Sambaquis Shell Mounds, Archaeology of

Introduction

The Brazilian coast was settled by groups of fisher-gatherers who built mounds known as sambaquis. These mounds (Fig. 1) are the main archaeological evidence of these groups, known as sambaquieiros or shell mound people. Sambaqui is a word of Tupi etymology, the language spoken by farmers and ceramic-making groups that occupied the Brazilian territory when Europeans arrived. Tamba means shell, and ki means mound, which are the most important visual features of these sites.

Sambaquis Shell Mounds, Archaeology of, Fig. 1

Santa Marta Sambaqui, Santa Catarina, Brazil

The oldest dates indicate that some areas of the coast were already occupied around 7,000 years ago, and the territory was intensively populated by mound-building groups between 4 and 3000 years BP. These fisher-gatherers dominated the Brazilian coast until 2000 BP, when ceramic-making groups originating from central South America and Amazonia began to occupy coastal areas and destabilized the sambaquieiros way of life.

Definition

Sambaquis are typically characterized by rounded, elevated structures in southern Brazil; some sites reached 65 m in height, although the sites are usually not higher than 5 m in other areas. The archaeological deposits that compose these sites primarily include mollusk shells and bones of fish, birds, and mammals. A variety of stone and bone artifacts, postholes, and hearths have also been identified, often resulting in an intricate stratigraphic record. The most noticeable remains in the composition of these sites are the shells from Anomalocardia brasiliana, Lucina pectinata and several mussel species. Burials of men, women, and children of different ages have been recovered from the most sambaquis, and the skeletons are usually articulated. These sites are a distinct space that becomes conspicuous on the landscape because of their sheer volume and the topographic nature of the coastal plain. They served as the final destination of the deceased, particular places, in which concentration of shells neutralized soil acidity and created conditions conducive to the preservation of human bone.

The prehistoric occupation of the Brazilian coast caught the attention of researchers long ago, and scientific interest in this type of archaeological site has been significant since the second half of the nineteenth century. Initially, the issue that dominated the studies concerned natural versus anthropic origins of the sites. The “naturalist” school argued that sambaquis were the result of receding sea levels and the resulting effects of wind upon shells on the beach. The presence of human remains was commonly attributed to shipwrecks. In contrast, scientists that believed in an anthropogenic origin asserted that the sites were the results of human action and proposed multiple explanations for the accumulations of faunal remains.

The advancement of research at several sites and findings of indisputable evidence of human activities made the naturalistic movement lose its followers. However, the origins of sambaquis were discussed until the 1940s by some researchers who argued that the sites were created by a combination of natural and anthropic elements. This perspective became known as the “mixed” theory.

Since the nineteenth century, the proponents of anthropogenic origins of sambaquis are divided among two distinct views that continue to influence current research. On one hand, sambaquis are considered to be the results of casual accumulation of food refuse because of the large quantity of faunal remains found at the sites. The other perspective argues that the sites are mortuary monuments because of the presence of burials (Wiener 1876). These distinct perspectives emphasize different functions of the settlements: the first model suggests that sambaquis were habitation sites, while the second supposes that they were cemeteries.

Although the focus of early debate was the origins of sambaqui formation, some important contributions were made at the end of the nineteenth century, including observations about formation processes, landscape, composition, chronology, subsistence, and the physical characteristics of the populations. Some of these topics remain current and more fully developed, while others have been dismissed. One of the main issues that dominated the social sciences in Brazil between the end of the Empire and the First World War (1889–1914) was the diversity of the human species and the notion of race, later rejected as a scientific category. Skeletons, especially skulls, were favored by researchers, often to the detriment of other materials, and they were used extensively in the first works of Brazilian anthropology, dating from 1860. These studies were influenced of French and German authors and were strongly affected by deterministic, racial theories (Seyferth 1985). These investigations resulted in extremely descriptive research, focused on characterizing human “types.”

Although eventually dismissed, the naturalistic theory resulted in an important contribution to the understanding of sambaquis. Some researchers explored the idea that rather than being the result of natural forces, sambaquis mark natural processes, and they can be good indicators of sea level variation. For example, Krone (1908) believed that older sambaquis, composed predominantly by oysters, were farther away from the modern coast, while more recent sites would be located close to the sea and composed of A. brasiliana shells. These studies were significantly developed from the 1970s onward with research focused on comprehending coastal evolution.

Some geomorphologists, considering that the basis of sambaquieiros’ diet came from the sea, believed that the groups lived closed to the coastline. For these researchers, a site’s spatial proximity to the sea was used to make inferences about coastal dynamics (Martin & Suguio 1976). Despite being considered questionable evidence for some (Scheel-Ybert et al. 2009a), spatial distribution research yielded important results. Recent coastal evolution analyses resulted in indispensable paleoenvironmental reconstructions, allowing the characterization of locales chosen by sambaquieiros to erect their settlements, as well as an understanding of the criteria that guided site selection.

Until the 1950s, sambaqui studies were focused on individual sites, hindering the broader understanding of coastal occupation. In this same decade, the first systematic works were completed, and radiocarbon dates were recovered. French and North American archaeologists, including Annette and Joseph Emperaire, Alan Bryan, and Wesley Hurt, went to Brazil to study two eminent topics of the country’s archaeology: monumental sambaquis and the hunter-gatherers of Lagoa Santa, Minas Gerais. At the same time, Brazilian intellectuals, led by Castro Faria, Paulo Duarte, and Loureiro Fernandes, initiated an intense movement aimed at the protection of the sambaquis, which had been continuously destructed for large-scale lime production since the sixteenth century.

Slowly, the number of studied sites increased, along with the breadth of the research questions being addressed. The noteworthy accumulation of knowledge that occurred from 1965 helped to renew the discipline. Two large projects had great repercussions in the way archaeology was carried out in Brazil, leaving strong impressions upon the predominant theoretical and methodological perspectives among Brazilian archaeologists: the National Program for Archaeological Research (Pronapa) was initiated in 1965 and coordinated by Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers, while the French-Brazilian Mission was created in 1973 and coordinated by Annette Laming-Emperaire.

The major concern of Brazilian archaeology until the end of the 1980s had been the investigation on cultural change through time. The discipline was marked by the creation of various phases and traditions used to define economic transformations deemed important. This system prevailed for more than two decades; the site-based approach and the interpretative scheme became practically synonymous with archaeology in the country. Conversely, some isolated studies started to investigate the spatial organization of sambaquis’ internal features. The distribution of hearths, house outlines, and burials were studied using teachings from French archaeology to understand their complex arrangement (Kneip 1976). One notable exception is Prous (1974), who detected great similarities in the representations of animals in bone and lithic sculptures and suggested the possibility of some form of ideological unity shared by sambaquieiros from the southern and southeastern coasts.

Scholars who considered sambaquis as deposits of food refuse were particularly interested in investigating faunal remains. At first, this line of research focused exclusively on the identification of animal remains, resulting in long species lists. Later, the lists were supplemented by quantification of the identified elements, and researchers tried to infer the dominant economic activities. Finally, bones and shells were counted, and correlations were made between the remains and the quantity of food they represented. This was a significant advancement, as the visual prominence of the shells was overcome. Shell valves tend to preserve well in the archaeological matrix and are obviously notable because of their color and volume. These characteristics give the impression that collection of shellfish was the primary activity that sustained the population. The goal of investigators was to characterize the diet, treating the sites individually without advancing in the delineation of social relationships of an economy based on aquatic resources.

Systematic studies of food remains were linked to Pronapa’s perspective, and this context helped to elaborate a reference model that persisted until the beginning of the 1990s. The model asserted that the sites’ different layers were the remains of successive settlement episodes by bands of nomadic gatherers, and mollusks were the basis of the diet. Environmental alterations related to sea level changes and/or mollusk bed overexploitation were believed to have led the sambaquieiros builders to change their economic basis, transforming them into fishers. The location of the sites in relation to the coast was frequently cited as evidence in support of this hypothesis.

The 1990s brought renewed interest in sambaquis, and the representation of these groups changed. They were no longer perceived as bands of nomadic mollusk gatherers searching for food. Researchers began to discuss social organization, site formation processes, and the elaborate funerary ritual, and the grandeur of the sites was now seen as the outcome of more complex social interactions. The paradigm was forever changed, usurping the preconceived notions that had lingered since the nineteenth century, equating the sambaquieiros to “primitive” people.

Key Issues/Current Debates/Future Directions

Recently, archaeologists have pursued the idea that sambaquis themselves are artifacts, constructed according to social rules making it possible to study not only their content but also their form, function, and settlement implications. As a consequence of their visibility in the coastal plain environments, sambaquis are considered landscape markers, further transforming approaches to this type of site.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, different scales of observation were articulated to build interpretations about the lifeways of sambaquieiros. On one extreme, a broad perspective investigates satellite images to study site distribution and function and settlement patterns. On the opposite end, some scholars use a focused approach, employing microscopes to examine evidence like dental calculus, joint conditions, and wood fragments, providing information about some of the more particular habits of coastal groups.

Research focusing on groups of sites attempts to understand the relationships among the units and their characteristics. Since sambaquis have different dimensions, the hierarchical relationships among settlements are discussed, and since many neighboring sites were simultaneously occupied, scholars also explore their complementary roles. It has been argued that isolated sites did not have sociological significance and that a set of sambaquis is the minimum unit of occupation. It has also been established that sambaquis occur in all regions of the Brazilian coast and are concentrated in areas where the coast is interrupted by rivers, estuaries, and lagoons. Some scholars argue that, despite regional and temporal specificities, sambaqui builders had a “collective individuality,” in the sense proposed by Marcel Mauss (1979). Comparison with other types of sites located in Brazil indicates that the custom of building mounds in the coastal plain through accumulation of faunal materials and interring the dead in these spaces is a custom exclusive to the sambaqui population.

Systematic studies interested in landscape use and the spatial distribution of sambaquis use an approach that involves detailed knowledge of coastal evolution, site dimensions, site function, and formation processes. Research at Santa Marta paleolagoon, in Santa Catarina state, confirmed an ample territorial overlapping, as in other areas, clearly indicating patterns of community interaction surrounding the lagoon. Lagoons were the epicenter of these groups’ social and economic universe. The spatial configuration of sites, along with analysis of several radiocarbon dates, demonstrates that some sambaquis were active for more than eight centuries. Analysis of the visibility of large sites, almost always central within each site cluster, indicates the existence of sedentary communities that grew in the surroundings of the lagoon (DeBlasis et al. 2007). Demographic parameters suggest impressive concentration of people in some areas of the Brazilian coast (Fish et al. 2000).

A fundamental interpretive change occurred regarding sambaquis’ formation processes: faunal remains cease to be seen solely as indicators of diet, but also as building materials. These changes refer specifically to the shells, since isotopic studies indicate mollusks did not make a significant contribution to the diet of sambaquieiros (De Masi 1999; Klokler 2008). In fact, new zooarchaeological methods and analyses demonstrate that fishing was always an important subsistence activity of these coastal groups (Figuti 1993). Moreover, paleobotanical studies and analyses of plant remains recovered from dental calculus and lithic artifacts show a more diverse diet than previously thought. The diet included a great variety of wild plants, and probably some cultivated species as well, which possibly included some cariogenic species. An incipient form of tending and harvesting (horticulture) of tubers and fruit trees is suggested in many sites located in the southeastern region and at least in some sites of the Brazilian south (Scheel-Ybert et al. 2009b).

Concerning the funerary realm, sambaquieiros use of mollusk valves to build their cemeteries assured the preservation of human skeletons. This preservation, associated with the visibility of the dead, who controlled the sambaquieiros’ territory from the top of the sites, resulted in a particular funerary program. Everything within a sambaqui seems to have followed the logic of increasing the height of the monument while at the same time guaranteeing better visibility for the dead.

Studies of several meters of profiles from the site Jabuticabeira II, in Santa Catarina (Fig. 2), indicate that its volume, 320,000 cubic meters, is primarily a consequence of activities related to funerary ritual. The ritual involved the deposition of the body in the top of the mound, inclusion of large quantities of offerings, and long-term maintenance of hearths, resulting in thick deposits of ash.

Sambaquis Shell Mounds, Archaeology of, Fig. 2

Jabuticabeira II Sambaqui, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Hyperflexed bodies were deposited close to each other, delineating funerary areas within the large site. Shallow graves were delimited by posts, occasionally made with hardwood (Bianchini et al. 2007). After the deposition of many burials, the areas were closed with the deposition of successive lenses composed predominantly by shells or fish bones, charcoal, and sand, resulting in an intricate stratigraphic sequence (Fish et al. 2000; Klokler 2008).

Studies of archaeofacies propose that the materials were processed in spaces outside the site and had different treatment before being deposited within the sambaqui. In this way, the body and its associated offerings comprise a primary deposit, and the materials covering the funerary areas were secondary or tertiary deposits. The materials that cover the funerary areas may have been accumulated in small sambaquis located nearby, whose archaeological layers rarely surpass 40 cm in thickness (Villagran et al. 2010).

The repetition of funerary ceremonies throughout more than eight centuries created a monumental element in the landscape that, due to its size and configuration, perpetuates a message that its builders wanted to transmit (Fish et al. 2000). The successive events, directly related to the process of site growth, inform visitors to the coast that the area is the sambaquieiros domain where they interred their dead. In this way, sambaquis are the result of intense social processes that resulted in a highly domesticated landscape, marked by sentimental and emotional references.

Cross-References

Hunter-Gatherer Settlement and Mobility

Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence Variation and Intensification

Hunter-Gatherers, Archaeology of

Mesoamerica: Subsistence Strategies by Region