Caçadores Coletores na Amazônia: eles existem / Amazonian hunter-gatheres: they exist

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The present study is a systematization of archaeological and ethnographic data on Amazonian hunter-gatherers societies, as well as a survey of paleoenvironmental studies from the same region with the aim to test and refine models that explain the colonization of Amazon forest by societies based on foraging economy. This work also contributes to new archaeological data based on recent research in Carajás region, Pará state. Especial attention is given to lithic material, which is the most durable archaeological evidence, therefore, the most abundant cultural remain associated with Amazonian hunter-gatherer societies. The viability of human occupation in tropical forest regions based on a foraging economy has been challenged from an environmental limiting-factor perspective such as low accessibility of protein (Lathrap, 1968) or carbohydrate (Bailey, 1989) for human foragers. Ethnographic and ecological studies in the Amazon region have demonstrated that past generalizations and environmental limitations of tropical forest don t proceed. Despite that, and the fact that in the past few years we have witnessed a growing number of research in the area focused on the question of hunter-gatherers colonization of the neotropics, with the generation of a chronology that indicates the antiquity of human occupation, dating back to the terminal Pleistocene, and early Holocene, we still have to generate more robust empirical data. Furthermore, we need to refine our models, theoretically and empirically, so that the new studies are accepted by the scientific community.

ASSUNTO(S)

lítico carajás litics caçador coletor amazonian archaeology cultura material material culture carajás hunter-gatheres arqueologia amazônica

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