Results from Pilot Archaeological Fieldwork at the Carrazedo Site, Lower Xingu River, Amazonia

Abstract

Increasingly, archaeological research in Amazonia is revealing complex precolonial occupation in areas around riverine confluences. In 2014, the first site-based archaeological investigations were undertaken in Gurupá, Pará, Brazil, a municipality that spans the region of the Xingu-Amazon confluence. The Portuguese controlled access to Amazonia from 1623 onward through a network of settlements organized around Gurupá. Results from extensive excavations of terra preta sites, landscape archaeology, and analysis of ceramic evidence suggest that this was also a precolonial crossroads. Carrazedo, once a booming historical town (Arapijó), sits atop a significantly larger terra preta site. Excavations in historical and precolonial sectors of Carrazedo found well-preserved remains, including a precolonial house terrace complex. The extent of terra preta and earthworks at Carrazedo indicate that the precolonial occupation was more intensive than the colonial-historical period occupation. Regional survey revealed colonial-historical period sites consistently overlying expansive precolonial sites, the density and extent of which suggest a major precolonial center at the Xingu-Amazon confluence. Overall, ecological and landscape modifications appear to have been more intense in the precolonial past than during later periods. Short- and long-distance settlement networks also differed during the two periods. This as-of-yet understudied region promises to shed new light on deep-time human-environment interactions and spatial organization in the humid tropics of Amazonia.