819 - Cultural Landscapes on Amazon Archaeological Sites

16.07.2012 | 17:30 - 19:30
17.07.2012 | 17:30 - 19:30

Convener 1: Magalhaes, Marcos (Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi , Belem, Brazil / Brasilien)
Convener 2: Guapindaia, Vera (Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belem, Brazil / Brasilien)

A cultural landscape is a constructed place where the environment was reshaped becoming an artifact, like ceramics and lithics materials, bringing to us cultural aspects related with ancient indigenous societies. The way that those societies changed the environment, choosing specific places for settlements, modifying the topography, the soil, managing and cultivating tropical seeds, can indicate how technical abilities were capable to increase the acquisition of food and to maintain a large population. The results of those practices have brought to archaeologists some paths to identify archaeological sites. The soil has become black (known as Amazonian Dark Earth); a certain sort of trees next to the site are related with food supply, hunt or to provide woods; and caves were utilized as settlements or as special places to play ceremonies. The symposium has the aim to show three different archaeological sites located at the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, providing discuss about the importance that environment has to interpret old indigenous traditions.

Keywords: Amazon, Landscapes, Ceramics, Chronology.