Chapter
47
Amazonian Mosaics: Identity,
Interaction, and Integration
in the Tropical Forest
MICHAEL J. HECKENBERGER
INTRODUCTION
Identity is one of anthropology’s oldest and favorite topics of inquiry. Interests have
bounced between polemic ideas of primordial conditions, biology, descent, and natural
communities to those of situation and contingency, alliance, and imagined communities.
Identity in cultural anthropology is most commonly viewed as a sense of self or self-awareness
– of personhood or subjectivity – that involves reflexive understandings of sameness and
difference with “others” (Jenkins 1996). This paper discusses questions of identity and,
particularly, historical and archaeological identities in Amazonia. It takes as its point of
departure the idea that questions of identity, like those of equally popular agency or practice, are scalar. Further, in place of traditional views of cultural and ecological uniformity,
recent research on all fronts, aided by the immense power of computers and remotely
sensed imagery, suggests that variability and dynamic change are no less pronounced in
Amazonia than any other equally proportioned place on earth (and see Chapters 11, 12, 20
and 50 in this volume).
Archaeologists also have grappled protractedly with questions of identity (see, e.g.,
Jones 1997), insofar as they attempt to reveal how groups of artifacts or other material
things reflect the identities (ethnicity, gender, and role) of the people who made or interacted
with them and how these identities were deployed in social interactions (by agents).
Recently, archaeologists have turned to questions of the body and personhood as strategic
loci of social agency in the archaeological record. They approach these questions quite
differently than cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists who take the present
as the point of departure. Archaeologists see the human body not only as a privileged site
Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell.
Springer, New York, 2008
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of cultural process, but instead as an inflection point between the microscopic worlds of
specific events, individual cultural acts, and particulate phenomenon (bone chemistries,
genetics, fish bones, stone chips, charcoal, and the like), with the mesoscopic world of
gender, status and role, and household and community, which, in turn, articulate with macroscopic worlds of cultural identity within regional systems. While students of the present
may concentrate on one or another level of analysis, for the archaeologist personhood must
be understood from a multi-scalar and iterative perspective, linking local to regional and
short-term to long-term, and boundaries change according to perspective.
Approaching Amazonian archaeological identities requires that we accept a certain
collective identity that extends well beyond the individual person or community and also
extends well beyond the present. It assumes that there is something fundamentally similar
among groups living in this region, as opposed to the Andes or temperate Europe, and
to sub-groupings (archaeological “phases,” “traditions,” “series,” “cultures,” and the like).
But, what are these large-scale social identities? How do we relate them to actual human
lives, sentiments, or feelings of selfness and otherness, and social interaction? How and
why do they change?
In Amazonia, many of these questions of identity are premature, as the basic rudiments of space and time systematics are still being worked out, often for the first time,
and, in fact, most of the area remains archaeological terra incognito. Nevertheless, strategic comparisons between archaeological, linguistic, and ethnographic distributions reveal
broad ethno-linguistic and smaller-scale socio-cultural groups (archaeological “cultures”).
Importantly, archaeology and early ethnohistory are means to understand Amazonian identities over the long-term, which often reveal an historical distortion and systematic bias in
views that fail to contextualize the societies present in the twentieth century within much
longer histories.
Therefore, one of the first steps in reconstructing past identities is to deconstruct
present ones, which means questioning certain basic assumptions. As Strathern (1999:
235) notes: “A society, like a culture, is [,] so to speak [,] already written and forever remaining to be so,” and interpretation is always done in “a world already occupied by ‘societies.’ ”
The history of Amazonian identities has yet to be written. The societies written into or onto
the Amazon are generally those from the twentieth century: small, autonomous, dispersed
and having little impact on the environment. In cruder characterizations—for instance, those
of many environmentalists—one almost gets the impression that native peoples are more
like wildlife than civilization. They are not refugees from colonial and post-colonial expansions, but naturvölkern as Karl von den Steinen, Amazonia’s first anthropologist, called
them. To avoid the “tyranny” of the ethnographic record, it must be recognized that much
cultural variation and a staggering number of lives and whole cultural groups were lost in
the centuries following 1492.
Regional specialists in long-term indigenous histories in Amazonia, which extend
beyond one or two centuries, tend to agree that societies much larger, more productive (in
absolute terms), and very different in certain respects than living Amazonian peoples characterize the past. One area in particular has yet to be problematized in regional ethnology:
how do large, regional polities known to have existed in various parts of Amazonia differ or
not from contemporary Amazonian peoples in terms of, for instance, social identities.
Here I depart somewhat from the “heartland” of identity studies (the individual person, their “selves” and “others”) and focus on group identity over the long-term—group
habitus—and macroscopic ethno-linguistic groupings: big bodies and meta-persons. Identity
can be broken down into two questions: 1) How are identities constructed (or “represented”)
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
by outsiders or, in other words, how have societies and cultures—the peoples of
Amazonia—been written, and how has this changed through time? and 2) What are the
identities themselves, and how have these changed? Although often treated as such within
modernist anthropology, the two are obviously not autonomous, just as the two views of
identity (as primordial condition and tradition or as situational response and agency) are
as often as not referring not to a general force but a point of view or factor of historical
resolution. Diverse elements of primordialism and contingency interact in sociohistorical
trajectories. The problem of identity is multi-scalar and dynamic, and persons are both
hybrids, with many identities, and “stand-up citizens”, at the same time.
What interests us here—the stepping-stones in this seeming morass of identity
perspectives—are macro-identities: archaeological cultures and regional traditions. The
first consideration is macro-historical identities (interregional or continental in scale and
“agency” which correspond to large archaeological traditions—e.g., Amazonian Barrancoid, Amazonian Polychrome traditions), ethno-linguistic groupings (e.g., Arawak or Tupiguarani families), culture areas, and regional or world-systems. Secondly, I look at the level
of archaeological cultures, specifically those that correspond to two areas of complex societies in Amazonia (the circum-Caribbean and eastern Brazil are others, but not described
here; see Chapters 13, 16, 17, 18 and 33 in this volume): the Amazon floodplains and the
southern Amazonian uplands. Finally, I take the Upper Xingu as a specific case of fractal
personhood and complex society.
BIG BODIES: CULTURE AREA, LANGUAGE GROUP,
AND WORLD SYSTEM
Archaeologists working in South America are familiar with Steward’s ambitious division of
the continent into four parts in the Handbook of South American Indians: Marginal Tribes,
Tropical Forest Tribes, Circum-Caribbean Tribes, and Andean civilization (Figure 47.1a;
see Chapter 1 in this volume). Later he worked this into: Andean civilization, theocratic
and militaristic chiefdoms (circum-Caribbean-like; largely wedged up against the Andes),
tropical forest tribes, and marginals. Steward’s quadripartite division was immediately criticized (Figure 47.1b; see Murdock 1951; Steward’s characterization more or less recapitulates Wissler’s [1917] “Amazon culture area” and Cooper’s [1942] “Silval culture”), but
the idea of a generalized tropical forest culture (hereafter TFC) has dominated, in spite of
evidence for significant diversity. By systematically comparing nine characteristics, Murdock (1951) described 24 areas, with over half in Amazonia (see also Galvão 1967, for a
similarly complex rendering of culture areas in Brazil in the twentieth century).
The first attempts to characterize Amazonia culturally were linguistic, for instance Gilij
(1780–84), Martius (1867 [1838]), and Steinen (1886), which sought to divide South American languages in phylogenetic terms and locate origin areas for the major groups. The most
updated general overview is Dixon and Aihkenvald’s Handbook of Amazonian Languages
(1999), but descriptive and historical linguistics are still quite preliminary in Amazonia
(Figure 47.2). Several general patterns emerge: (1) most languages are isolates; (2) small language families, largely restricted geographically, have expanded in upland areas; and (3) two
large linguistic diaspora—similar to tropical diaspora in the Pacific (Oceanic Austronesian)
and Africa (Niger-Congo)—are spread across the entire region (from the Caribbean in the
north to the La Plata in the south and the eastern Andean foothills to mouth of the Amazon):
Arawakan and Tupi-Guarani (T-G) families (see Chapter 33 in this volume).
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Figure 47.1. a) Steward’s Cultural Areas (1945).
The early German historicists were the first to draw attention to the Arawak and
T-G families as diaspora (although not their word for it) (see Schmidt 1917; Steinen 1886),
which has been further developed by several archaeologists, most notably Lathrap (1970).
With respect to the Arawak in particular, Lathrap recapitulated Schmidt’s contention that
“developed” tropical forest agriculture and navigation propelled Arawak peoples across the
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
Figure 47.1. (Continued) b) Murdock’s Culture Areas (1951).
lowlands. He was a proponent, however, of a generalized tropical forest culture, which was
then enhanced or inhibited in its development by ecological factors, following the expectations of cultural ecology (a view shared by the other major players: Robert Carneiro, William
Denevan, Betty Meggers, and Anna Roosevelt). I explicitly adopted aspects of Schmidt’s
formulation, but focusing on settlement pattern and landscape, I explored questions of
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Figure 47.2. Schematic linguistic map of South American language families and two primary linguistic diaspora:
Arawak (A) and TupiGuarani (TG), showing suggested origin areas (hatched).
social life, namely hierarchy, regionality, and settled life in plaza villages, the anthropogenic landscape, and the hybridizing nature of the diaspora as the foci (Heckenberger 1996,
2001, 2002). One thing is critical: all commentators who have looked at the family from a
comparative perspective agree that the Arawak diaspora refers to something real (as noted
at a recent conference on Arawakan peoples, see Hill and Santos-Granero 2002).
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
If the Arawak diaspora was characterized by hierarchy, regional integration, and
settled life, even during its “formative” period (when it first dispersed, 500 BC to AD 500),
the T-G were, as often as not, an alter-ego to this. Viveiros de Castro (1984, 1992) has
outlined basic fundamental issues of a T-G historical identity: other-wordly, mobile, predatory, including the fairly large, heterarchical T-G polities of coastal Brazil, the Paraguai
River, and the southern Amazon (e.g., the Pacajas of the lower Tocantins and Pará rivers).
Viveiros de Castro (1992: 5) compares T-G (and Carib) to Gê, pointing to the sociological
locus of cultural energies in these dialectical societies, as opposed to the cosmo-vision of
the Amazonians (see also Descola 2001). Not surprisingly, these macro-cultural traditions
have material and spatial features that are highly visible in the archaeological record, notably ceramic artifacts and settlement patterns.
Following much debate (summarized in Noelli 1998 and see Chapter 33 in this volume),
it seems almost certain that Rondônia, more or less, is the center of dispersal for Tupian languages, and the best evidence to date suggests that T-G separated from somewhere close by to
the east or south, and more likely the former (Urban 1997; Viveiros de Castro 1997). T-G languages are mainly distributed in four places: (1) southeastern Amazonia (Xingu-Tocantins);
(2) southern Amazonia (Tapajos and Madeira); (2) the Paraguai River (Guarani); and coastal
Brazil (coastal Tupi). Migrations are well documented historically. In the southern Amazon,
T-G languages are interspersed with Mundurucu and Juruna, among other Tupian families for
a near total domination by macro-Tupi languages, except—it is important to mention—along
the southern peripheries, which are dominated by Arawakan and related groups (in the west)
and macro-Gê (here one might note an interesting correlation between macro-Gê, but not
non-Gê family groups, like Karaja, Bororo, Umosina, and Rikbatsa).
The Tupiguarani archaeological tradition, although distinguished from T-G languages
by the missing hyphen, is largely co-extensive with the T-G language family, including its
dominant presence in much of the southern Amazon, coastal Brazil, and in the Paraguai
River, with occasional appearances in central Brazil and eastern Bolivia. This tradition,
most clearly hallmarked by its thin line bi-chrome painting (red on white slip), body corrugation, and thin-walled vessel forms, is found in various contexts and relates to the T-G
diaspora, ca. 2500 to 1500 BP.
In most cases, hybrid archaeological complexes (if not pluri-ethnic social formations)
resulted from cultural interactions between local and immigrant groups. The most notable
example of this is the Amazonian Polychrome (see Chapter 20), which takes elements of Barrancoid, Tupiguarani, and other (Konduri) complexes and reconstitutes them in the political
economy of the Amazonian várzea, the most obvious example of an integrated supra-regional
organization, or small “world system” in the lowlands due to its focus on durable prestige
goods, especially ceramics. However, during the early diaspora, the time of rapid and extensive population movements, there were clear correlations of language groups and ceramic
styles, most notably tied to these two large diaspora (Arawak, characterized by “Barrancoid”
ceramics and T-G characterized by Tupiguarani ceramics). Lathrap (1970) recognized this
basic relationship, but viewed these largely contemporaneous sloping traditions, which both
extend from over 2000 BP to the present in recognizable form, as temporal strata: Barrancoid
was early, ca. 200 BC (based on his work on Hupa-iya materials in the Ucayali, and Rouse
and Cruxent’s (1961) work at the type sites in the middle-lower Orinoco) (see Chapter 23 in
this volume), while T-G was late (Caimito in the Ucayali).
One thing that recent work on large-scale ethno-linguistic entities reiterates is the
fundamental difference between riverine and coastal as opposed to upland settings,
ecologically, socially, and in terms of community formation, and ethnographic groupings
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Figure 47.3. Formative supra-regional systems in South America, including (1) várzea; (2) southern
Amazon; (3) Moxos/Chaco; (4) eastern Brazil; (5) Orinocan;(6) northern Andes; (7) Central Andes; and
(8) southern Andes.
favor the uplands (Heckenberger 2006) (Figure 47.3). Two final implications are important
to mention, before describing these better known societies in the Brazilian Amazon: one
is that “refugia” may relate to anthropogenic processes and second, dynamic language
change may be quite different in settled areas than low density areas, and relations between
languages, which for instance posit a steady rate of change or dispersal, may overlook
important punctuated change, such as cultural contact, or trade-languages (e.g., Moxos
[Arawak], Kokama [T-G hybrid], or Nheengatu [“lingua franca,” T-G]).
HISTORICAL MORPHOLOGY: PERIODS
At this point a brief note on periodization (macro-temporal identities) is merited. Many
periodizations have been suggested for Amazonia based on different field sites and viewpoints. These are usually based on ceramic remains, hence Zoned-Hachure, Incised Rim,
Polychrome, and Incised-Punctate (Meggers and Evans 1961). Following Lathrap, Incisedrim becomes “modeled-incised” or “Amazonian Barrancoid” and Incised-Punctate is
related to the specific ceramic traditions of the lower-middle Amazon, namely Konduri
(linked to Carib groups in the Guiana plateau) and the hybrid tradition generically called
Santarém, after the city of that name. As Roosevelt (1997) notes, this logic is inappropriate
in the context of “sloping horizons,” and she prefers a more general cultural historical view:
Paleo-Indian tropical foragers, shell-midden peoples, TFC horticulturalists, and complex
riverine societies in late prehistoric times.
My own preferred periodization is: (1) archaic (pre-3000 BP); (2) early diaspora
(begins 3000 to 2500 BP); (3) regional development and diversification (begins 2000 to
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
Figure 47.4. Major concentrations of Arawak and Arawak-related population aggregates in southern Amazon in
1500-1750, including: Xingu (X); Pareci (P); Pareci/Kobashi (including Saluma and Enauene naue; P/K); Baure
(B); Mojos (M); Apurina/Piro (A/P); Apurina (A); Chane (C); and Guana (including Terena; G). (Note: várzea
area along Amazon main branch).
1500 BP); (4) late prehistoric “classic” (begins ca. 1500 to 1000 BP); and (5) European
world-system (begins AD 1500–1600). Rather than tightly defined periods per se, these
periods are a recognition of novel changes in the social worlds of the people: in archaic
times, there were no major linguistic diaspora; prior to diaspora, regional societies of
different language groups were uncommon; prior to the classic period, supra-regional integration into native world systems was little developed, although regional systems were
ubiquitous; and 1492, like elsewhere, marks a unique historical benchmark. During the
later periods (3, 4 and 5 above), cultural hybridity was typical of virtually all Amazonian
people, whereas before ca. 2000 to 1500 BP, trade and exchange did not commonly (or
at least necessarily) involve ethnogenesis. Once again, as the story emerges, we see that
dynamic change, hybridity, and regional integration were the hallmarks of prehistory, at
least the latter part (beginning 1500 to 500 BP).
The remainder of the discussion focuses on the two major Amazonian macro-cultural
traditions, the Amazonian Polychrome Tradition (APT) of the várzea and the southern
Amazonian periphery (Figure 47.4).
THE VÁRZEA
The Amazon and its main tributaries are typically divided into “white-,” “black-,” and
“clear-water” rivers, based upon basic characteristics of water quality and alluvial deposition. While extremely oversimplified, this division does emphasize the difference
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between the Amazon floodplain area (várzea in Portuguese, that includes the Solimões
and the lower courses of the Madeira, Negro, Tapajós, and Xingu, among others, rivers)
and more upland landscapes in the middle and upper courses of primary tributaries and
interfluvial areas.
By ca. AD 1000 or before, the macro-region, commonly glossed as the várzea, was
an integrated system of interregional interaction, a geo-political entity that can be mapped
to some degree, as noted above, by the distribution of distinctive prestige exchange goods,
notably fine polychrome (elite) ceramics. The earliest chronicles of the main branch of
the Amazon make it quite clear that sometimes large, densely settled populations lived
in many parts of this area. On 25 June 1542 Carvajal described an area below today’s
Manaus this way:
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. … They surrounded our two brigantines and attacked … [but] our
arquebusiers and crossbowmen made it so uncomfortable for them that, many as they
were, they were glad to stand off, 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. (quoted
in Medina 1988: 218)
While clearly just one small glimpse into the great diversity of the Amazon River
people, this short passage attests not only to the vigorous and populous societies that
thronged the banks of the river, it also reminds us how foreign this complexity was to
European eyes.
In Amazonia complexity was constituted in a diffuse manner: heterarchy, for lack of
a better term. Even in the larger “headed” polities, there was a degree of “headlessness,”
heterarchy, at play, as well. But everything available from the ethnography, ethnohistory
and archaeology of settled Amazonian peoples suggests that social hierarchy – of the elite
(it matters little what we call them: see Sahlins 1985, citing Heusch) to commoner kind
– was typical of these societies. The comparative problem seems to lie with centralization:
there is little evidence that Amazonian polities ever maintained the type of central-place
monopolies of power that characterize states in general and Andean states in particular. But
what of the other more modest polities that dominated the major Andean past? Were there
Amazonian societies that could be compared in demographic, economic, or political terms
to complex societies elsewhere in the Andes or elsewhere in the world?
The domains of polities at least loosely integrated under paramount chiefs, notably
Machiparo (Omagua) and Aparia (Yurimagua/Solimoes) on the middle-upper Amazon,
potentially extended over hundreds of miles. Roads linked these communities with others
in the interior and “garrisons” and buffer-zones separated them along the river. Specialization, including village specialization, and extensive trade in gold, shell, stone, salt, feathers
and hides is suggested across the floodplains. Ethnohistoric evidence leaves massive gaps,
however, that can only be resolved through archaeological research. Recent investigations in three areas, in particular, reveal aspects of these diverse polities, including Marajó
Island in the Amazon estuary (see Chapter 19 in this volume), the lower Amazon area near
Santarém, and the central Amazon near Manaus (see Chapter 20 in this volume). I discuss
the three areas now.
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
Marajó Island
Marajó Island (Chapter 19 in this volume) was the first area recognized as a center of
pre-Columbian complex societies, by archaeologists of the early to mid-1900s (see Meggers
and Evans, 1957). Initially, theories espoused migration from the Andes and devolution to
TFC. Later researchers favored in situ development and expansion of a generalized riverine tropical forest pattern to explain Marajó and other densely populated areas along the
Amazon River (Carneiro 1970; Lathrap 1970). By the 1980s, it was widely believed that
chiefdoms, producing pottery belonging to the APT, depended on fairly intensive exploitation of aquatic resources and diversified cultivation (Carneiro 1986; Lathrap et al. 1985).
Roosevelt’s research from the mid 1980s to 1990s on Marajoara, was particularly
important in documenting for the first time community organization and subsistence of
these mound-building polities. She argued for the intensification of agriculture of floodplain crops (e.g., maize or some local seed crop) and exploitation of diverse wetland
resources and wild plants (Roosevelt 1991). Roosevelt is equivocal on whether Marajoara
represents an urban polity (1991) or something else (1999), but as elsewhere in the region
that term cannot be applied unproblematically. The Marajoara polity must be judged on its
own terms, and it remained unclear until recently how it was organized regionally or within
discrete sub-regions (i.e., was it one big polity or many closely related small polities).
Recent field research by Schaan (2004 and Chapter 19 in this volume) sheds light on
these questions. A detailed regional survey and excavation program at Camutins (the largest known Marajoara mound group) reveals a small polity, including 37 small- medium-,
and large-sized mounds centered on the ceremonial group of the Camutins and Belém
mounds. Camutins stands 12 m high and is over 100 × 250 m (2.5 ha) in upper extent. And
the difference between this ritual/elite mound and the small to medium-sized domestic
mounds is pronounced in size and ritual function (as an urn cemetery). She argues that the
big mounds went up quickly, between (ca. 1400–1600 BP) and that mound building was in
decline before European contact, by ca. 700 BP.
The internal organization of these groups was hierarchical, with major ritual and
public political activities likely concentrated on the big mounds. Her ceramic analysis has
revealed sub-groupings within Marajoara that apparently relate to the specific designs of
discrete socio-political groups. Discovery of exotic materials in Marajoara mounds documents long-distance trade with other groups to the south and west.
Notably, Schaan argues that mounds were constructed concomitant with, or even as
a part of wetland management, specifically the creation of barrow-pits in river sources that
constituted ponds to manage aquatic resources. The larger mounds had substantial nondomestic functions, stood far above highest seasonal water levels, and would have created
singularly large ponds for year-round fish and other flora and fauna. Small- to medium-size
occupation mounds may well have been designed to create flat high ground for residential
activities, but would have also resulted in wetland modifications, which probably included
fish and other aquatic animals, as well as management of river palms.
Lower Amazon Near Santarém
Santarém is also related to APT, but is distinctive, seeming to be the hybrid of APT and
Konduri (coming from the Guianas). The archaeological culture is centered at the confluence of the Amazon and the Tapajós rivers. It is known primarily by its ornate ceramics
(see Gomes 2002), but is considered ancestral to the ethnohistoric Tapajós polity, for which
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some early documentation exists (Nimuendajú 1952). Roosevelt’s fieldwork in and around
the city of Santarém (1999) leads her to believe that the polity was an even more populous
and complex chiefdom than Marajó, and characterized by intensive floodplain and upland
agriculture as well as significant use of forest and wetland ecozones. Whereas Marajoara
peoples may have been more “heterarchical,” i.e., with less rigid social stratification and
a more diffuse political economy, Santarém was the capital of a highly stratified and quite
large tributary polity.
At Santarem, Roosevelt found “a complex series of deposits including low mounds,
pits, caches of fine pottery vessels and statues, and large black-earth middens [and] …
floors of longhouses with bell-shaped pits,” leading her to conclude that the site is “of
urban scale and complexity” (1999: 337). Based on her largely unpublished fieldwork, she
estimates that at its peak, in terminal pre-Columbian times, the site extended over an area
nearly 16 km2, although as is typical in other parts of the Amazon, the distribution of occupation areas was probably spread out. Nonetheless, if correct, her estimate of this late prehistoric capital town rivals the size of Cahokia, the largest site in North America, or many
of the stone and adobe temple centers of the Central Andes and Mesoamerica. It remains
to be determined how sites varied across the area of the polity, and what the variation was
between and within centers and satellites, but archaeology and ethnohistory demonstrate
that it was a large and very powerful nation in late prehistoric times.
Recent research on archaeological dark earth (ADE) soils from a variety of sites in
the lower Tapajos River appears to have identified the agronomic signature of these large
populations (Denevan 2001; Woods 2004). ADE research suggests that the area was densely
occupied and that agricultural populations had a complex and sophisticated system of ADE
creation and management, including both occupational soils (terra preta) and non-ceramic
bearing agricultural soils (terra mulata) (Woods and McCann 1999). Altered (anthropogenic) soils cover an area well over 1000 ha in this lower Tapajos region, and include a
wide range of variation in size and content (Kern 2003; Denevan 2001). This resonates with
ideas presented in Denevan’s (1992, 1996) bluff model of intensive agriculture, as well
as Posey’s (2004) general discussion of eco-tonal management, including anthropogenic
“forest islands” (i.e., archaeological sites), as also suggested by Erickson and Balée (2006)
for eastern Bolivia.
Central Amazon
The Central Amazon region near Manaus, about 1000 km up River from Santarém, is
defined by the confluence of the Amazon (Solimões) and Negro Rivers in Brazil. It has
a particularly well-known archaeological sequence leading up to late prehistoric complex
societies similar in scale to those downriver. A decade of archaeological research in the
Central Amazon has revealed more than one hundred archaeological sites (e.g., see summary in Lima et al. 2006; Neves 2005; Neves and Petersen 2006; Petersen et al. 2005).
In late prehistoric times, fairly large-scale regional populations lived in dispersed
small settlements (<10 ha) tied to larger residential and ceremonial centers. These major
centers, such as the Açutuba site, with a large (30–50 ha) plaza center located about 50 km
up the Negro from the confluence, were distinct from other settlements both qualitatively
and quantitatively. However, they may have held a fairly small resident (year-round) population. Nonetheless, at least at certain times the center was used intensively, as suggested by
the black soils, low occupation mounds, and massive quantities of broken ceramics found
in core areas of the settlement, around the central plaza (Heckenberger et al. 1999).
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
Ongoing research by Central Amazon projects also have made important strides in ADE
research, including identifying differential and patchy distributions within and between sites,
the diversity and scale of constructions, refuse activities, and surrounding transformations of
agricultural landscapes, including terra mulata formation (largely a-ceramic ADE deposits
surrounding Açutuba), defensive structures, and wetland modifications (Neves et al. 2003,
2004; Petersen et al. 2001). The infrastructural elaboration at sites like Açutuba, including
mounds, ramps and ditches, sculpted-plazas, and agricultural areas attest to the necessarily
great alteration of the tropical forest in this riverine setting (Heckenberger et al. 1999).
The Central Amazon projects provide solid archaeological evidence of fairly dense
populations with some moderately large settlements with heavily built up core areas that
include architectural earthworks, massive soil alteration in and around settlements, large
agricultural areas and possible wetland management systems. Results suggest a great deal
of local variation in the size and duration of settlements and of their impacts on the environment, as well as regional fluctuations in site locations and population densities. They
support the idea of environmental complementarity between densely and sparsely settled
stretches of the main rivers (“buffer-zones”) and between river and hinterland zones, which
created a highly patchy landscape. The region, it appears, was extremely dynamic for millennia in terms of ethnic composition, integration, and change in both language and material culture (see Chapter 20 in this volume). Economic and social strategy emphasized the
broad area employed in highly patchy and variable manners as people moved from place
to place, or not, through time.
THE SOUTHERN PERIPHERY
Steward and Faron (1959) used the term “theocratic chiefdoms” for these complex societies that dominated the densely forested areas of the river basins. They were largely of the
Arawakan language family and related peoples. Early ethnohistoric accounts (1600–1750)
describe the Bauré peoples of the middle Guaporé, the Pareci peoples of the Juruena and
Arinos Rivers (headwaters of the Tapajós River headwaters) and the Terena/Guana peoples
(upper Paraguay River) all as large, densely settled populations, with complicated settlement and agricultural works, and regional socio-political organization.
Archaeological complexes associated with these groups, including sophisticated agricultural, settlement, and road earthworks, have long been known from the eastern lowlands
of Bolivia (Denevan 2001; see Chapter 46 in this volume). Aerial photography in the
mid-twentieth century made it more feasible to visualize the scale and configuration of agricultural earthworks, raised causeways, and other features. Erickson’s (e.g., 2000, 2001, 2006)
recent archaeological work has revealed a complex system of earthworks, including causeways, fish weirs and ponds, and forest islands (ancient settlements), raised fields and diverse
other archaeological landscape features. He notes that: “Rather than domesticate the species
that they exploited, the people of Baure domesticated the landscape” (Erickson 2000: 193).
Slightly to the east, in the adjacent upper Tapajós River headwaters, Antonio Pires
de Campos, an early frontiersman, made reference to the settlement pattern of the Arawakspeaking Pareci nation: “These people exist in such vast quantity, that it is not possible to
count their settlements or villages, [and] many times in one day’s march one passes ten
or twelve villages, and in each one there are from ten to thirty houses … even their roads
they make very straight and wide, and they keep them so clean that one will find not even a
fallen leaf” (Pires de Campos, 1862 [1720]: 443–444, author’s translation).
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Figure 47.5. Map of southeastern Amazonia, showing Upper Xingu basin flanked by uplands to east and west.
Note, as with other settled groups in the southern Amazonian periphery, Xinguano traditional territories correlate with the forested, low-lying basin.
In the adjacent Upper Xingu basin (Figure 47.5), occupied by the easternmost of the
southern Arawakan groups, recent archaeological work shows a settlement pattern very
similar but even more developed and elaborated than the one described by Pires de Campo.
The southern Arawakan and related groups are a fascinating example of how related peoples expand into areas with specific ecological conditions (forested bottomlands) but
diverge over time as they reorient themselves to distinctive social, ecological, and historical
conditions (Heckenberger 2002). The Upper Xingu groups differ from their distant sociopolitical cousins, the Arawakan polities to the west, in the degree to which ancient lifeways
are maintained by their living descendants. Demonstrable cultural continuity expressed in
material culture and built environment links contemporary indigenous peoples and their
precolumbian ancestors, including important aspects of economics, settlement patterns and
technology (Franchetto and Heckenberger 2001).
The broad region, which extends from the Tocantins River headwaters in the east
to the Guaporé River (the easternmost headwater of the Madeira River), is dominated by
semi-deciduous forests transitional between the high forests of lowland Amazonia and the
low and scrub forests of the highland central Brazilian plateau. The overall topography is
characterized by pockets of flat, low-lying and forested areas, corresponding to the headwater basins of the major rivers that eroded out along the northern flanks of the Brazilian highlands (300–500 masl). These are populated by Arawakan-speaking peoples. The basins are
interspersed by rolling topography and more open forests in highland interfluves between
the headwater streams, and populated by Tupian and Gê-speaking peoples.
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
The ecology is characterized by a wide diversity of forested areas and wetlands, lacking
fertile floodplain or agricultural ADE (terra mulata) soils used by the Amazon River societies. Like other areas described above, many wetlands and forests were modified over
generations of near continuous occupation, and one sees overtime well defined land-use
“zones,” consisting of areas of continual management (roads, settlements, bridges), and
areas of active but occasional management (gardens, fish weirs, orchards, and grass fields
for thatch), and areas that were utilized but not actively managed (forest “preserves”).
Earthen causeways are present where roads pass over maintained wetlands, and are an
important component of the wetland management system.
Archaeological studies (1992–2005) have been concentrated in the traditional territory of the Kuikuro Amerindian community, whose three villages form part of the larger
Xinguano society (composed of nine sub-groups, living in 14 villages, and almost 2500
people). The Kuikuro territory spreads over an area of some 1200–1500 km2 (based on
known archaeological distributions for late prehistory the regional society was spread over
an area minimally ten times this size). Archaeological survey has identified more than 30
residential sites in the Kuikuro territory. Most or all of these were occupied and interconnected in late prehistoric times (AD 1250–1650) and were organized into two or three
integrated and ranked clusters of between 8–12 villages (Figure 47.6).
The cultural sequence is composed of four distinctive periods: (1) early occupations
by Arawak and, perhaps, Carib-speaking peoples, ca. AD 500 or before, until AD 1250;
(2) a galactic period, from ca. AD 1250 to 1650 or soon thereafter, marked by the integrated clusters of small to large villages; (3) a historical period, dominated by adaptation to
Figure 47.6. Distribution of late prehistoric sites in Kuikuro study area, Upper Xingu, showing two primary
clusters identified: Ipatse (north) and Kuhikugu (south) (Note: stars represent late prehistoric sites).
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M.J. Heckenberger
the indirect and direct effects of Western expansion, from ca. AD 1650 to 1950; and (4) the
modern period, from 1950 until present. The first known occupants were agriculturalists
(proto-Xinguano tradition), who appear to be historically related to other Arawak-speaking
groups to the west. After AD 1250 there was a major reconstitution of the overall regional
settlement system, whereby settlements were reconstructed and formally linked into galactic patterns of nodes with roads across the area through the construction and/or elaboration
of linear village earthworks (Figure 47.7).
Figure 47.7. Major sites of Ipatse cluster, including ceremonial hub (X13), major residential sites (X6 and X18;
~40-50 ha), second-order residential sites (X17, X22; ~10-20 ha), and satellite plaza villages (X19, X20; <10
ha). (Note: contemporary village is shown in upper-center of image, denoted by small white ring/dot with lightcolored radial paths leading from it).
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
Figure 47.7. (Continued)
Regional ethnohistory shows diverse migrations and episodes of ethnogenesis, in
response to Western frontier expansion over five centuries, which has helped fill the gap
of declining population, but by 1950 the regional population was a mere 500, perhaps
less than 5% of its precolumbian size (Agostinho 1972; Fausto et al. 2006; Franchetto
1992, 2001; Franchetto and Heckenberger 2001; Heckenberger 2005). Population collapse
resulted in a process of landscape “fallowing,” as settlement after settlement was abandoned and merged into one, leaving entire regions vacant. It is an exemplary case of what
a large, settled precolumbian polity becomes after five centuries of decline. However, a
remarkable number of basic cultural patterns have been resilient through this time, such as
the circular plaza village form and general landscape orientations.
Xinguano agricultural patterns also can be reconstructed over the long run, in part
through analysis of functionally specific utilitarian ceramics, which also show continuity
in forms used to cook manioc and fish. Indeed, traditional foods still constitute more than
99% of Xinguanos’ food, including primarily fish and manioc, supplemented by turtle,
monkey and some bird meat, insects, pequi fruit, and several palm fruits (see Basso 1973;
Carneiro 1957, 1983; Dole 1978).
No ADE soils are found on floodplains, but they still constitute an important part
of the landscape. They occur as part of ancient occupation sites distributed in overlapping
and sometimes mixed refuse middens (composts), domestic contexts and work areas, and
public areas such as the plaza and its ritual house, and even in roads leading away from
the ritual house (Heckenberger 1996). In precolumbian villages ADE soils cover areas of
about 6 to 8 ha, and within larger residential sites, 20–50 ha. In other areas, trash middens
and domestic areas show restricted soil darkening and alterations, as in contemporary
villages. This distribution of ADE deposits, like vegetation and wetland habitats, is the historical outcome of Xinguano settled agricultural lifeways, including village permanence,
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as well as sustained demographic decline during the past five centuries. Many technologies
have been abandoned, such as subterranean manioc storage, seasonal water-storage ponds
(wells, or reshaped channels existing since the late Pleistocene) and turtle pens, although
fish weirs are still in wide use (see Clement 1999, 2006 for important discussion of crop
diversity and post-1492 losses in Amazonia).
In precolumbian villages, landscapes were more densely packed and land-use was
more intensive. Settlements and countryside features (fields, orchards, wetlands) were laid
out and administrated according to more rigidly defined divisions and schedules. Where
today there are three villages with some 500 people (one having 350 persons in 1993),
there were over 20 settlements, in at least two clusters, with the largest first-order settlements reaching well over ten times the residential area of the modern Kuikuro settlements
combined. These settlement hierarchies were both centric and multi-centric, and unquestionably integrated territories of about 400 km2.
It is often hard to say what the exact scale of communities or regional populations was, but the configuration of villages is quite clear. Plaza villages, like today, were
critical social nodes, integrating elaborate socio-political networks. Primary roads and
bridges were oriented to plazas, or more accurately, were ordered by the same spatial
principles, which also organized domestic and public space, creating a cartography and
landscape that was highly partitioned but rigidly arranged according to the layout of
settlements and roads.
These precolumbian plaza villages and galactic clusters can be easily identified
across the region, which today has nine indigenous groups, many of whom migrated into
the area over the past few hundred years (some have come in more recently, including
the Bakairi, Trumai and Suya), but 250 to 300 years seems to be the cut-off for “full”
integration into the regional society (for which the litmus test is sponsoring chiefly mortuary feasts; Heckenberger 2001). In prehistoric times, polity rather than society may
be the appropriate term, since it was not a confederation of peer-villages, but instead a
confederation of peer-clusters, with communities that extended over an area some 200
× 100 km, or more (about 20,000 km2, or a little smaller than Vermont or Belgium). In
this area, there may have been up to 50 clusters, given 400 km2 as a territory in the past,
but this, like precise population estimates, is a preliminary estimate. My educated guess
is that village clusters ranged from under 1,000 to over 2,500, and perhaps as many as
5,000; that there were at least 15–20 cluster groups in the territory of the Xinguano
nation in 1492; and, that the overall populations must have therefore ranged into the tens
of thousands, perhaps more.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
It is clear that “Amazonia” was a very dynamic socio-cultural landscape, or “mosaic”
of fluctuating landscapes and societies characterized by great variability, hybridity, and
opportunism. Archaeology reveals complicated indigenous histories, extending from the
late Pleistocene to today, as well as remarkable change and variability in cultural patterns through time and from region to region. The inhabitants were articulated in regional
systems that, by the time of European contact, included sociopolitical arrangements from
massive polities to small mobile bands living between settled areas. Amazonians domesticated their landscapes no less than elsewhere in the Americas of 1492, but they did so in a
distinctive, uniquely Amazonian way(s).
Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest
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