Sambaquis and landscape: modeling cultural and natural relationships at the Brazilian southern shores, Santa Catarina

Abstract

This interdisciplinary project focuses on the integrated study of prehistoric processes of regional occupation and landscape formation by the sambaqui (shell mound) building societies at the soother shores of Santa Catarina, Brazil, vis-à-vis the dynamic environmental evolution that took place throughout the Holocene. The essential idea is to understand how sambaqui people have made these coastal lowlands their homeland leaving behind the sambaqui, monumental imprints on the ever changing fiat landscape - and their relations with other contemporary societies like Umbu and Guarani people. Methodologically speaking, this is a multifaceted research program, contemplating geological, geophysical, anthracological and zooarchaeological perspectives, as well as a special attention to human biology interests such as microevolution and diet. Archaeological approaches focus at intra-site formation processes, as well as settlement evolution in a regional scope. The full range of perspectives included into this comprehensive research project fits together through the implementation of a GIS system, now at a prototype stage, aiming to model the complex patterns of natural and socio-cultural evolution that have taken place at the southern coast of Santa Catarina in late prehistoric times. (AU)