GPR survey on underwater archaeological site: A case study at Jenipapo stilt village in the eastern Amazon region, Brazil

Abstract

In this work we present and discuss the results of a pioneering Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey performed at the underwater archaeological stilt village called Jenipapo in the eastern Amazon region. Jenipapo stilt village is located on the Turiaçu River, Maranhão State, Northeast of Brazil. The region is known as the Maranhense wetland where settlements were built by indigenous populations that inhabited this region during the pre-colonial period (∼AD 1 – 1100). These settlements were built on the margin of rivers and lakes, being supported by wooden pillars, corresponding to prehistoric stilt houses. The objectives of this research are to refine the wooden pillars location at the Turiaçu River bottom and guide the search for underwater archaeological artifacts. A total of twelve GPR profiles were acquired with 270 MHz antennas using a rubber boat. The GPR results indicated clear signal reflection from the river bottom and several diffraction hyperbolas suspended over the river bottom related to the top of the wooden pillars. To support the interpretation of the results, a GPR numerical modeling was performed to simulate the diffraction hyperbolas suspended in the water related to the wooden pillars. The synthetic result presented a good agreement with real data. Finally, the location of several diffraction hyperbolas can guide the divers to find and collect archaeological artifacts around the underwater wooden pillars that are the best evidence of the stilt houses of indigenous settlements found in the eastern Amazon region. Several archaeological artifacts were found during previous work, including ceramic materials. The results of this research show the capability of the GPR method to map an underwater wooden pillar and increase the probability of finding archaeological artifacts on the river bottom, which contributes to improve the knowledge of the Amazonian archaeology in Brazil.