report about the expedition (Rocha & Honorato 2011) and under the coordination of Eduardo Neves and Fernando Ozorio de Almeida of So Paulo University applied to Brazil's National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Instituto do Patrimnio Histrico e Artstico Nacional hereafter, IPHAN) for authorisation to work in the area, conducting sub-surface excavations and collecting samples. Upon obtaining permission, Vinicius Honorato and I spent two months on the Tapajs, from July to September 2011. We initially chose to look for sites along the Transamazon Highway, around the environs of the town of Itaituba, imagining this would be a cost-effective strategy. We would soon give up on this however, realising that two people "navigating" the Transamazon in a 1.0 engine car in search of sites was somewhat unrealistic. We opted for leaving Itaituba to go and stay with communities along the river, where sites would be better preserved and our ability to work consistently was greater (fig. 9).

In Mangabal we worked on the Terra Preta do Mangabal (TPM) and Ponta do Jatob sites, delimiting both and excavating a 1m2 unit in the former. Downstream, close to the aforementioned geological encounter described by Coudreau, we delimited and dug a 1m2 unit at the Paja site, on the rivers right margin; we chose this area because its pottery would provide us with a counterpoint to what we found upstream at Mangabal. Samples were taken from five sites in all (TPM, Paja, Cocalino, Ponta do Jatob and Boa Vista). The following section will not be organised chronologically; following a general discussion of the physical setting and social context of the area, the methodology employed will be outlined and subsequently, the places worked in will be focussed on. Characterisation of the area The rivers crystalline water and its sandy soils result from long erosive processes and testify to the Tapajs greater geological age and poverty of nutrients when compared to watercourses to its west, engendered in the Andes (Morais 2008). Several geomorphological units are traversed; excepting the Amazon floodplain around the vicinity of Itaituba, the landscape is hilly or table land, often rising abruptly, close to the waters edge. Dense tropical submontane

17

forest prevails, although the landscape is also peppered with grassland areas, known locally as campos da natureza. The width of river in the stretch we covered varies from around four kilometres just south of Itaituba to almost three at Mangabal. The dry season lasts for approximately two and a half months every year and annual rainfall is on average 1700mm.

Much of the Tapajs River lies in what can be regarded a frontier area, where the historical absence of the state has left a vacuum filled easily by organised crime (Arbex Jr. 2005, 40-62). Social conflict is commonplace, as large scale capital interests for which the Amazon region is a repository of natural resources to be extracted at minimum cost and maximum gain clash with those of forest peoples (Amerindian communities, riverine dwellers, extractivists, among others) who inhabit the region. Forest peoples see the landscape as their living space, from where they draw sustenance and their histories are etched; they have been the most effective agents in impeding the advance of deforestation. The Upper Tapajs is where one of the planets greatest concentrations in biodiversity can be found. A mosaic of conservation areas decreed by the federal government over the past few decades1 have been a mixed blessing, however, because in some cases such as with the Amazon National Park local people were violently expelled. This represents an elitist environmentalist view that understands nature as pristine and local people as a hindrance (tourists would be welcome, though) (Torres & Figueiredo 2005, 354-391). The Parks borders were later changed to accommodate mining interests. The push by agribusiness interests linked to land grabbing, deforestation, cattle ranching and slave labour is facilitated by the notorious Transamazon Highway (Torres et al. 2005). The planned construction of several hydroelectric dams on the Tapajs basin has now heightened social tensions further. The Tapajs basin also hosts the countrys largest gold province; widespread wildcat gold mining activities have routinely generated violence, prostitution and mercury pollution in the water and food chain. It is estimated that over half of the 110 thousand goldminers spread throughout the Amazon are active here (Borges 2012).2

A number of these conservation units have recently been arbitrarily reduced by the government to pave the way for the construction of hydroelectric dams. 2 http://www.valor.com.br/brasil/2765302/garimpo-invade-bacia-do-tapajos

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Methodology: survey, site delimitation and excavation3 Archaeological sites are often part of living landscapes in Amazonia. Terras pretas de ndio are considered a legacy left by pre-colonial indigenous peoples to the Amazonian farmers of today (Peterson, Neves & Heckenberger 2001); their location is usually known because of their enhanced fertility. Practically all the sites were reached because of local knowledge of them. This is a particularly useful way to begin surveying unknown places of difficult access, where there is dense vegetation, sparse habitation and resources are limited factors that make random sampling (Orton 2000) impracticable and is called levantamento oportunstico ("opportunistic" survey) in Portuguese. One of the drawbacks of this strategy is a bias towards dark earth areas close to the rivers edge; however, bearing our limited time and resources in mind, it proved an effective way of recording the maximum number of sites in the short time available. Once a site is selected, a point named N1000 E1000 is established this way, it is unlikely negative coordinates will be reached in any direction. Using a compass and metric tape, points are then staked out at regular intervals and augered. Augering provides for a low-impact way to assess the presence and density of remains below the surface (Neves 2000). For each1m-deep hole, which is dug in arbitrary 20cm levels, a form is filled in detailing soil colour, type (or lack) of archaeological material, etc.4 All the material collected is given a provenience number that links it to its vertical and horizontal location on the site (see Annex 3). Based on the results of augering, we choose a location to open up a 1m 2 unit, which is named according to its North East quadrant. It is dug in arbitrary 10cm levels and charted according to x, y, and z (depth) coordinates. Each 10cm level is accounted for on a separate form, which registers type of archaeological material found, its characteristics and quantity; soil texture, colour (according to the Munsell soil chart) and compactness, and any other relevant characteristics or observations.5 All soil extracted from the pit is sieved and archaeological materials collected, again receiving provenience numbers. Photographs and drawings are used to record the base of every level and any other occurrence of interest. Following the absence of archaeological material for 20cm, an extra meter is dug with an auger, and provided no archaeological material is found, the excavation is terminated. Profiles are then examined so
3 4

The methodology employed is derived from that developed by the Central Amazon Project. See Annex 1. 5 See Annex 2.

19

that we can determine archaeological layers, which we document with photographs, drawings and a detailed description. After this, the unit is closed.

Montanha and Mangabal The people of Mangabal are descended from indigenous women and northeastern rubber tappers and can be defined as forest peasants (Torres 2008, Ch. 2.2). They are extractivists who rely on forest resources and through the generations, have developed complex behaviours and codes of conduct to administer these resources in such a way as to guarantee a balance between use and the environments capacity to regenerate itself; they practice itinerant agriculture; their articulation to markets is weak and their technologies are low-impact (Torres & Figueiredo 2005, 321-394) (figs. 10-12).

Clockwise from top: 10. Odila Braga in her kitchen with some of the ground stone axes she had collected. This demonstrates a relationship with archaeological heritage by a social groups whose memory is oral. 11. Pedro carrying a paneiro loaded with bananas. 12. Josu preparing his roa to be planted with manioc.

We first arrived here in March 2010; during this sojourn we covered a thirty kilometre stretch along the river's left margin and identified 24 archaeological sites, from the Ilha da Montanha up to the Cachoeira do Peruano rapid (fig. 13). At this stage we did not yet have authorisation from the IPHAN to conduct sub-surface exploration through test holes or pits, nor to collect

20

samples. We could however photograph the locations and archaeological remains we could see, describe these and annotate GPS references, the estimated size of sites, altitude, vegetation, proximity to the water, and any other relevant characteristics.

13. Sites identified in Montanha and Mangabal in 2010. Map by Vinicius Honorato. 14. At the Vilhinha community (and site), we are shown a ceramic vessel found in the river by a diving gold miner. 15. Josu and Bruna observe the surface of a campo area integrating the Terra Preta do Mangabal site. 16. Francisco examines pottery fragments strewn in front of his home, at the Galdino community and site.

21

Clockwise from left: Maloquinha site 17 & 18. a cut made through the soil by a tractor exposes the contrast between anthropogenic soil containing pottery and natural soil below; 19. Francisca da Silva scrutinises ceramic pots buried in front of her house; 20. ground stone axe and pottery located on the Mangueira site.

Archaeological remains strewn over the surface, differences in soil colour and exposed soil profiles were observed; we were shown ethnographic and archaeological artefacts found by gold miners at the bottom of the river. We left Mangabal convinced of its high potential for archaeological research (Rocha & Honorato 2011). The observations we made can be summarised under three main points. Firstly, we noticed a pattern in settlement areas: although archaeological remains were often found under current communities along the river's edge, the larger sites containing ADEs were invariably located on bluffs, which offered larger flat areas where a greater number of dwellings could have been built, safe from the high water mark during the annual rise of the river. The larger sites found are named Apu, Cabeceira da Montanha, Itapel, Terra Preta do Mangabal, Sapucaia, Veia Tet and Ponta do Jatob. Closer to the river, where the beiradeiros live today, we still found lithic flakes, sherds, stone axes, and buried pots, but not in the same density as on the bluffs. The contemporaneity of these remains (by the waters edge and in higher areas) is a matter for future research. A second observation is related to buried vessels, seen closer to the waters edge, which appear to be funerary urns. If this is found to be the case, it points to a significant difference in mortuary customs between these past peoples and what has been recorded for the Tapaj, Konduri and Munduruku. The former two were thought to practice endocannibalism by

22

drinking the ashes of their deceased (Heriarte 1662 In: Nimuendaju 2004, 124). 6 The Munduruku, on the other hand, practice primary burial, putting their dead straight in the ground. It therefore appears that there is greater similarity between buried pots (possible urns) found in Mangabal (figs. 21 & 22) to what Friar Protsio Frikel at the So Francisco do Curur Mission recorded further upstream in the late 1950s (Hilbert 1957, 4-5; see Introduction).

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

Thirdly, all the pottery we saw was undecorated and coarse-tempered, usually with quartz sand. The apparent lack of surface embellishments may be due to erosion; another possibility was that it could have been made by displaced persons: Lathrap (1970, 12 9) writes how people forced from the floodplain onto older alluvium in the Upper Amazon could be expected to lose the more complex aspects of their social and religious life, and there would be far less time for non-functional embellishments of ceramics (1970, 129). This is a possibility as the knockon effects of European conquest further downstream were felt; on the other hand, maybe time was devoted to embellishing basketry or body ornamentation, invisible to us today.

Ponta do Jatob When we returned to Mangabal a year later, we revisited the Ponta do Jatob archaeological site, which extends from the shore line where a current community is established up to the higher bluff area (altitude is approximately 90m above water level in August, which is a dry month) (fig. 23). It is located approximately 150m west from the river, covered by a grass patch recently used for pasture. Termite mounds and babau palms (Attalea speciosa) abound.
6

Recent discoveries at the Porto site in Santarm indicate that the Tapaj may in fact have used burial urns, as pots decorated with stylised human forms were found containing pulverised bones (M. Amaral, pers. comm., 20/08/2011; Martins et. al 2010, 138). The Tapaj are also recorded as having practiced mummification.

23

We delimited it digging nine test holes with an auger at 50m intervals (fig. 24).7 However, pottery was only encountered in the first 20cm on three occasions, along the eastern portion of the level area. Anthropogenic dark earth spread further than pottery horizontally and was found in up to 40cm below the surface. We decided not to dig a 1m2 unit here due to the low density of remains, which have not been included in the analysis.

23. The Ponta do Jatob community and archaeological site. 24. Archaeological remains pottery and lithics were found strewn along the water's edge, as well as on the higher land behind the present community in 2010; top 40cm are composed of anthropogenic earth.

Terra Preta do Mangabal (TPM)

25. View to TPM site from Tapajs River. 26. View from the sitess campo area to Mangabal rapids.

Located on a steep bluff (110m) overlooking the Mangabal rapid (Cachoeira do Mangabal), this site contains anthropogenic dark earth, pottery and lithics (figs. 25 - 27). The estimated dimension of the site is one hectare.8 It encompasses an area of successional vegetation
7 8

See Annex 1 for form used. See Annex 4.

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including a number of palm species (such as Astrocaryum murumuru and Attalea speciosa), a recently-used planting area and an area known as a campo da natureza. In 2010 we identified what appeared to be a mound or midden here and an abundance of archaeological remains. We decided to delimit and excavate a 1m2 unit here. Due to recent anthropogenic activity, there was dense undergrowth, which greatly hampered our work; we were unable to delimit the whole site (fig. 28).

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

Fourteen test holes were dug with an auger at intervals of 25m, and pot sherds, lithic flakes and dark earth were found in considerable amounts.9 Overall, there is a 40cm layer of anthropogenic dark earth that covers the central area we augered. The colour of the soil below 40cm varied over different parts of the site, and the darker soil could dip to lower depths after intervals at which it was shallower. This can suggest areas of differential activities, intensity of occupation or even reoccupation; in some cases, it may be a result of postdepositional events, such as agricultural activities. We often found small pottery and lithic fragments at 100cm depth; however these frequently seemed to be related to bioturbation by burrowing organisms. At this point it is not possible to affirm whether the site is unicomponential or multicomponential. At the N1000 E975 point, the dark earth (10YR 2/1) was not surpassed at 120cm depth, on what appeared to be the higher part of a mound or midden. We chose to open up a 1m2 unit at the point E1000 N1074; the top of the midden/mound was avoided because of the possibility of stratigraphic inversion.

See Annex 5.

25

Clockwise from left: 29. Vinicius and Pedro act as scales to illustrate the midden/mound. 30. Auger hole showing 20cm levels from left to right. 31. Bruna and Vinicius draw one of the profiles of unit N1000 E1074 (photograph by Pedro Braga da Silva).

We found that the layer that lies from zero to approximately 30cm depth has been impacted by recent agricultural activities, causing pottery sherds to be smaller. The most clearly defined archaeological layer lies between approximately 30-60cm depth, where the soil is greyer and the largest quantity of pottery was encountered, alongside ground stone axes, arenite and quartz lithic flakes and thermal flakes, as well as cobble-sized stones. A curious flake, resembling a rudimentary arrowhead, was found associated to the pottery. Below, the soil becomes more yellowish and compact, with few archaeological remains, which seem to be associated to bioturbation.10 Survey along the Transamazon Highway We knew that under the auspices of the PRONAPABA Celso Perota had found sites along the highway in the late seventies and early eighties (Simes 1978-1982). We headed out along the Transamazon, stopping at farmsteads and communities over a number of days, and in some cases dug 1m test holes with an auger. The points dug were referenced to GPS locations.
10

See Annex 6.1 and 6.2.

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Boa Vista archaeological site The Boa Vista community is established by the Transamazon Highways (BR 230) 26th kilometre south of Itaituba. Its residents told us about buried pots under one of the buildings. Eight holes were dug with an auger at intervals of 25m, but the sandy soil only rendered one pot sherd at 20-40cm depth. A few other sherds, including a couple of rims (see Plate 9), were collected from the surface. This site, close to the waters edge, was heavily impacted by the recent community and its proximity to the Transamazon. We decided not to return.

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

Cocalino archaeological site Located near the boundaries of the Parque Nacional da Amaznia (Amazon National Park, hereafter, PARNA), this site, lying in a currently occupied area, contains a dark earth layer and much pottery. Three test holes were dug using an auger at 25m intervals. It was not possible to return to this site for more intensive work because of transport difficulties. However, the sample collected was analysed because of its diagnostic design elements.

34. General view of the site, with dwelling in the background and abundance of palm trees; 35. Bruna registers test hole showing anthropogenic soil for first 40cm, with a lighter colour in the deeper levels.

27

Pimental

Above: 36. Dona Gabriela surrounded by some of her many descendants; 37. view to community from the river. Below: 38. Playing among rocks, Geizy Carla Ribeiro Azevedo's son (pictured) found the bifacial lance head he is holding in the photograph. 39. The bifacial point, snapped at its proximal end (drawing by Claide de Paula Moraes), was found at (40.) the community's port where we later found other lithics (view of Bananal island).

In 1923 Nimuendaju stayed at the Pimental community, on the right bank of the Tapajs, just above its last rapids. Following his discovery of Santarm ceramics, he intended to travel upstream to visit the Munduruku, but had to give up and search for Mau Indians instead because his boat was not fit to cross the rapids (2001 [1929-1932], 190). In 2011, we met Gabriela Maria Bibiana da Silva, 104, who may have seen the German ethnologist. She arrived at Pimental in 1917, when she was eight years old; her parents were going to tap rubber in the western state of Acre, but they missed their boat and instead came to the Upper Tapajs. She told us of terrible conflicts with Amerindian groups and the harshness of life at the time; she remembers the rubber baron, Pereira Brasil.11 Her descendants are many. Edmilson Ribeiro
11

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

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Azevedo, Dona Gabrielas fifty-year-old grandson, took us to a site of the rubber period, where the latex sent from upstream used to be stored for shipment to Itaituba. Dona Gabriela and her progeny were anxious about the threatened construction of the So Luiz do Tapajs dam; if it goes ahead, the community will go underwater. Our host Marinildo took us to a dark earth area that apparently is not anthropogenic we found no pottery after augering eight holes at 50m intervals. Later we received a donation of a silicified sandstone projectile point with invasive bifacial retouch. We identified a large flake and a lithic core near to where it was found, at the communitys port. This suggests ancient occupation in this area, possibly linking it to early Holocene/late Pleistocene occupations identified by Roosevelt et. al (1996) and Simes (1976), when the climate was drier and the vegetation was closer to open woodland (Rossetti 2004).

Above: 41. Vinicius and Marinildo digging holes with an auger in (non-anthropogenic?) dark earth area. Below: 42. dark earth (without pottery); 43. pottery located on Bananal Island, in front of Pimental; 44. the barraco seringueiro, where an energy turbine was once brought from the Curur River Fransciscan mission (where Friar Protsio Frikel found the ceramic urns). Rubber shipped from upstream used to be stored here before being sent to Itaituba.

29

Paja archaeological site The Paja site is located near the Pimental community, on a bluff at approximately 85m above water level.12 It is currently covered with successional vegetation; the area is used for hunting by some of the locals. We had the good fortune to be helped by Edmilson and his son on some days here.

45. View to Paja site; 46. Edmilson cuts back thick vegetation so that the site can be delimited; 47. yellow flags mark pottery fragments on the surface.

The site contains a layer of dark earth that varies from 5-40cm in depth.13 Below this, archaeological material pottery sherds and lithic fragments, flakes and larger stones dwindles drastically. Due to its shallowness, it appears that the site may be unicomponential, although this still needs to be confirmed. Twenty-three holes were dug with an auger at 25m intervals. Following this, the point N1000 E1071 was selected for the opening of a 1m2 unit, because this was near to where the greatest quantity of pottery was extracted from augering. Two main archaeological layers were identified, from approximately 5-20cm depth and from 20-40cm, although the limit between them was diffuse.14 The upper layer yielded the greatest amount of archaeological material (pottery, flakes and thermal flakes and charcoal). Below 40cm, archaeological vestiges dropped abruptly and the soil colour changed. At the end of the excavation another 1m was dug with an auger to confirm absence of archaeological remains.

The Aracy-Paraguau Museum in Itaituba Although the museums objects generally lack provenance (many donations were found underwater) and need better conditions, the collection includes fascinating artefacts that demonstrate the areas rich archaeological record. The wooden anthropomorphic (male and
12 13

See Annex 7. See Annex 8. 14 See Annex 9.

30

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

Donations to the Aracy-Paraguau museum, Itaituba. Clockwise from left: 48. Wooden anthropomorphic artefacts found by a gold mining dredge on the Tapajs River. Carvings on their bodies may represent body painting (M. Amaral, pers.comm., 22/02/2012); 49. polished and ground stone axes and adzes; 50. silex projectile point.

Conclusion The Upper Tapajs is a region rich in history, most of which is scarcely known. We were only able to find the sites we did because of the help and hospitality of local inhabitants. Besides the pottery found, which will be focussed on in the following chapter, anthrosols, lithics and botanic remains present possible avenues for further exploration. The relationship between current inhabitants of the places we visited, whose collective memory is oral and reliant on place, and the archaeological remains located in their territories, is a subject deserving of greater attention, having the potential to challenge conceptions of heritage and its guardianship.

31

4. Pottery from the Upper Tapajs and beyond

Following the collection of pottery and lithics from the Upper Tapajs, we loaded the material onto a steam boat in Itaituba and took it to the Curt Nimuendaj lab in Santarm, where it is presently housed. We were able to wash most of the pottery and some of the lithics collected and photograph some of the diagnostic sherds. Diagnostic sherds were considered thus either because of the part of the vessel they came from (rim, handle or base) or because they presented decorative (plastic or painted) elements. The sherds came from three archaeological sites1.

This chapter will present the analysis of the diagnostic pottery collected, compare its decoration to those of ceramics from nearby areas and the wider region and finally offer an interpretation of what we might infer from this. Absolute dates are not yet available, so our chronostylistic interpretations are necessarily based on a comparison to the ceramics of other sites in the region that have been dated, or that through seriation have been assigned to traditions (and therefore time frames) established for the region; ethnohistorical evidence has also been used to this end.

Boa Vista 3%

no. of sherds

Cocalino 17% Terra Preta do Mangabal 47% Paja 33%

Methods of ceramic analysis

Diagnostic sherds have been analysed for a number of attributes, the selection of which was related to the information they could render in relation to technological practices, vessel form and their

The Boa Vista site also rendered a few sherds.

32

decoration/design.2 The objective was to reconstruct a basic sequence involving the preparation of the paste, the forming of the vessel, its decoration and firing. Signs of use-wear (e.g. fire clouds) or post-depositional features, such as weathering or erosion, were also noted, but will not be emphasised here. The focus of this work is on ceramic decoration; however, if we can associate this to specific practices, it may represent a first step towards posterior modal analyses, by giving us some indication of attributes or combinations of attributes that recur. Our comparisons with pottery from the wider region may also be stronger if we compare sets of attributes, although this was not the primary focus of the work. I based my choice of attributes on the Central Amazon Projects pottery analysis form; some dimensions were altered to correspond to the specific characteristics of the pottery, particularly in relation to decorative dimensions. The technological attributes3 looked for include temper, its roundness/angularity (a BEL Photonics binocular microscope with 45x magnification was used); firing atmosphere (indicated by core colour) 4 and surface treatment (i.e. smoothing, burnishing, or polishing). Formal attributes, including measurements of sherd thickness (using a standard caliper) and estimated diameter of vessel mouths and bases (using a rim chart) were noted, along with points of inflection, vessel contour and base and lip shape (when possible). Finally, I analysed the decorative attributes and techniques of the collection by viewing photographs of each sherd.

The decoration analysis contemplated the following criteria: decorated surface (internal/external), type of decoration, slip colour, type of painting, paint colour, lip finish, plastic decoration techniques and designs present. Absent or not identified categories were always listed as an option. The location and type of decoration was then observed. Plastic decoration techniques looked for include clay displacement (incision, ungulation, impression, perforation, modelling) and clay additions. When relevant, these categories were then split further into specific decorative patterns. Incisions (fish spines, straight parallel lines, zoned-hachured lines, parallel curved lines); impressions divided into punctuation (with rectilineal instrument or round stylus) and cord or fibre impressions ; perforation; and modelling were subsumed under clay displacement techniques. Clay addition was subdivided to specify whether fillets or blobs had been applied. I then attempted to observe the state of paste when the plastic decoration was executed (undetermined, wet/damp, leather

2 3

Annex 10 displays the lists of attributes considered in the analysis. Technological and formal analyses were conducted by Rogrio Andrade dos Santos at the Curt Nimuendaj Lab in Santarm, supervised by Claide de Paula Moraes. 4 See Annex 11 for reference diagram used for determining firing environment through the examination of cross-section of vessel walls.

33

hard/dry, post firing, pre slip, post slip). The results of these analyses were entered into a Microsoft Word Excel spread sheet. The order in which attributes observed will be referred to aims to reflect the different stages of the pottery production process. Before the presentations of the results of the ceramic analyses of the Terra Preta do Mangabal, Paja and Cocalino sites, some remarks will be made about the main decorative techniques employed. Due to the small size of the collections analysed, I have given approximate indications of quantities, since providing exact percentages may mislead the reader into a false sense of security: that the trends observed from such figures are statistically meaningful. The emphasis here is on qualitative rather than quantitative analysis.

Results
Terra Preta do Mangabal pottery Pottery analysed from this site comes from the test pit N1000 E1074, from the two main archaeological levels identified between 10 and 60cm depth.5 Level 0-10cm presented diminutive sherds, as did the levels below 60cm, after which the change in soil characteristics suggests the beginning of occupation at the site; sherds found below 60cm may be attributed to the effect of bioturbations. I identified no obvious differences in attributes to mirror this distinction, so characteristics from these different layers have been summarised together. Ninety sherds were analysed from this site.

Rim sherds* Point of inflection Body sherds Total

61 1 28 90

The predominant non-plastic is quartz sand, found on its own or together with cauix (each of these was found in a third of the sample).6 Cauix, caraip and quartz sand in conjunction were found to temper just over ten per cent of the sample. The rest of the collection contained the following mixtures: caraip and quartz sand; cauix and grog; quartz and quartz sand; charcoal and quartz sand; cauix, charcoal and quartz sand; cauix, caraip and grog; cauix, caraip, grog and quartz sand; and cauix, grog and quartz sand. The shape of the inclusions was mostly rounded.

Except from one rim sherd (Plate 3, fig. a). * One rim sherd belonged to a griddle, so it was also a base sherd (see Plate 1, fig. b). 6 See Annex 11 for a description of cauix and caraip.

34

The information we have on form is as yet inconclusive, since morphological attributes were often not discernible. Thickness of sherds ranged from 15mm to 4mm, although most frequently thickness was 5mm. Rim diameter varies from 10cm to 47cm, averaging 27cm. Simple (approximately 10%) and composite (<10%) vessel contours are present. Unrestricted and restricted shapes were found in almost equal number, in a third of the sample. Rounded and acute inflections were encountered infrequently (the small size of sherds hampered most identifications). Over half of the rims examined are direct, while the remainder are everted. Almost half of the rims had flat lips, followed by rounded lips (approximately a third), pointed lips (over a tenth) and thinned lips (in approximately five per cent of cases).

Smoothing on both internal and external surfaces predominates, while burnishing and polishing are rare exceptions. A few fragments were eroded making surface treatment difficult to discern. Plastic decoration incision, modelling, impressions (nail) and appliqu prevails. It was invariably performed on the exterior of vessel bodies or on rims. Rim lips were frequently nicked (a sixth of the sample see Plate 4) and sometimes carved to produce a serrated effect (see Plate 5, figs. a d). The remainder were flat, rounded or undetermined (a sixth of the sample). One rim which seems to be an outlier, possibly made elsewhere has a modelled lip (see Plate 3, fig. a).

A particular design stands out at this site. It is made up of incised lines, which are cross-hatched at acute angles forming lozenge (or diamond) shapes (see Plate 1, figs. a-e and Plate 2). Other incised designs include straight parallel lines (Plate 1, figs. g, j, k).7 Applied vertical fillets were identified in conjunction with incision, rim nicking and modelling (Plate 2). A wider range of decorative practices was hinted at by rare specimens. These include a curved incised design (Plate 1, fig. j); fingernail impressions (e.g. Plate 5, fig. e); fibre impression (followed by coating with a white slip Plate 3, fig. b). Modelling was detected only sporadically (Plate 3, figs. a, d, e). Painted decoration appears to be rare: just two examples were identified. One consists of a dark (probably black) horizontal line following a straight rim; the second is of reddish/orangey colour whose limits cannot be defined. White, red and orange slip was recognised (see Plate 3).

Almost ninety per cent of the sherds analysed had oxidised pastes; one ninth of the collection evidenced a reduced firing environment, while the rest only had reduced nuclei/were incompletely oxidised.

However, because of the small size of the fragments the parallel lines may be misleading.

35

Paja pottery The sherds included here came from the first two levels (0-10 and 10-20cm) of the 1m2 unit (save a couple of fragments collected from the surface); the remainder were too small and associated to bioturbations. Two thirds of the sample analysed was decorated. Rim sherds Body sherds Handle Total 37 26 1 64

Approximately a third of the sherds were tempered solely with quartz sand. Quartz sand mixed with cauix was the second most common temper, followed by quartz and quartz sand, and cauix, caraip and quartz sand. Fewer specimens possessed a mixture of cauix, charcoal and quartz sand, or grog, cauix and quartz sand; other variations of these same non-plastics were uncommon but not absent.

Measurements of sherd thickness ranged from 4mm to 16mm, but most frequently thickness was 7mm. Simple ( of sample) and composite (one sixteenth of sample) vessel contours were detected. A third of the sample was determined to represent unrestricted or restricted vessels. A handle was found (Plate 6, fig. h); it is likely to have been part of a pair. Rims were either direct or everted. Rim diameter varied from 14cm to 49cm, 21 to 23cm being the most frequent measures. Lips are mostly rounded or flat shape (a few pointed and bevelled examples were also recognised).

Smoothing of surfaces was the norm, with polishing rarely identified. Slipping seems to have been occasional. Decoration plastic and painted was observed on exterior vessel walls, on the interior of everted rims and on lips. Rim and lip decoration seems to have been a relatively common practice; lips were carved to produce a serrated effect (see Plate 7, figs. a, j, k) and everted rims punctuated (e.g. Plate 7 fig. a). Punctuations are also present on the interior of an inverted rim (Plate 7, fig. i). A distinctive decorative feature present on three sherds consists in the application of clay fillets, which are subsequently punctuated perpendicularly to the vessel using a rounded or rectilinear tool (Plate 6, figs. a, b and e). In the three examples found, the fillets were applied horizontally. Lines of punctuations applied straight onto the vessel surface also occur (Plate 7 figs. b, c). Incisions are common. The fish spine design (Hilbert 1955a) (see Plate 6 fig. c and Plate 7 fig. e) and similar variations (Plate 7, fig. g) can be noted. Parallel incisions also occur, but less frequently. A single example of a T-shaped incision was found (Plate 7, fig. f) but the small size 36

of the sherd means it is not possible to view the whole design. One specimen displays a combination of rectilinear punctuation and a possible fish-spine incision (Plate 7, fig. d). Painting is not uncommon. Red paint was the most frequently observed (Plate 6, figs. b-d, f, g, and i), applied in bands which were often curved. One sherd with parallel, curved black lines was collected (Plate 6, fig. j this may be an example of resist paint).

The majority of sherds had been fully oxidised (reduced firings were identified in approximately a sixth of the sample). A few sherds were incompletely oxidised.

Cocalino pottery Thirty three sherds were analysed from this site. The sample is small and the stratigraphic provenience of the pottery is imprecise (it was collected from the surface or extracted by digging auger holes), but the decoration present is worthy of mention.

Rim sherds Body sherds Base sherds Total

17 13 3 33

Almost half of the sample was tempered with cauix and quartz sand, closely followed by sherds tempered with quartz sand only. Mixtures of quartz sand, cauix and caraip, and caraip and quartz sand made up a tenth of the sample each; a single sherd had quartz and quartz sand temper.

Sherd thickness varied from 5mm and 13mm; the most frequent measure was 8mm. The three bases found are ring shaped. Vessel contour proved difficult to distinguish; it was found to be simple in a third of the sample and inflected on three occasions. Rim diameter varied from 7cm to 35cm, although diameters of 22cm to 27cm were more common. Most rims were direct; four were everted. Just under half of the rims had a rounded lip; flat lips were less common.

All of the fragments had smoothed surfaces. Twenty-one sherds were decorated on exterior vessel walls, the interior surface of everted rims and on lips. Seventeen sherds have incisions; these could cover the upper body right up to the rims edge on direct rims (Plate 8 figs. a) or the internal face of everted rims (Plate 8, fig. b). Parallel incised lines are the most common motif (Plate 8, figs. b and e).8 Fish spine designs (Plate 8, fig. a) and what appear to be converging isosceles triangles (Plate 8,
8

However, due to the small size of some of the sherds, this may be a misrepresentation in some cases, where designs that may have been fish spines only seem to be parallel.

37

figs. c and d) were also encountered. A small sherd (Plate 8, fig. f) displayed a fragment of what appears to be a cross-hatch design similar to what was seen at Terra Preta do Mangabal.

Punctuation is apparently rare, being found on one lip (Plate 8, fig. h) as well as on carelessly applied fillets (Plate 8, fig. g). Although the techniques employed in these instances may be similar to those employed at the Paja site, the final effect is different.

Two thirds of the sherds were fired in an oxidising environment, while a third was fired in a reductive environment.

Discussion The main characteristics of the pottery analysed are summarised in the table below. The most predominant temper used was quartz sand. This is not surprising, considering these sites proximity to the river and its sandy beaches. Cauix was also favoured, but rarely on its own. Techniques involving the displacement or subtraction of clay were employed at the three sites. Cutting incision, perforation and carving was practiced, especially in the form of incision. The irregularity of some of the incised lines, particularly at the Cocalino and Paja sites is owed to the coarse temper used. Perforation which entails the instrument being pressed perpendicularly through the vessel wall was rarely encountered; in any event it appears to have been employed as a functional, not decorative, technique, possibly to make colanders (see Plate 7, fig. h). Impression, the pressing of an instrument into plastic or, more commonly, leather-hard clay, leaving a negative of its motif subsumed under the general term punctuation (Rye 1981, 92), was particularly favoured at Paja. It appears that clay displacement practices were usually performed when the clay was in a leather-hard state, because clay overhang was not perceived in the troughs of incised lines or negatives of punctuations. Additions of clay to the surface of the vessel in the form of coils/fillets, blobs or other shapes, when the clay of the vessel and of the applique is at roughly the same state leather-hard or plastic (Rice 1987, 148) , were repeatedly noted on the three sites. The effect produced by these similar techniques was divergent, however. Painting, particularly in red, seems to have been more prevalent at the Paja site. Citing Corra (1984), Guapindaia (1993, 28) mentions a red pigment used by the Tapaj for body painting and for painting jewellery, cloths and utensils. This pigment was produced by fermenting leaves of the Caragiru or Carajuru tree, which belongs to the Bignoniaceae family (Arrabidaea chica Verlot) and dissolving them in oil. Another way of altering the colour of the surface was with the use of organic carbon, in the form of powdered charcoal from plant extracts, most probably after firing (see 38

Plate 6, fig. j). Slipping was occasionally encountered, especially at TPM. On low-fired pottery, which is probably our case (although bonfires can quickly reach 900C [Livingstone Smith 2001]), Rice (1987, 150) states that slips are usually applied to completely dried wares, directly before firing and that most are burnished or polished with a stone to compact and orient particles and to i mpart a luster.

Site
TPM Paja Cocalino

Temper
Quartz sand; quartz sand + cauix Quartz sand; quartz sand + cauix

Decorative field
Body and rims/lips Body and rims/lips

Most prevalent decoration

Incised lozenges or parallel lines. Nicked lips (isolated or in conjunction with) clay fillets. Incised fish spines, parallel lines and/or punctuation. Punctuated clay fillets. Serrated lips. Bands of paint. Incised parallel lines, fish spines

Firing atmosphere
Oxidising Oxidising Oxidising

Quartz sand + cauix; Body and quartz sand rims/lips Overall characteristics of pottery analysed.

5.3 Comparisons to ceramic decoration from the wider region

The pottery of Parau, Lower Tapajs Aiming to ascertain whether the Tapajs chiefdom really was centralised and expansionist, Gomes (2008, 12) conducted excavations on three archaeological sites in the locality of Parau, situated in the hinterland area of the left margin of the Lower Tapajs River. Ceramics dating from the Formative period (at c. 4400 BP) up to the 17th century AD were encountered; the author assigns the bulk of the pottery to the Incised Rim Tradition however (2008, 16-17), which is prior to Tapaj occupation, while pottery collected related to the Incised Punctuate Tradition is quantitatively inexpressive (2008, 172). The dates obtained underscore this; the most recent is 910 60 BP for the Terra Preta site (2008, 173), falling within the temporal scope of the Incised Rim Tradition.

51. Pottery from the Lago do Jacar, Parau, Lower Tapajs. Adapted from Gomes, 2008, Plate 4, figs, 8, 11 and 23.

Notwithstanding, some of the pottery presented by the author displays decorative techniques and motifs that are similar to what we found further upstream (fig. 51). These include linear 39

punctuations produced with a rectilinear tool on the internal face of everted rims; what may be considered fish spine incisions (below left) and applied fillets of clay with punctuations (below centre). These decorative practices are reminiscent of pottery found at the Paja and Cocalino sites.

Gomes makes reference to the affinity between some of the pottery she found on the Lago do Jacar I site namely, applied and punctuated fillets of clay with that identified with the Valloid series in Venezuela (Gomes 2008, 117; Tarble & Zucchi 1984, see below). This suggests that some of the pottery she excavated falls outside the period for which dates were obtained (as she acknowledges, when writing that the area was occupied up to AD 1600 [2008, 16-17]). It also appears that certain decorative practices from earlier ceramic traditions such as incisions and impressed punctuations may have been assimilated into the Incised Punctuate Tradition; something that had been postulated before (e.g. Gomes 2002; Lathrap 1970).

Possibly owing to the primacy accorded to vessel form in order to infer function, when describing and quantifying the decorative attributes of the pottery analysed which spans millennia Gomes conflates the sample, giving us percentages of types of decoration (such as short simple incisions) for each site (2008, 116-117; 141; 153). This is unfortunate as greater detail about when such decorations were prevalent or in decline, or whether they could be related to particular types of temper or stratigraphic location would allow us to more accurately assess change or continuity in such attributes over time and relate them to surrounding areas and their respective time periods. Although Gomes later states that there was ample stylistic continuity in the sites' utilitarian pottery (2008, 172), it would still have been useful to separate the components further, relating them to time periods. The Tapajs-Trombetas area The interaction between peoples living around the basins of the Tapajs, Trombetas and Nhamund Rivers in the late pre-colonial period is considered as something of a given. Ethnohistorical sources (e.g. Heriarte 1662, see Introduction) suggested connections and archaeological ceramics from these areas possess similar features (Gomes 2002; Guapindaia 1993, 2008; P. Hilbert 1955b; P. & K.Hilbert 1980; Nimuendaj 2004; Palmatary 1960, etc). The nature of the relationship between the makers of such analogous pottery is still undefined, however, and the geographical limits of these interactions are also still open to further investigation. Santarm pottery The principal expositor of the famous pottery from Santarm and environs was Curt Nimuendaj, 40

who compiled collections for museums (notably the Gothenburg and Goeldi Museums) in the 1920s (fig. 52). He described it as a testament to the incredibly lively and bizarre imagination of the Tapaj women potters... [it] yielded such a profusion of all possible and impossible heads and faces that it may almost be possible to put together another Noahs Ark (Nimuendaju 2004, 151). He noted the caryatids as a distinguishing characteristic and that finger impressions were often used to decorate rims (2004, 125).

52. Ceramic vessels from Santarm collected by Nimuendaj for the Gothenburg Museum. Reproduced from Nimuendaj, 2004, Plates 193 and 195. Photographs taken by Ferenc Schwetz.

Collections from the Tapajs and Nhamund-Trombetas areas have since been studied extensively and provide us with valuable information related to pottery styles and technological practices (e.g. Gomes 2002; Guapindaia 1993; Palmatary 1960). Citing Ehrenreich, Barata (1968, 87) pointed out that geometric designs incised into pottery may be stylised animal representations.

53. Pottery from the Nhamund-Trombetas basin. Left, fish spine incised sherds from the Erepecur River ( Rep. from P. Hilbert 1955a, 32); Right: sherd collected near the Sapuqu lake (Rep. from Nimuendaj 2004, Plate 116, fig. m).

Following fieldwork along the Nhamund and Trombetas River basins, P. Hilbert (1955a) created two main pottery groupings, tempered with cauix and quartz sand respectively. The latter was restricted to the Trombetas River and its tributary, the Erepecur River and seemed to be less 41

frequent (1955a, 29-31). Its coarse texture and fish spine motif (fig. 53) bears strong resemblance to pottery from the Cocalino site (Plate 8, fig. a), and some similarity to what was encountered in the Paja site.

P. Hilbert also described the cauix-tempered Konduri and Globular styles of pottery (1955a, 33-69). Both of these styles present elaborate plastic decoration, which includes anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations. P. Hilbert notes the pompous application of nicks, incisions and points or orifices (1955a, 57) present in both styles. Tripod vessels were also deemed by him to be diagnostic of pottery from this area (P. Hilbert 1955b). Below (fig. 54), the second button in fig. b recalls that of an outlying rim sherd from Terra Preta do Mangabal (Plate 3, fig. a); the top illustration of fig. c brings to mind the serrated rims found at Paja (Plate 7 fig. j and k); the punctuations illustrated at the top of fig. d remind us of those found at Cocalino and Paja.

54. Left: Typical elements of plastic decoration, showing several ways of making a given surface discontinuous. A and B, buttons. C, fillets. D, incisions. Above: Handles belonging to the Konduri style from Faro and Terra Santa (Reproduced from P. Hilbert 1955a, 56 and 61).

In a later article, P. and K. Hilbert (1980) describe the Poc and Konduri pottery complexes, encountered at the same sites. Poc pottery is related to the Zoned-Hachured Tradition and dated to the Formative period (just before and after Anno Domini), being found in the deeper layers of stratigraphic cuts. On the more superficial levels, within a dark earth context, the Konduri complex 42

was dated to AD 1400 100 and related to the Incised Punctuate Tradition (P. Hilbert & K. Hilbert 1980, 8). Modelled-incised-punctuate decoration (fig. 54), ranging from applied buttons and fillets to complex biomorphic adornos decorated with impressions, perforations and, above all, punctuations and incisions (1980, 4), is determined to be diagnostic. Further attributes of the Konduri style are the use of externally strengthened everted rims, producing triangular profiles in transverse section, and manioc griddles (P. Hilbert & K. Hilbert 1980, 3). The rims of bowls, vessels and griddles display incised decoration with straight motifs carried out with hard-edged instruments (1980, 3).

More recently Guapindaia (2008) excavated sites in the Nhamund-Trombetas area, including the Boa Vista site worked on by P. Hilbert in the 1950s.9 The radiocarbon dates assigned to Konduri pottery range from AD 1020 to AD 1450 (Guapindaia 2008, 170-171). By and large P. Hilberts (1955a) and P. and K. Hilberts findings (1980) were confirmed, although Guapindaia came across greater volumes of plain, undecorated wares than she had anticipated (2008, 170). She concludes that it is not yet possible to affirm whether Poc and Konduri occupations represent distinct episodes or whether there is continuity between them, since the stratigraphy in some of the areas excavated is continuous (2008, 185).

Hilbert also drew up a comparison between Santarm and Konduri ceramics (1955a, 72-73). Guapindaia (1993, 33) later summarised them in a table, some of which is reproduced here:

Santarm
Moderate use of cauixi as temper Moderate use of incisions and adornos on handles Abundant use of caryatids Rare presence of tripod vessel sherds Hollow rims present Angular pipes with neo-Brazilian decoration Curved and straight incisions used in vessel decoration

Konduri
Abundant use of cauixi as temper Handles almost invariably decorated with punctuation, nicks and incisions Absence of caryatids Abundant presence of tripod vessel sherds Hollow rims absent Pipes rarely found Solely straight incision used in vessel decoration

Painting executed in manifold colours, with resistant paint Rare vestiges of red paint, which are easy to remove.

This comparison is elucidating in showing that sherds found at the Cocalino and Paja sites appear to have elements in common with both the Konduri (absence of hollow rims, only straight incisions used to decorate vessels, absence of caryatids) and Santarm styles (vestiges of red paint [Paja],
9

This is not the same Boa Vista site as the one visited during our fieldwork. Boa Vista (good view in Portuguese) is a common toponym.

43

anular bases [Cocalino]). No pipes or tripod vessel sherds were found whatsoever (which does not mean they are absent). Interestingly, the Boa Vista and Terra Preta do Mangabal sites each yielded a singular hollow rim sherd (fig. 55). Linn (1925, 129) considers the process involved during firing such vessels, when rapid expansion of air inside the rims would lead to it bursting through the paste. If apertures were not used, the vessels would have to be heated slowly and subsequently cooled carefully (In: Palmatary 1960, 63). Palmatary (1960) encountered hollow rims on pottery she classified as distinct from Santarm ceramics (1960, see Plate 85), although she concludes its makers would have been familiar with Tapajs ceramic processes [since] this sherd is hollow and the technique is excellent (1960, 65).

55. Hollow rims in profile. Left: Boa Vista site; Right: eroded hollow rim from Terra Preta do Mangabal site (to facilitate observation, drawing and photo have been included here).

Therefore, although the pottery found at the Cocalino and Paja sites is more rudimentary in terms of paste preparation and decoration, there are motifs and decorative elements in common with those employed in the Lower Tapajs, Nhamund and Trombetas Rivers, such as straight line incisions, applied buttons and fillets of clay (which often seem to compose the base line of highly elaborated Tapaj and Konduri style vessels). some of the elements that compose the Konduri and Globular style plastic decoration are recognizable to us. Further, the pottery from Cocalino and Paja sites was also encountered within a relatively shallow context, suggesting these areas were occupied relatively recently. Further upstream at Terra Preta do Mangabal, however, our results so far seem to indicate a more tenuous connection.

Pottery from the Madeira River basin The Madeira River lies to the west of the Tapajs and provides the Amazon River with its last, mighty influx of sediments from the Andes. Starting with the work of Eurico Miller (1983), the upper part of its basin has been the subject of investigations since the 1970s; an almost continuous sequence of human occupation has been attested there from approximately 8000 BP to the eighteenth century, with pottery initially dating to c. 2800 BP (Miller et al. 1992). The possible association of pottery to language stock (namely, Tupi), to the domestication of manioc and other 44

plant species and to the oldest known terras pretas in Amazonia are among the complex questions being addressed by archaeologists in the area. Two main ceramic groupings have been identified in the Upper Madeira region: the Jatuarana subTradition and the Jamar Tradition. Although plastic decoration, including punctuates, drag-and-jab punctuate, ungulate, double-line incision feature in the Jatuarana sub-Tradition (dated to 2730 75 BP), these are combined with other elements, such as polychrome painting, monochrome painting, excised-scraped, pinched, among others, to create varied decorative motifs (Miller 1992, 223-224). The Jamar Tradition (dated from 2500 90 BP) displays some decoration, which includes incision, punctuation, superimposed coils, brushing, and occasional excision, serrungulation and use of appliqu (Miller 1992, 224-225). Neither of these traditions seems to clearly resonate with the pottery found by us on the Tapajs. This dissimilarity is also apparent in the more recent research conducted in the area (fig. 56), which has been revising a number of phases created by Miller (Almeida 2010, Zimpel Neto 2008, Zuse 2011). However, more work is needed before we can definitely affirm that no similarities exist.

56. Pottery from the Itapirema archaeological site, on the Madeira River, facing the Jamar. Reproduced from Almeida 2010, 121-122. Photographs taken by Agda Sardinha.

On the other hand, the middle and lower courses of the Madeira River have been revealing a different story. Simes and Lopes (1987) conducted a survey along its course in which they defined ceramic phases (Axinim and Curralinho) attributed to the Incised Punctuate Tradition. However, this is currently being questioned by Moraes (2010 and forthcoming), so at present it is not possible to affirm whether there are common elements or not. It appears that pottery belonging to the Polychrome Tradition and the Incised Modelled Traditions is prevalent in this area. Pottery from the Xingu basin To the east of the Tapajs lies the Xingu River, which like the Tapajs, connects the Amazon plain 45

to Brazils highland shield. The Upper Xingu area, home to the Parque Indgena do Xingu (Xingu Indigenous Park, PIX), created by the Villas Bas brothers in 1961, has been the subject of research for a number of years by archaeologist Michael Heckenberger (2005) and students, as well as by a number of anthropologists. Within the PIX today, speakers of Carib, G and Arawak languages compose a multi-ethnic system.

In his doctoral dissertation, Toney (2012) focuses on ceramic technology from AD 700 to AD 1770. Toney likens some of the decoration of the Developmental period to Arauquinoid pottery (fig. 57) (2012, 252) and postulates a Carib influence in the Protohistoric Xingu period, particularly because of a chevron motif (fig. 57), which is however engraved rather than incised (2012, 253). He considers that this discrepancy may be due to the fact that male Carib invaders may have brought the style without the skill of execution with them (2012, 253). This hypothesis is strengthened by the existence of an origin myth of Carib provenance in the area (Carneiro 1989 In: Toney 2012, 253). Dates related to Carib-related pottery lie at c. AD 1770 (2012, 259). There is some likeness between the chevron designs and the converging isosceles triangles of the Cocalino and Paja sites, although at Paja and Cocalino the body of the vessel was the chosen area, while the pottery of the MT-FX-02 and MT-FX-13 sites has decorated rims.

57. Left: Type 2 rims from MT-FX-02 surface collection with incised, engraved and thumbnail punctuate decorations; Right: Type 2 rim adorno (Arauquinoid-like) from TU at MT-FX-13 (Reproduced from Toney 2012, 220 and 206, respectively).

The Incised Punctuate Tradition has been detected in the Lower Xingu (Perota 1992, 215) in the form of the Curu phase, which is always associated to dark earth contexts (1992, 215). Images for 46

this phase were not available, so further comments will have to wait. The Curu phase is dated to 275 75 BP and 175 55 BP (Perota 1992, 215). Nimuendaj did however produce images of pottery he collected from the Xingu area (fig. 58) during his travels, from 1917-21 (2004, 112). The Iriri River is a tributary of the Xingu, and on the map produced by Perota (1992, 214), the Curu phase is identified near its mouth. Nonetheless, these are speculations that will have to await further evidence.

58. Left: Applied fillet with punctuation in sigmoid form from the Lower Iriry, Xingu area; Right: rim found in Altamira. (Adapted from Nimuendaju 2004, Plates 54 and 55, 226 & 227).

Pottery from the Orinoco basin

59. Left: Applied/incised, incised & modelled decoration of Valloid material. From Orupe (A, D, E, F), Paragito del Meta (B, C), El Valle (G, H, I), Agerito (J, K, L, M) sites. Right: Applied/incised decoration of the Valloid material. Sites: Cerro Aislado (A, D, E, H, I), Buena Vista (B, C, G), La Urbana (F) (Rep. from Tarble & Zucchi 1984, 437).

Along the middle Orinoco River and its hinterland, a number of sites were encountered in which 47

pottery attributed to the Valloid series, dated to AD 900-1000, was found; its makers could have been a Carib-speaking subgroup related to Carib speakers from western Guayana (Tarble & Zucchi 1984). Among the most prominent characteristics of this pottery are punctuated or notched applied fillets (1984, 438) a characteristic which bears clear correlation to sherds encountered at Paja (Plate 6 figs. a, b, and e). Valloid ceramics are also found in association with pottery of the Arauquinoid series, at times incorporating some of the latters elements (1984, 440). The authors note that incision is usually found in conjunction with applied fillets; its isolated presence seems to be a later occurrence (1984, 438). Valloid pottery is also composed of handles and zoomorphic adornos (1984, 437). Interestingly, no (manioc) griddles were found (1984, 436). Zucchi (1985, 37) also describes the Valencioide series, whose features sand and mica coarse-tempered pottery decorated with appliqu and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, combined with clearly Arauquinoid incisions and punctuations appear familiar to much of the pottery previously described. I have not seen images however so this will have to await further investigation.

Interpretation of results
Paja and Cocalino The pottery we encountered in the environs of Itaituba displays some common features with the ceramics from Santarm, as it does with those from the Nhamund and Trombetas Rivers, and (in the case of Paja) with the Valloid series on the middle Orinoco. It seems reasonable to assert that this pottery belongs to the Incised-Punctuate Tradition. Lathrap (1970) wrote that Carib speakers colonised new areas through raiding parties of young men who attacked the neighbouring peoples. All adult males of the conquered villages were barbequed and eaten while the more desirable women were taken as wives (1970, 164). This would help to explain why if it is correct to assume that art style and ceramic technology were feminine domains (1970, 164) many aspects of Carib culture were transmitted in a poorly understood and garbled form (1970, 165). Zucchi (1985) argues that the period from approximately AD 1000 was one of domination by Carib speaking groups of other areas.

Available dates for Santarm, Konduri and Valloid ceramics lead us to conclude that pottery on the Paja and Cocalino sites was produced over the last six hundred years; already in the 1960s, Hilbert (1968) observed that all ceramic complexes connected with this [Incised Punctuate] horizon are always late in local sequences (P. Hilbert 1968, 272). In fact, Paja and Cocalino pottery may have been made in the post-conquest period by fugitives from Santarm, following devastating incursions by the Portuguese. Barbosa Rodrigues (1875. 130) states that Portuguese violence made the Tapaj flee to the interior and upstream. The comparatively impoverished decoration and 48

coarser temper detected at Paja and Cocalino could reflect this. It appears that the applied and punctuated fillets of clay and fish spine motifs are a sign of a common code (Moraes 2010, 96) impressed on the pottery, which may have stretched from the Tapajs to the Orinoco basin. This distance is similar to that encompassed by the Polychrome tradition, the motifs of which have been found to span 3500km, from the middle Madeira to the Napo Rivers, dated to around the sixteenth century at either end (Moraes 2010, 96).

Terra Preta do Mangabal

60. Above, Left: On the low parts, denominated Tiacoron, Tapajs River, June 1828; Right: Munduruku woman and child (Reproduced from CCBB, 2010, 192-193). Below, Left: detail of painting above, showing lozenge design; Right: 61. sherd found the TPM (graphic art by Marcos Brito Castro).

The incised lozenge motif, found to occur frequently in the sample analysed (fig. 61) (see Plates 1 & 2), is strongly reminiscent of the tattooed designs displayed by Munduruku Indians (fig. 60), 49

suggesting what DeBoer (1991, 147) has termed a total artifactual environment of pervasive design. Information recorded in the nineteenth century by travellers to the Tapajs (see introduction) corroborates this supposition. Chandless (1862) produced a map of the river (fig. 62), and over the Mangabal area, the words Munduruc Vil. are written (1862, 268); he states that At the shallow of Mangabal Grande the hills on each side are of some height, and here and there the hill-tops are open campo [fields/grassland]. A little below the Mangabal are two or three Mundrucs [sic.] villages on the left bank, and the last on that side, as the Mau country begins soon below (1862, 277).

Left: 62. map produced by William Chandless displaying the location of ethnic groups along the Tapajs. The circle encompasses the TPM site area (Adapted from Chandless, 1862). Above: 63. Mundurucu tattoos: captain Gabriel. The artist has Europeanised the facial features of captain Gabriel (Reproduced from Coudreau 1977 [1895], 110, etching n. 34).

Chandless also writes about Munduruku body ornamentation, stating that their faces were blackened all over, and the whole body tattooed in a check-pattern of black stripes (1862, 277), as we can see in Florences watercolours. Tocantins (1877) explains how he recognised a family he 50

encounters as being Munduruku: they were all painted on their face, chest and on all their bodies, with the lozenges and other figures characteristic of the tribe (1877, 76). He comments that these tattoos are related to the Munduruku myth of origin (1877, 115).

Based on compiled information, Barbosa Rodrigues (1875) also offers descriptions of the Munduruku, who he characterises as the most numerous and warlike [ethnic group] of the Amazon Valley, and the most accomplished in feather work (1875, 134-135). He explains that the tattooed geometric pattern (fig. 60 & 62), which takes up to twenty years to complete, is always the same, although some may have more lines, because these are indicative of services they rendered to the tribe. Some, in spite of their age, are not covered in paint, because they did not render services that lead to painting (1875, 136). Barbosa Rodrigues also mentions the existence of Munduruku malocas (indigenous houses) along the course of the river, remarking that the ones around the Mangabal rapid are abandoned (1875, 124).

However, given the depth of the dark earth found at the site, we may find that the Munduruku reoccupied the area; this would resonate with the known predilection of the Munduruku today for reoccupying areas of dark earth [PPTAL 2008, 25]).

Conclusion It appears probable that the TPM site was occupied by Munduruku speakers, possibly in the postcolonial period.10 As for the Cocalino and Paja sites, they indicate the existence of interactions with occupations further downstream and beyond the north bank of the Amazon. At present it is not possible to ascertain the nature of such interactions; further excavations and the knowledge of dates will be necessary for this.

We may find that these three sites are contemporaneous. The outlying rim sherd (Plate 3, fig. a), whose features are more akin to what is known from the Incised Punctuate Tradition (applied blob, modelled rim), found on the surface of the TPM site seems to point to contact with people further downstream.

10

Munduruku is a language family that belongs to the Tupi language stock.

51

5. Conclusion
Amerindian art is a vehicle of aesthetic visual communication in which even the most individualised manual talents are very much shared by the population: things are made by local artisans through processes known by all (Vidal & Lopes da Silva 2007 [1992], 281). This premise has guided the choice of ceramic decoration as the subject of this research. Comparisons to ceramic decoration encountered in other areas were based on the idea that borrowing is most likely to occur over a wide range of phenomena between cultures that share similar dimensions-modes/grammars (Roe 1976, 77). We have found that pottery from the Paja and Cocalino sites, located south of Itaituba, beyond the first rapids of the Upper Tapajs, share decorative elements with ceramics from the Incised Punctuate Tradition encompassing the Lower Tapajs, the NhamundTrombetas and parts of the Xingu and Orinoco River basins. This tradition has been associated with speakers of Carib languages and their expansion from the Orinoco basin (Cruxent & Rouse 1958, Lathrap 1970, Zucchi 1985). Further, the stratigraphic location of the sherds analysed found on the surface of the sites or in their uppermost layers suggest their relatively recent deposition when compared to pottery from older ceramic traditions in Amazonia, which fits with the Incised Punctuate traditions chronology, dated to c. AD 1000 in northern South America and to around the fifteenth century in nearby areas in the Amazon. This in turn has led us to speculate about whether the pottery worked on from Paja and Cocalino was pre- or post-colonial. In contrast, the pottery analysed from the Terra Preta do Mangabal site belongs to a different tradition that has yet to be defined; it does not seem to possess decorative elements in common with pottery from Paja and Cocalino, in spite of similar techniques and technology employed. The recurrent lozenge motif, incised on vessel bodies and rims, is strikingly akin to Munduruku body ornamentation in the form of tattooing. Accounts written by nineteenth century travellers to the Upper Tapajs have strengthened this supposition, through their description of the Munduruku tattooing process and its meanings, and through statements to the effect that the area in which the Terra Preta do Mangabal site is located was occupied by Mundurukus. The bellicose incursions of the Munduruku into neighbouring territories made them feared throughout the Tapajs; the first written accounts on the subject date from the eighteenth 52

century. This opens up the possibility that the TPM, Paja and Cocalino sites may in fact be contemporaneous. As peoples downstream suffered the debilitating effects of European conquest, they were attacked by the Munduruku red ants. In the following stages of research a number of questions will need to be explored. The association of Carib speakers to the Incised Punctuate Tradition in the Amazon is a critical issue, and may bring us closer to postulating which language stock the Tapaj Indians of the Lower Amazon belonged to. The nature of the interactions signalled by common decorative elements must similarly be investigated could they have been intermarital, commercial, belligerent? Following DeBoers (2003) example, the study of vessel forms will have to be conducted: their comparison to forms of older known complexes will aid us in understanding longer term continuities and ruptures in subsistence base and feasting patterns, for instance. The study of the areas rich lithic record, which stretches from pre-ceramic times into the sixteenth century, will also contribute to this longer term perspective. Greater attention must also be given to archaeological sites themselves, so that changes in population density or settlement patterns may be perceived. Continuing the survey of the region is therefore a priority.

Ironically, this may soon take place as part of the archaeological salvage work preceding the planned construction of hydroelectric dams along the river. The predominant assumption that only archaeological heritage buried underground is legitimate and worthy of rescue and preservation, however, means that while new sites will be found, forest peoples inheritors of the past we are studying and who live on or by the sites we will work on will be displaced. This calls for a longer term involvement in the area and work with local peoples in valuing their ways of life and heritage.

As an initial step in determining interactions with peoples in adjacent areas and further afield, ceramic decorations have much to tell about societies on the Upper Tapajs in the pre- and post-colonial period. It has become clear that the Tapajs was an area marked by cultural and linguistic diversity at the time of European conquest; upstream it was inhabited by the Munduruku (whose language family is a branch of the Tupi language stock), while the Paja and Cocalino sites may represent the Incised Punctuate Traditions southernmost limits as regards the Tapajs River; the implications of this warrant further investigation. 53

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59

Torres, M. (ed.). 2005. Amaznia Revelada. Os descaminhos ao longo da BR-163. Braslia: Centro Nacional de Pesquisas. ___________. 2008. A beiradeira e o grilador: ocupao e conflito no Oeste do Par. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of So Paulo. Torres, M. and Figueiredo, W. 2005. Yellowstone Paroara. Uma discusso sobre o papel das Unidades de Conservao e o exemplo do Parque Nacional da Amaznia. In: M. Torres (ed.), Amaznia Revelada. Os descaminhos ao longo da BR-163. Braslia: Centro Nacional de Pesquisas, 321-395. Urban, G. 2006 [1992]. A histria da cultura brasileira segundo as lnguas nativas. In: M.C. Cunha (ed.), Histria dos ndios no Brasil. So Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 87-102. van der Leeuw, S. 1993. Giving the potter a choice: conceptual aspects of pottery techniques. In: P. Lemmonier (ed.), Technological Choices: transformation in material cultures since the Neolithic. London: Routledge, 238-288. Vidal, L. and Lopes da Silva, A. 2005 [1992]. Antropologia esttica: enfoques tericos e contribuies metodolgicas. In: L. Vidal (ed.), Grafismo Indgena. So Paulo: Studio Nobel, Fapesp, Edusp, 279-293. White, L. 1949. The Science of Culture: A study of man and civilization. New York: Grove Press. Willey, G. and Phillips, P. 1958. Method and Theory in American Archaeology. Chicago: University of Chicago. Zimpel Neto, C. A. 2008. Na Direo das Periferias Extremas da Amaznia: Arqueologia na Bacia do Rio Jiparan, Rondnia. Unpublished MA Dissertation, University of So Paulo. Zucchi, A. 1985. Evidencias arqueolgicas sobre grupos de posible lengua Caribe. Antropolgica, 63-64, 23-44. Zuse, S. 2011. Ocupaes pr-coloniais e variabilidade cermica nos stios arqueolgicos do Alto rio Madeira, Rondnia. Unpublished PhD Candidacy Report, University of So Paulo. Images and Maps: Advert by Queiroz Galvo construction company announcing the birth of Juarez Furtado de Arajo Transamaznico. Realidade magazine, 1971, 316 , Amazonia. In: M. G. Torres, 2008. A beiradeira e o grilador: ocupao e conflito no Oeste do Par. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of So Paulo, 287.

60

Florence, H. Aux bas-fonds appells Tiacoron, la Riv. Tapajs, Juin 1828; Femme et enfant Mandurucs. In: CCBB, Expedio Langsdorff. So Paulo: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2010, 192-193. Map in Introduction, p. 7 adapted by Vinicius Honorato from Natural Earth online website. Retrieved on 16th September 2012 from the World Wide Web: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/ Maps in Annexes 4 and 7 adapted by Vinicius Honorato from Miranda, E. E. de. 2005. Brasil em Relevo. Campinas: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satlite. Retrieved on 1st October 2011 from World Wide Web: http://www.relevobr.cnpm.embrapa.br/

61

Appendix

UPPER TAPAJS PROJECT

ANNEX 1
AUGER RECORD FORM Site: _____________
Test hole n: ________________ Resp. person:_____________________________ Date:___/____/______ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pottery: ___ Lithic flakes:___ Polished lithics:___ Charcoal: ___ Seed:___ China, glass or porcelain:___ Other:______

Obs.:_____________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

Sondagem n: __________________Responsvel:___________________________ Data:___/____/______ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pottery: ___ Lithic flakes:___ Polished lithics:___ Charcoal: ___ Seed:___ China, glass or porcelain:___ Other:______

Obs.:_____________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

ANNEX 2

INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY (UCL) UPPER TAPAJS PROJECT EXCAVATION LEVEL FORM

Sheet n :___/___

NW

NE

Unit: ___________________________ Level: __________________________ Layer:__________________________ PN(s):__________________________ __________________________ Charcoal collection:_______________ Dating sample:___________________ Soil colour:______________________ _______________________________ Soil texture: _____________________ ______________________________ Responsible person: ______________ ______________________________ Date: _____/_____/_________
SW
Scale: 1:10

SE

Legend:
Lithic flake: Polished lithic: Pottery: Charcoal: Bone: Seed: China, glass, porcelain: Other: Diffuse limit between layers: Defined limit between layers:

---------___________

________________

Observations: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

ANNEX 3

INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY (UCL) UPPER TAPAJS PROJECT PROVENIENCE NUBER FORM

Site:________________________ Unit/Sector: _______________ Resp. Person:________________ Date:___/___/____

PN

Description

A`
65

ANNEX 4
85
95
E 10 00 00 0

55 m

TERRA PRETA DO MANGABAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Itaituba - Par, Brazil

75 m

25 11

10

75

E1

110 m
0 90 0 00 E9 50

10

25

E1

00

0 00 N E1 0 10 0 5 10 0

50

10

00

E1

KEY 1 m unit

10

00

00

0 95

100 m

Auger hole
90 m

Contour (5m)
m

80
70

A
m

Cross section

TN
M6N .6
1

60 m

N1000 E1000: UTM 21M 510468/9428160

Tapa j

50 m

s Riv

er

Ta p

aj

50 m

sR

0m iv

A
Section A-A
110 m 100 m 90 m 80 m 70 m 60 m 50 m 125 m 250 m 375 m 500 m 650 m

er

50 m

100 m

150 m 200 m

Source: MIRANDA, E. E. de; (Coord.). Brasil em Relevo. Campinas: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satlite, 2005.Available at: http://www.relevobr.cnpm.embrapa.br. Accessed on 01/10/2011

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site

Ponta do Jatob archaeological site

s Tapaj
0 km 2 km 4 km 6 km 8 km 10 km
Map by Vinicius Honorato

N1075 E 1000
10YR 2/1

ANNEX 5

10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2

MN -16.6

TERRA PRETA DO MANGABAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE: SOIL PROFILES Itaituba- Par, Brazil

N1100 E 1000
10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2

KEY*
10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2 10YR 3/1 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/3 10YR 3/4, 10YR 3/6 10YR 4/4, 10YR 4/6 10YR 4/1 7.5YR 4/1 10YR 4/2 10YR 4/3 10YR 5/4 10YR 5/6 10YR 5/8 7.5YR 5/6

10YR 4/6 N1075 E 1000

10YR 2/1

Black Very dark brown Very dark gray Very dark grayish brown Dark brown Dark yellowish brown Dark gray Dark grayish brown Brown Yellowish brown Strong Brown
*Colours are approximate representations of Munsell Soil Color Chart.

10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2 N1050 E 1000
10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2 10YR 3/2 (50%), 10YR 3/6 (50%) 10YR 3/2 (50%), 10YR 3/6 (50%) N1025 E 1000
10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2 10YR 4/2 (50%), 10YR 4/6 (50%) 10YR 5/8 (50%), 10YR 3/3 (50%)

N1000 E 900
10YR 3/2

N1000 E 925
10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2
10YR 3/2 (50%) 10YR 4/6 (50%) 10YR 3/2 (50%) 10YR 4/6 (50%)

N1000 E 950
10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2
7.5YR 5/6 (50%) 7.5YR 4/1 (50%) 7.5YR 5/6 (80%) 7.5YR 4/1 (20%) 7.5YR 5/6 (80%) 7.5YR 4/1 (20%)

N1000 E 975
10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1

N1000 E 1000
10YR 2/1

N1000 E 1025
10YR 2/1

N1000 E 1050
10YR 2/1

10YR 3/2 10YR 3/4 10YR 3/4 10YR 3/6

10YR 3/6

10YR 2/1 10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2 10YR 5/4

10YR 3/1 10YR 4/3 10YR 4/3

10YR 5/6 10YR 4/3

10YR 2/1 10YR 4/2 10YR 4/2 10YR 4/2

N975 E 1000
10YR 2/1

10YR 3/1 (80%), 10YR 4/6 (20%) 10YR 3/1 (60%), 10YR 4/6 (40%) 10YR 4/6 (90%), 10YR 3/1 (10%) 10YR 4/6 (90%), 10YR 3/1 (10%)

N950 E 1000
10YR 2/1

10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2 10YR 3/3 10YR 3/3, 10YR 5/6

Graphic art by Vinicius Honorato

Not to scale

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site - Itaituba - Par - Brazil

UNIT E.1000 / N.1074 - STRATIGRAPHIC PROFILE
E.1000 N.1073 0 (cm) 10
CR L L CR CR

KEY Pottery

ANNEX 6.1

E.999 N.1073

E.999 N.1074

Charcoal
L CR R

Lithic flake (L), Thermal lithic flake (TF) Cobble-sized rock Root Bioturbation Surface

IV
R

L L

20

Clearly defined limit between layers Diffuse limit between layers

30
PN 161

CR CR TL L

40

PN 160

III

PN 162

Humic layer. Soil colour 10YR 2/1 Black. Roots, rootlets and biotic activity. Pottery present. Soil of clayey-sandy texture. Soil colour 2/1 Black. Layer impacted by recent agricultural activities. High density of archaeological remains (particularly from 20-30cm depth), although these are smaller than those in Layer III. Silex, quartz and arenite lithics (chips and flakes). Loose soil, of clayeysandy texture. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets.

50 IV 60

70

L L

II

80 III 90

100

110

I
II

Soil colour 10YR 3/1 Very dark grey. Anthropogenic soil. Layer with greatest density of archaeological remains (pottery and flaked lithics), esp. at around 30-40cm depth. Pottery fragments found also larger; however not disposed in any particular orientation in spite of impression of horizontal orientation given in drawing. Large quantity of cobble-sized stones. Number of bioturbations also high. The texture of the soil is clayeysandy and the soil is loose. Transition layer in which few vestiges occur, some of which can be associated to bioturbations. Mottled soil: 10YR 3/2 Very dark grayish brown and 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown. Clayey-sandy soil texture.

120

130
TH WEST

140

SOU

150

Soil colour 10YR 5/6 Yellowish brown. Although archaeological remains were encountered within the levels 80-150cm, their presence is attributed to bioturbations. Therefore, this layer is archaeologically sterile. The soil is damp, highly compacted, with a clayeysandy texture. This layer merges into Layer II.

160 0 100 200cm

SOUTHERN PROFILE - N.1073m

WESTERN PROFILE - E.999m

Not excavated. Graphic art by Marcos Brito Castro

Terra Preta do Mangabal archaeological site - Itaituba - Par - Brazil

UNIT E.1000 / N.1074 - STRATIGRAPHIC PROFILE
E.999 N.1074 0 (cm) 10 E.1000 N.1074

ANNEX 6.2

KEY

V
20

Pottery Charcoal

IV
30
L L CR

L L CR

Lithic flake Cobble-sized rock Bioturbation Surface Clearly defined limit between layers Diffuse limit between layers

40

50

III

60 V 70

Humic layer. Soil colour 10YR 2/1 Black. Roots, rootlets and biotic activity. Pottery present. Soil of clayey-sandy texture. Soil colour 2/1 Black. Layer impacted by recent agricultural activities. High density of archaeological remains (particularly from 20-30cm depth), although these are smaller than those in Layer III. Silex, quartz and arenite lithics (chips and flakes). Loose soil, of clayeysandy texture. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets. Soil colour 10YR 3/1 Very dark grey. Anthropogenic soil. Layer with greatest density of archaeological remains (pottery and flaked lithics), esp. at around 30-40cm depth. Pottery fragments found also larger; however not disposed in any particular orientation in spite of impression of horizontal orientation given in drawing. Large quantity of cobble-sized stones. Number of bioturbations also high. The texture of the soil is clayey-sandy and the soil is loose. Transition layer in which few vestiges occur, some of which can be associated to bioturbations. Mottled soil: 10YR 3/2 Very dark grayish brown and 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown. Clayey-sandy soil texture. Soil colour 10YR 5/6 Yellowish brown. Although archaeological remains were encountered within the levels 80-150cm, their presence is attributed to bioturbations. Therefore, this layer is archaeologically sterile. The soil is damp, highly compacted, with a clayey-sandy texture. This layer merges into Layer II . Not excavated.

II
80

IV

90 III 100

110

I
120 II

130 I 140
NORT H

150

160 0 100cm

NORTHERN PROFILE - N.1074m

Graphic Art by Marcos Brito Castro

ANNEX 7

35 m

90 m
85 m
N1 10 0E 10 75

10

25

00

0E

75

13 00 0E 11 5 05 75 10 N1 00 0E N1 00 0E N1 00 0E N1

0E

10

00

N1

12

80 m

00

Ta p

aj

45

sR

75
65 m

ive

55

m
80 m

N9

50

TN
50 m

E1

85

M6N .6
1
Map by Vinicius Honorato

50 m

0m

50 m

100 m 150 m

200 m

PAJA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Itaituba - Par, Brazil
Section A-A
90 m 80 m 70 m 60 m 50 m 40 m 125 m 250 m 375 m

KEY 1 m unit Auger hole Contour (5m)

A
A

N1000 E1000: UTM 21M 582600/94933124

350 m
300 m 250 m 200 m 150 m 100 m 50 m

Cross section

Tapajs River

Paja archaeological site

0m

0 km

3 km

70 m

85

75 m

N1

07
70 m

35 m

40 m

60 m

6 km

500 m

Source: MIRANDA, E. E. de; (Coord.). Brasil em Relevo. Campinas: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satlite, 2005.Available at: http://www.relevobr.cnpm.embrapa.br. Accessed on 01/10/2011

N1100 E1075 10YR 2/2

ANNEX 8 PAJA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE: SOIL PROFILES Itaituba- Par, Brazil

MN -16.6

10YR 3/2 10YR 4/3 7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6 N1075 E1075 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2 10 YR 4/3 7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6 N1050 E1075 10YR 2/2
7.5YR 4/3 (90%) 7.5YR 5/6 (10%) 7.5YR 4/2 (50%) 7.5YR 5/6 (50%)

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6 N1025 E1075 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2
7.5YR 4/3 (50%) 7.5YR 4/2 (50%)

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

N1000 E975 10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2

7.5YR 4/1 (50%) 7.5YR 5/6 (50%)

N1000 E1000 10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2

7.5YR 4/2 (60%) 7.5YR 5/6 (40%)

N1000 E1025 10YR 2/2

7.5YR 4/6 (70%) 7.5YR 3/2 (30%)

N1000 E1050 10YR 2/2 10YR 3/3 7.5YR 4/6 7.5YR 4/6 7.5YR 4/6

N1000 E1075 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2

10YR 4/2 (70%) 7.5YR 4/6 (30%) 7.5YR 4/6 (70%) 10YR 4/2 (30%)

N1000 E1100 10YR 2/1 10YR 3/2

10YR 4/2 (50%) 7.5YR 4/6 (50%) 7.5YR 4/6 (50%) 10YR 4/2 (50%)

N1000 E1125 10YR 3/1

7.5YR 5/6 (50%) 7.5YR 4/2 (50%) 7.5YR 5/6 (90%) 10YR 4/2 (10%)

N1000 E1150 10YR 2/2 10YR 3/2

10YR 4/6 (70%) 7.5YR 5/6 (30%) 7.5YR 5/6 (70%) 10YR 4/6 (30%)

N1000 E1175 10YR 2/2

10YR 4/2 (90%) 7.5YR 5/6 (10%) 10YR 5/6 (90%) 7.5YR 4/2 (10%)

N1000 E1200 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2

10YR 4/2 (50%) 10YR 5/4 (50%)

N1000 E 1225 10YR 4/3 10YR 4/4

10YR 6/6 (50%) 10YR 4/2 (50%) 10YR 6/6 (50%) 10YR 4/2 (50%)

N1000 E 1250 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2

10YR 4/2 (50%) 10YR 5/4 (50%) 10YR 5/4 (80%) 10YR 4/2 (20%)

N1000 E 1275 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2 10YR 4/3 10YR 6/6 10YR 6/6

N1000 E 1300 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2 10YR 4/2 10YR 4/6 10YR 5/6

N1000 E 1325 10YR 3/2 10YR 3/2

10YR 4/3 (60%), 10YR 5/6 (40%) 10YR 5/6 (70%) 10YR 4/3 (30%)

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 6/6

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6

10YR 6/6

10YR 5/4

10YR 5/6

N975 E1075 10YR 2/2

7.5YR 4/2 (70% 7.5YR 5/6(30%) 7.5YR 4/2 (60%) 7.5YR 5/6(40%)

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

KEY* 10YR 2/1 10YR 2/2 10YR 3/1 10YR 3/2 Black Very dark brown Very dark gray Very dark grayish brown Dark brown 10YR 6/6 7.5YR 4/2
10YR 3/4, 10YR 3/6 Dark yellowish brown 10YR 4/4, 10YR 4/6 10YR 4/4

N950 E1075 10YR 2/2

10YR 3/2 (80%) 7.5YR 5/6 (20%) 10YR 3/2 (20%) 7.5YR 5/6 (80%)

10YR 4/2 10YR 4/3 10YR 5/4 10YR 5/6

Dark grayish brown Brown Yellowish brown Brownish yellow Brown Strong Brown Dark brown Reddish yellow

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

N925 E1075 10YR 2/2

10YR 4/4 (90%) 7.5YR 5/6 (10%) 7.5YR 5/6 (90%) 10YR 4/2 (10%)

10YR 3/3

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 5/6

7.5YR 5/6 7.5YR 3/2 7.5YR 6/6

10YR 4/1 7.5YR 4/1

Dark gray

*Colours are approximate representations of Munsell Soil Color Chart.

Not to scale

Graphic art by Vinicius Honorato

Paja archaeological site - Itaituba - PA - Brazil

UNIT E.1071 / N.1080 - STRATIGRAPHIC PROFILE
E.1070 N.1079 0 (cm) 10
R R R R

ANNEX 9
E.1070 N.1080 E.1071 N.1080
R

20

CR R R R R

IV

30

III
40

50
R

II

60

70

CR

WES

NOR TH

80

90 0 100 200cm

WESTERN PROFILE - E.1070m

V

NORTHERN PROFILE - N.1080m

II

Humic layer. Soil colour 10YR 2/2 Very dark brown. Roots, rootlets and biotic activity. Pottery present. Sandy-clayey soil. Soil colour 2/1 Black. High density of archaeological remains (pottery and lithics). The pottery fragments found are larger; they are not disposed in any particular orientation. Lithics vary from chips to flakes; cobble-sized stones also found in great number. Charcoal present, however not collected because of proximity to surface. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets. Soil colour 10YR 2/2 Very dark brown. The density of archaeological remains (pottery and flaked lithics) is inferior to that of Layer IV. Presence of bioturbations, roots and rootlets. Charcoal collected from this layer. The texture of the soil is clayey-sandy and it becomes increasingly compact as Layer II approaches.

KEY Pottery Charcoal

CR R

IV

Transition layer whose inferior and superior limits are indistinct. Mottled soil: 10YR 4/2 Dark grayish brown and 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown; the proportion of the latter increases with proximity to layer I. Clayey soil texture. Low density of archaeological remains. Charcoal present. Large amount of bioturbations filled with dark-coloured sediment.

Cobble-sized rock Root Bioturbation Surface Diffuse limit between layers

III

Soil colour 7.5YR 5/6 Strong brown. Archaeologically sterile. Highly compacted soil, clayey texture. Bioturbations present; a cobble-sized stone can be seen in the profile. This layer merges into layer II. Not excavated.

Graphic Art by Marcos Brito Castro

ANNEX 10 Attributes related to technology (4-8), form (2, 3, 9-13, 15) and decoration (14, 1623) were observed:
1. Identification number
2. Type of fragment 0 - Not identified 1 - Base 2 - Body sherd 3 - Inflection 4 - Body Flange 5 - Handle 6 - Adorno 7 - Rim 8 - Labial Flange 9 - Whole Vessel 4. Internal Surface Treatment 4.0 - Other 4.1 - Smoothed 4.2 - Burnished 4.3 - Resin 4.4 - Polished 4.5 - Brushed 4.6 - Eroded 7. Colour of the Paste 7.0 - Undetermined 7.1 - Oxidised 7.2 - Reduced 7.3 - Internally Oxidised/ Externally Reduced 7.4 - Internally Reduced/Externally oxidised 7.5 - Reduced core 9. Vessel contour 9.0 - Undetermined 9.1 - Simple 9.2 - Composite 9.3 - Inflected 9.4 - Complex 12. Rim inclination 12.0 - None 12.1 - Direct 12.2 - Everted 12.3 - Introverted 3.1 Sherd thickness (mm) 3.2 Diameter (mm) 0 - Not identified

5. External Surface Treatment 5.0 - Other 5.1 - Smoothed 5.2 - Burnished 5.3 - Resin 5.4 - Polished 5.5 - Brushed 5.6 - Eroded 8. Temper 8.0 - Undetermined 8.1 - Cauix 8.2 - Caraip 8.3 - Grog 8.4 - Mineral 8.5 - Haematite 8.6 - Clay 8.7 - Bone 10. Vessel shape 10.0 - Undetermined 10.1 - Restricted 10.2 - Unrestricted 10.3 - Vertical

6. Forming technique 6.0 - Undetermined 6.1 - Coiled 6.2 - Modelled

8. cont. 8.8 - Shell 8.9 - Quartz 8.10 - Charcoal 8.11 - Quartz sand 8.12 - Voids

11. Inflection point(s) 11.0 - None 11.1 - Rounded 11.2 - Acute 11.3 - Carinated

13. Lip shape 13.0 - None 13.1 - Pointed 13.2 - Bevelled 13.3 - Internally strengthened 13.4 - Ext.strengthened 13.5 - Expanded 13.6 - Rounded 13.7 - Flat 13.8 - Excised/grooved 13.9 - Hollow

14. Lip finish 14.0 - None 14.1 - Rounded 14.2 - Flat 14.3 - Cut 14.4 - Impressed 14.5 - Slipped 14.6 - Painted 14.7 - Modelled

Annex 10

15. Base shape 15.0 - None 15.1 - Flat 15.2 - Convex 15.3 - Pedestal 15.4 - Concave 15.5 - Flat with leaf impression 15.6 - Foot

16. Decorative surface 16.0 - None 16.1 - Internal 16.2 - External 16.3 - Both

17. Decoration type and location 17.0 - None 17.1 - Painted internal 17.2 - Painted external 17.3 - Plastic Internal 17.4 - Plastic External 17.5 - Slip internal 17.6 - Slip External 17.7 - Rim 20. Paint colour 20.0 - None 20.1 - Burgundy 20.2 - Red 20.3 - Orange 20.4 - Yellow 20.5 - Black 20.6 - White 20.7 - Negative 20.8 - Brown

18. Colour of slip 18.0 - None 18.1 - White 18.2 - Burgundy 18.3 - Red 18.4 - Orange 18.5 - Yellow 18.6 - Black

19. Type of painting 19.0 - None 19.1 - Fine lines 19.2 - Thick bands 19.3 - Straight lines 19.4 - Curved lines 19.5 - Post firing 19.6 - Pre-firing 19.7 - Undetermined

21. Type of Pl. decoration 21.0 - None 21.1 - Lip finish 21.2 - Incised 21.3 - Ungulate/Finger tip mark 21.4 - Impressed 21.5 - Perforated 21.6 - Modelling 21.7 - Adornos

22. Plastic decoration patterns 22.0 - None 22.1.1 Nicked lip 22.1.2 "Serrated" lip 22.1.3 Punctuated lip 22.1.4 Undetermined 22.1.5 Fingernail ridged 22.2.1 Fish spine incision 22.2.2 Parallel incision

22.2.3 Zoned-hachured incision 22.2.4 Incised curved lines 22.3.1 Ungulate/ finger tip 22.4.1 Punctuation (rectilinear) 22.4.2 Punctuation (round stylus) 22.4.3 Cord or fibre impression 22.5.1 Perforation 22.6. Modelled 22.7.1 Applied fillet 22.7.2 Applied blob

23. State of paste when plastic decoration was executed 23.0 - Undetermined 23.1 - Wet/damp 23.2 - Leather hard/dry 23.3 - Post firing 23.4 - Pre-slip 23.5 - Post slip

Annex 10

ANNEX 11

Temper Cauix is the generic name given to freshwater sponges. The shape of the sponge spicules is acicular. Caraip derives from the burnt bark of certain trees. Both cauix and caraip are high in silica content.

Tempers commonly used in Amazonia. Left, cauix; Right, caraip and quartz. Photographs of Paredo pottery (40x magnification) by Claide de Paula Moraes.

Identification of firing environment

Adapted from chart used by the Central Amazon Project, courtesy of Mrjorie Lima.

Plate 1
Terra Preta do Mangabal

e d

h g

k l

Figs. a-e: lozenge-shaped incisions on rim and body sherds; f & i: perpendicular incision possible fish spine motif; g, j, k: straight, parallel incisions; h: triangular-shaped incision possible fish spinemotif; l: parallel, curvilinear incision.

Plate 2
Terra Preta do Mangabal

Fig. a: remountable fragments of vessel with lozenge-shaped incision, nicked rim and lip, applied vertical fillets forming ridges, also nicked.

Plate 3
Terra Preta do Mangabal

c d

Fig. a: Orange-slipped rim sherd with modelled lip and appliqu blob (found on surface); b: fibre-impressed body sherd, subsequently coated with white slip; c: rim sherd displaying clay additions around circumference; d: modelled rim producing wavy effect; e: modelling on body sherd.

Plate 4
Terra Preta do Mangabal

d c

Figs. a - f: everted, nicked rims and lips; g: direct nicked rim.

Plate 5
Terra Preta do Mangabal

c a b

Figs. a-d: direct, serrated rims and lips; e: ungulate impression on body sherd; f: impressed punctuation on rim; g: modelled body sherd.

Plate 6
Paja

c b

f d g

j i h

Fig. a & e: horizontally applied clay fillets with round-edged punctuations; b: rim sherd with horizontally applied clay fillets and round-edged punctuations -- fillets are accompanied by lines of orange paint; c: body sherd with fish spine incision and vestige of red paint; d, f, g, i: body sherds with red paint; h:modelled, undecorated handle; j: body sherd with black resist paint in curvilinear design. Photographs of figs. c, e, f and g taken by Rogrio Andrade dos Santos.

Plate 7
Paja

b c a

d g

f e

k i j

5cm

Fig. a: Double-line rectangular-shaped punctuations on internal face of everted, serrated rim; b: lines of rectangular-shaped punctuations on body sherd; c: lines of parallel rectangular-shaped punctuation below rim on external surface of sherd; d: line of rectangular-shaped punctuation placed above incision (possible fish spine motif); e: fish spine incisions; f: T shaped parallel incision; g: possible fish spine motif - otherwise, convergent lines; h: perforations possible colander?; i: impressed lip; j & k: serrated lips.

Plate 8
Cocalino

b a

Fig. a: incised fish-spine design on outer surface near rim; b: parallel vertical incisions on internal face of everted rim; c and d: converging isoceles triangles; e: parallel incisions; f: crossed incised design; g: applied fillets with punctuation; h: punctuation along lip.

Plate 9
Boa Vista

Fig. a: Hollow rim sherd; b: hollow, red-slipped rim with wavy modelled lip. Photograph of fig. a. taken by Rogrio Andrade dos Santos.