Maraj ó Island (Marajoara) 2) Santarem 3) Central Amazon 4) Gavan (Western Venezuela)

1. AMAZON 4 • Marajó Island • (Marajoara) • 2) Santarem • 3) Central Amazon • 4) Gavan • (Western Venezuela) • 5) Acre, Brazil • 6) Lowland Bolivia • 7) Upper Xingu River 1 2 3 5 7 6

2. Rolling Stone, 10/17/07

3. “In the beginning all the World was America” John Locke, 1690 Res (terra) nullius

4. Handbook of SA Indians (1946-1950) • Andean Civilization (2) (covered in PIII; pp. 640-668) • Tropical Forest Tribes (3) (pp. 668-677) • Circum-Caribbean Tribes (4) • Marginal Tribes (1) • Based on geographic distributions and perceived cultural variability

5. Culture Areas of SA Culture areas, although geographically defined, formed a classification of cultural groups in SA, based on economic, sociopolitical, and religious patterns. • Culture change seen as adaptation to different environments, and • Amazonian tropical forest environment seen as limiting cultural development Julian H. Steward and Cultural Ecology

6. HSAI and Stages of Cultural Evolution state Andean States chiefdom Circum-Caribbean Chiefdoms tribe Tropical Forest Tribes band Marginal Bands the tropical forest tribe: i.e., you get (in the past) what you see (in 20th century), or, the “one size fits all Amazonian Indian”

7. Tropical Forest Tribe “the Tropical Forest peoples [like marginals] had sociopolitical units consisting principally of kin groups and structured along lines of age, sex, and associations, but theirs differed from those of the Marginal tribes in that more developed exploitative devices, which included farming, and better transportation afforded by the canoe, permitted larger and more stable units” (HSAI 1948; The Tropical Forest Tribes, Vol. 3)

8. The “Great Divide” • According to Steward and followers, complex societies emerged in the Andean area and complex societies (chiefdoms) in Amazon must be the result of diffusion or migration from the Andes Highlands (Andes) Lowlands (Amazon) The two major geographic blocks that cover the majority of South America are the Andes and Amazonia

9. Archaeologists Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans carried forward Steward’s idea that only a tribal level of development could occur in lowland Amazonia due to environmental limitations

10. Donald Lathrap (1970) defined “Tropical Forest Culture” based on shared economic and cultural patterns, rather than as an evolutionary stage, and argued that large complex societies emerged in Amazonia, as reported in early historical accounts. • Today, the great variability recognized within the lowlands makes it difficult to define any “typical” cultural pattern, any more than other major world regions.

11. Early Agriculturalists • Lathrap suggested that by 6,000-4,000 BP riverine agriculture, based on a diversified root and tree crops and other tropical forest plants was established

12. Manioc, the major Amazonian staple crop (domesticated by 6,000-8,000 BC, based on genetic evidence)

13. At least 138 crops with some degree of domestication were being cultivated or managed by native Amazonians at the time of European conquest (83 crops native to Amazonia). • 68% of these Amazonian crops are fruit or nut trees or woody perennials (not surprising in Amazon forest). Peach Palm

14. Landscape domestication and management of non-domesticated plants and animals and incipient or semi-domesticates

15. Muscovy Duck Currasow (like “wild turkey”) Parrots & Macaws

16. Amazonian Barrancoid • Lathrap also suggested that developed tropical forest agriculture, possibly associated with early complex societies (c. 1000-1 BC) shared this ceramic tradition across much of Amazonia, associated with speakers of Arawak languages Distribution and movements of Arawak Groups in South America, 3-2,000 BP

17. The Tropical Diaspora Austronesian Arawak Bantu Tupi-Guarani Tupi languages originated in SW Amazonia by 3000-2000 BC Proto-Arawak likely began to diverge c. 2000 BC

18. Origin (homeland) By AD 1 Distribution of Tupi-Guarani languages

19. The Arawak Diaspora 500 BC Possible origin areas 300 BC BC/AD1

20. Saladoid ceramics, Caribbean (similatr to what is called “Barrancoid” ni Amazonia; both defined from Orinoco River, Venezuela

21. Northern Amazonia (Saladoid/Barrancoid) Trants, Caribbean c. 500 BC-AD 600 Gaván, Western Orinoquia, c. AD 600-1300

22. Polychrome Tradition • The Amazonian Polychrome Tradition represents a transformation, c. 1000 years ago, of the earlier Barrancoid Tradition ceramic industry by widespread trade of fine ceramics (“wealth” goods) between elites up and down the Amazon

23. Amazonian Polychrome Tradition

24. Várzea-Terra Firme Dichotomy,or Várzea Model • Distribution of fine ceramics (Amazonian Polychrome Tradition), large sites, and monuments led many researchers to suggest that chiefdoms were restricted to the floodplains of the Amazon and its Andean derived tributaries due to their rich agricultural soils • Terra firme peoples still generally believed to have lived at a tropical forest or “tribal” level

25. The Várzea (Amazon floodplain) Model

26. By about 1970 scholars generally agreed that large, settled populations (chiefdoms) existed along the Amazon, based in large part on early historic accounts (16th-17th century) “We went among some islands which we thought uninhabited, but, after we got to be in among them, so numerous were the settlements which came into sight … that we grieved; and, when they saw us, there came out to meet us on the river over two hundred pirogues [canoes], that each one carries twenty or thirty Indians and some forty …; they were quite colorfully decorated with various emblems, and they had with them many trumpets and drums …. and on land a marvelous thing to see were the squadron formations that were in the villages, all playing on instruments and dancing about, manifesting great joy upon seeing that we were passing beyond their villages” Gaspar Carvajal, 25 June 1542 (Medina 1988:218), reporting on the earliest expedition down the Amazon River in 1541-1542

27. MARAJOARA • Once thought to be a chiefdom that migrated from the Andes (could not have emerged in Amazon due to environmental limitations) • Now know that these monument-building regional chiefdoms developed in place starting soon after the time of Christ until the time of European contact (1492) • Major mound-building after AD 400-600, early clear example of Amazonian Polychrome Tradition

28. Caumtins (Marajoara) mound group Elite mounds

30. Domestic mounds

31. ? Elite Mounds (Camutins) Regional Ceramic Traditions

32. Marajoara burial urns

33. Megaliths north of the Mouth of the Amazon AD 1-500

34. Amazonian Stonehenge (Amapa), ca. AD 1-500

35. Macapa burial urns, north of the mouth of the Amazon, ca. AD 1500-1600

36. CENTRAL AMAZON

37. Eduardo Neves, “Long-term Interactions between People and Nature in the Central Amazon” (UF, Monday 03/01, 12:00; Dauer Hall 219)

38. Açutuba (“big Port”), central Amazon, ca. 300 BC-AD 1600

39. Guarita (APT) midden, c. 1200-1400 Amazonian Polychrome Tradition (Guarita) midden, ca. AD 1000 Barrancoid, etc. midden c. 300 BC – AD 800

40. Ceramics from Açutuba (Central Amazon, Polychrome Tradition)

41. Amazonian “black earth” sites - “terra preta” (TP), after ca. AD 1

42. Hidden Civilizations? Santarém Cahokia, AD 1150

43. Santarém ceramics “very great quantities of porcelain ware of various makes … the best that has ever been seen in the world” (Carvajal 1542)

44. European Contact • Recent research demonstrates that the catastrophic effects of European contact, notably depopulation from Old World diseases, decimated the complex societies of the Amazon floodplains, but also reached throughout the Amazon forest, even though European explorers themselves seldom ventured into many parts of the Amazon until recently

45. Areas of Complex Societies in Amazonia

47. 1 3 2 1) Acre, Brazil; 2) lowland Bolivia; 3) Upper Xingu River

48. Geoglyphs of Western Amazonia (Acre, Brazil)

49. Acre, Brazil

50. Mound linked by causeways in domesticated landscapes of lowland Bolivia