Archaeobotany and socioeconomic changes in the Middle Holocene in Southwetern Amazon

Abstract

The Shellmound Monte Castelo is located in the southeast of Rondônia, in an enviroment of flooded savannas of the Wetlands of the Guapore , in a region with the oldest dates to the human occupation of the Amazon (14,000 BP, no Abrigo do Sol - MT) and for the formation of anthropogenic soils (Amazonian Black Earths), besides the first records of domestication of cassava (Manihot esculenta) and peach palm (Bactris gasipae). It was excavated in the 1980s by E. Miller, identifying deep lithic packages (phase Cupim) up to 8,000 BP - one of the few contexts known to the Early Holocene in the Brazilian Amazon - and a ceramics production dating back to 4,000 BP (phase Bacabal). It is therefore an important record of long-term processes of interaction between indigenous peoples and the environment, as well as the creation of Amazonian landscapes and can reveal data about plant domestication, ecological interactions, agriculture and socio-economy of the past.This project is inserted in a growing debate about ways of old management and early agricultural practices in the Amazon region, seeking to dialogue with research on the antiquity and intensity of production of food and other items of consumption. The objective is to carry out a characterization of this material in different cultural strata of the site, in order to produce quantitative and qualitative data (species identification), and statistics, which will assess the richness, diversity and conservation of samples. With this, it is expected to question whether there was a process of change in the form and intensity of interaction with the environment and economic organization over time, and to identify the correlation between technological changes and changes in the forms of production in the Amazon over time. (AU)