1. AMAZON 4 Marajó Island (Marajoara) 1 2 2) Santarem 3 3) Central Amazon
4) Gavan
(Western Venezuela)
5) Acre, Brazil
6) Lowland Bolivia (Baure)
7) Upper Xingu River 1 2 3 5 7 6

2. Rolling Stone, 10/17/07

3. are the Andes and Amazonia
The “Great Divide”
Traditional view: complex societies emerged in the Andean area and any complex societies (chiefdoms) in Amazon must be the result of diffusion or migration from the Andes
Highlands
(Andes)
Lowlands
(Amazon)
The two major geographic blocks that cover the majority of South America
are the Andes and Amazonia

4. Manioc, the major Amazonian staple crop (domesticated by 6,000-8,000 BC, based on genetic evidence)

5. At least 138 crops with some degree of domestication were being cultivated or managed by native Amazonians at the time of European conquest (83 crops native to Amazonia).
68% of these Amazonian crops are fruit or nut trees or woody perennials (not surprising in Amazon forest).
Peach Palm

6. Landscape domestication and management of non-domesticated
plants and animals and
incipient or semi-domesticates

7. Currasow (like “wild turkey”)
Muscovy Duck
Currasow (like “wild turkey”)
Parrots & Macaws

8. The Tropical Diaspora Austronesian Arawak Bantu Tupi-Guarani
Tupi languages originated in SW Amazonia by BC
Proto-Arawak likely began to diverge c BC

9. Distribution of Tupi-Guarani languages
Origin
(homeland)
By AD 1
Distribution of Tupi-Guarani languages

10. The Arawak
Diaspora
500 BC
300 BC
BC/AD1 10 10

11. Amazonian Barrancoid
Shared ceramic tradition across much of Amazonia, often associated with speakers of Arawak languages, generally dates to ca. 500 BC to AD 1000, but varies from region to region

12. Northern Amazonia (Saladoid/Barrancoid)
Trants, Caribbean
c. 500 BC-AD 600
Gaván, Western Orinoquia,
c. AD

13. Polychrome Tradition
The Amazonian Polychrome Tradition represents a transformation, c years ago, of the earlier Barrancoid Tradition ceramic industry by widespread trade of fine ceramics (“wealth” goods) between elites up and down the Amazon

14. 1 2 3
Amazonian Polychrome
Tradition
Marajoara
Santarém
Central Amazon

15. MARAJOARA
Mound-building regional chiefdoms that developed ca. AD 400 until European contact; early example of Amazonian Polychrome Tradition

16. Caumtins (Marajoara) mound group
Elite mounds

17. Marajoara
burial urns

18. Domestic mounds

19. Elite Mounds (Camutins) Regional Ceramic Traditions?
Elite Mounds (Camutins)
Regional Ceramic Traditions

20. Amazonian Stonehenge (Amapa),
ca. AD 1-500

21. Macapa burial urns, north of the mouth of the Amazon, ca. AD 1500-1600

22. Over 150 archaeological sites
CENTRAL
AMAZON
Over 150 archaeological sites
located in area (central Amazon) at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. 22

23. Açutuba (“big Port”), central Amazon, ca. 300 BC-AD 1600
Major center with central plaza
the size of 4 football fields

24. Ceramics from Açutuba (Central Amazon, Polychrome Tradition)

25. Area adjacent to Açutuba plaza
Amazonian “black earth” sites - “terra preta” (TP),
after ca. AD 1000
Area adjacent to Açutuba plaza

26. Santarém is a large pre-Columbian center, located within the city
limits of modern city of the same name. The core area of the
settlement was roughly 100 ha and overall area up to 20 km² (largest Amazonian town). Center of broad network of smaller,
Satellite communities.

27. Santarém ceramics “very great quantities of porcelain ware of
various makes … the best that has ever
been seen in the world” (Carvajal 1542)

28. 1) Acre, Brazil; 2) lowland Bolivia; 3) Upper Xingu River

29. Geoglyphs of Western Amazonia
(Acre, Brazil)

30. Acre, Brazil

31. Mound linked by causeways in domesticated landscapes of lowland Bolivia

32. eastern lowland Bolivia
Fish-farming, Baure of
eastern lowland Bolivia
Raised Agricultural Fields,
Bolivian lowlands

33. Areas of Arawak and related polities in AD 1500: 1) Upper Xingu; 2) Pareci; 3) Baure (eastern Bolivia)

34. Regional distribution of galactic clusters (polities) in a peer polity system, in other words each polity was politically equal (not single capital center)
Note extent of anthropogenic areas (denoted by large orange and red circles): no “pristine forest” here

37. These galactic clusters
Galactic settlement clusters: central plaza settlement, four primary plaza satellites positioned according to cardinal directions, and other small peripheral plaza settlements (about the size of contemporary Upper Xingu villages)
These galactic clusters
were small, territorial polities (complex societies) in AD 1500

39. Core area of one galactic cluster (note central settlement X13 and four primary satellites

40. “Garden cities of Tomorrow” (1902)
Ebenezer Howard’s
“Garden cities of Tomorrow” (1902)
Garden Cities of Yesterday?
Galactic Urbanism or “Garden Cities”: precisely designed network of five core settlements and smaller peripheral settlements in territorial polities, with mosaic of occupation areas, agricultural countryside, and managed wetlands, interspersed by patches of forest and separated from other clusters by closed forest zones (green belts)

41. European Contact
Catastrophic effects of European contact, notably depopulation from Old World diseases, decimated the complex societies of the Amazon floodplains, but also reached throughout the Amazon forest, even though European explorers themselves seldom ventured into many parts of the Amazon until recently