The study of the pre-Columbian occupation on Marajó Island dates back to the beginnings of archaeology as a field of inquiry in Brazil during the late nineteenth century. Elaborate funerary vessels, together with other exquisite pottery objects excavated from Marajoara cemetery mounds soon filled museums in Rio de Janeiro and Belém, while short notes and articles published in important journals attracted worldwide attention to the unexpected traits of “civilization” just discovered in the tropics. For decades to come, the origins of the people who built the 10- to 12 m-high earthen mounds and the meanings of the decorative designs on their pottery were a matter of speculation.
A change in research objectives and methodology took place with the arrival of Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans, who carried out the first regional survey on Marajó Island during the late 1940s, providing a comprehensive account of Marajoara culture and previous occupations. Based on ceramic attributes, Meggers and Evans (1957) defined five different archaeological phases for Marajó Island alone. With the exception of the Marajoara Phase, which is the fourth one, the others were called “tropical forest phases,” after Steward (1948).
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Ackermann, Fritz L., 1963, O lago Arari da ilha de Marajó e seus problemas. Revista Brasileira de Geografia XXV (2): 273–276.
Arnold, Jeanne E. (ed.), 2001, The Origins of a Pacific Coast Chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Bevan, Bruce W. and Anna C. Roosevelt, 2003, Geophysical exploration of Guajará, a prehistoric earth mound in Brazil. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 18 (3): 287–331.
Carneiro, Robert L., 1995, The history of ecological interpretations of Amazonia: does Roosevelt have it right? In Indigenous Peoples and the Future of Amazonia, edited by Leslie E. Sponsel, pp. 45–70. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Carneiro, Robert L., ms., The Ecological Basis of Amazonian Chiefdoms. Unpublished paper. 88 pp.
Chernela, Janet M., 1997, Pesca e hierarquização tribal no alto Uaupés. In Suma Etnológica Brasileira. Edição Atualizada do Handbook of South American Indians, edited by Darcy Ribeiro, pp. 279–95. Third edition. UFPA, Belém.
Costin, Cathy Lynne, 1991, Craft specialization: issues in defining, documenting, and explaining the organization of production. In Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 3, edited by Michael B. Schiffer, pp. 1–56. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
DeBoer, Warren R., 1998, Figuring figurines. The case of the Chachi, Ecuador. In Recent Advances in the Archaeology of Northern Andes, edited by Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo and J. Scott Raymond, pp. 121–127. University of California Press, Los Angeles.
Derby, Orville, 1879, The artificial mounds of the island of Marajo. American Naturalist 13: 224–229.
Dietler, Michael and Brian Hayden, 2001, Digesting the feast - good to eat, good to drink, good to think: an introduction. In Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power, edited by Michael Dietler and Brian Hayden, pp. 1–22. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London.
Erickson, Clark L., 2000, An artificial landscape-scale fishery in the Bolivian Amazon. Nature 408: 190–193.
Fried, Morton H., 1967, The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology. Random House, New York.
Furtado, Lourdes, Maria de Nazaré Lima, Maria das Graças Albuquerque, and Aluísio Fonseca de Castro, 2002, Repertório Documental para a Memória da Pesca Amazônica. Coleção Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira. Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém.
Haas, Jonathan and Winifred Creamer, 2004, Cultural transformations in the Central Andean Late Archaic. In Andean Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman, pp. 35–50. Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Gilman, Antonio, 1991, Trajectories towards social complexity in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean. In Chiefdoms: Power, Economy and Ideology, edited by Timothy Earle, pp. 146–168. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Goggin, John M. and William C. Sturtevant, 1964, The Calusa: A Stratified, Nonagricultural Society (with Notes on Sibling Marriage). McGraw-Hill, New York.
Heckenberger, Michael J., 2005, The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, A.D. 1000–2000. Routledge, New York and London.
Hilbert, Klaus and Peter Paul Hilbert, 1980, Resultados Preliminares da Pesquisa Arqueológica nos Rios Nhamundá e Trombetas. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Série Antropologia 75.
Hilbert, Peter Paul, 1952, Contribuição à arqueologia da Ilha de Marajó. Os tesos Marajoaras do alto Camutins e a atual situação da Ilha do Pacoval, no Arari. Instituto de Antropologia e Etnologia do Pará 5: 5–32.
Johnson, Allen W. and Timothy Earle, 2000, The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Second edition. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Meggers, Betty J., 1954, Environmental limitation on the development of culture. American Anthropologist 56 (5): 801–24.
Meggers, Betty J., 2001, The mystery of the Marajoara: an ecological solution. Amazoniana XVI (3/4): 421–440.
Meggers, Betty J. and Jacques Danon, 1988, Identification and implications of a hiatus in the archeological sequence on Marajo Island, Brazil. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 78 (3): 245–53.
Meggers, Betty J. and Clifford Evans, 1957, Archeological Investigations at the Mouth of the Amazon. Bulletin 167. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Moseley, Michael E., 1975, The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization. Cummings, Menlo Park, CA.
Murrieta, Rui Sérgio, Darna L. Dufour, and Andrea D. Siqueira, 1999, Food consumption and subsistence in three caboclo populations on Marajó Island, Amazonia, Brazil. Human Ecology 27 (3): 455–76.
Neves, Eduardo G. and James B. Petersen, in press, The political economy of pre-Columbian amerindians: landscape transformations in Central Amazonia. In Time and Complexity in the Neotropical Lowlands: Studies in Historical Ecology, edited by William Balée and Clark Erickson. Columbia University Press, New York.
OEA, 1974, Marajó. Um Estudo para seu Desenvolvimento. Organização dos Estados Americanos, Washington, D.C.
Palmatary, Helen C., 1950, The pottery of Marajo Island, Brazil. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 39 (3).
Renfrew, Colin, 1986, Introduction. Peer polity interaction and socio-political change. In Peer Polity Interaction and Sociopolitical Change, edited by Colin Renfrew and John F. Cherry, pp. 1–18. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1991, Moundbuilders of the Amazon: Geophysical Archaeology on Marajo Island, Brazil. Academic Press, San Diego.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1999, The development of prehistoric complex societies: Amazonia, a tropical forest. In Complex Polities in the Ancient Tropical World, edited by Elisabeth A. Bacus and Lisa J. Lucero, pp. 13–33. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, No. 9.
Schaan, Denise P., 1997, A Linguagem Iconográfica da Cerâmica Marajoara. Um Estudo da Arte Pré-histórica na Ilha de Marajó, Brasil (400–1300 AD). Coleção Arqueologia n. 3. Edipucrs, Porto Alegre.
Schaan, Denise P., 2001a, Estatuetas Marajoara: o simbolismo de identidades de gênero em uma sociedade complexa Amazônica. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Série Antropologia 17 (2): 437–477.
Schaan, Denise P., 2001b, Into the labyrinths of Marajoara pottery: status and cultural identity in an Amazonian complex society. In The Unknown Amazon: Culture in Nature in Ancient Brazil, edited by Colin McEwan, Christiana Barreto, and Eduardo G. Neves, pp. 108–133. British Museum Press, London.
Simões, Mário F. and Napoleão Figueiredo, 1964, Projeto Marajó. Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Field Report. Unpublished.
Simões, Mário F. and Napoleão Figueiredo, 1965, Projeto Marajó. Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Final Report. Unpublished.
Sioli, Harald, 1984, The Amazon: Limnology and Landscape Ecology of a Mighty Tropical River and Its Basin. Monographiae biologicae, 56. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht.
Smith, Nigel, 2002, Amazon Sweet Sea: Land, Life, and Water at the River’s Mouth. First edition. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Sombroek, William G., 1966, Amazon Soils. A Reconnaissance of the Soils of the Brazilian Amazon Region. Centre for Agricultural Publication and Documentation, Wageningen.
Stanish, Charles, 2004, The evolution of chiefdoms: an economic anthropological model. In Archaeological Perspectives on Political Economies, edited by Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas, pp. 7–24. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Steward, Julian H. (ed.), 1948, Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 3, The Tropical Forest Tribes. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 1996, Images of nature and society in Amazonian ethnology. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 179–200.
Widmer, Randolph J., 1988, The Evolution of the Calusa: A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schaan, D.P. (2008). The Nonagricultural Chiefdoms of Marajó Island. In: Silverman, H., Isbell, W.H. (eds) The Handbook of South American Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_19
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-74906-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-74907-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)