Gifts from the Past:

The Material Culture of Ancient Amazonia∗

Cristiana Barreto

The exhibition AMAZONIA, Native Traditions aims to show the Amazon,

today much praised for its pristine environment and biodiversity, through the arts
and beliefs of its traditional peoples. It brings to China, for the first time, a
universe of objects and artifacts that is largely unknown, not only to the Chinese
public, but to the world in general.
The challenge of showing Amazonian materials to a new public is greater
yet in China if we consider the sharp contrasts between, on the one hand, the
remarkable antiquity and sophistication of material culture traditions from
Chinese civilization and, on the other hand, the common view that pictures
Amazonian Indians as small, primitive groups whose material culture failed to
reach advanced levels of technological or artistic achievement - a view, we
believe is simplistic and mistaken.
If any comparisons between the ancient traditions of China and Amazonia
are in order, perhaps it is in their most contrasting features, such as the
monumentality of ancient Chinese artistry, embodied for instance in Xian’s terra-
cotta army, or perhaps the antiquity of a writing system through which an
enormous territory was united and which enabled the recording of much of
Chinese civilization’s history. It is true that societies of ancient Amazonia never
developed formal writing, nor did they build monuments of similar scale. However
they do have and enduring, long history of technological and artistic
achievements, ones that survived the great threats of colonial domination to
leave material and spiritual marks on both the region’s landscape and today’s
culture.

∗
Texto publicado no catálogo da exposição Amazônia, Native Traditions realizada em 2004 em
no Museu da Cidade Imperial, Pequim, China. (Catálogo editado por Luís Donisete Benzi
Grupioni e Cristiana Barreto, São Paulo, BrasilConnects, 2004).
 These sharp contrasts, rather than undermine the task of showing
Amazonian traditions in China or intimidate the consideration of their antiquity
and technical achievements, have instead inspired and helped us to organize the
exhibition, in terms of showing contents that we believe will be intuitively
understood by the Chinese public. We therefore chose to directly address the
question of antiquity, of technological advances, of the unity of an enormous
region, its artistic traditions and its cultural means of preserving them, themes
and perspectives that are very much known to the Chinese in their own country.
Accordingly, the first part of this exhibition is composed of objects primarily
related to Ancient Amazonia, i.e., its cultural traditions from the past before
European colonization of the region, a past that is known only through
archaeological research and the material remains that have survived until our
times.

The antiquity of Amazonian cultural traditions

For most of the 20th century, Amazonia was considered as one the
persistently marginal regions of the New World, where cultural development had
lagged behind other better-known ancient civilizations, such as the complex
societies of Mesoamerica or the Andes.
However, archaeological research undertaken in the last two decades has
demonstrated not only that important endogenous cultural developments
flourished in the Amazon, but also that such developments can now be seen as
the result of a continuous, long, and very early human occupation of the region.
Today we know that the region has been occupied by foraging groups
since at least 10 500 years ago, and that sedentary villages were already in
place by at least 6 000 to 5 000 years before the present. Compared to most
other areas of the Americas both dates are extremely old. Even when compared
to the Neolithic periods of Europe and Asia (broadly considered from 8 000 to 4
000 years ago), the emergence of village life and early agriculture in the Amazon
does not lag much behind these developments in other world regions. Indeed,
the appearance of pottery in the Amazon, dated at 8 000 BP, appears to be the
earliest pottery in the Americas, and amongst the oldest in the world.
The antiquity of Amazonian culture matters not just because of these
comparisons across time with other cultural complexes. It matters because this
antiquity demonstrates that the indigenous populations of present Amazonia
have shared a long history, and that ruptures caused by contact with Europeans
roughly 500 years ago have to be seen as a relatively recent event. In sum,
Amazonian traditions must be considered dynamically, in their full context of a
long history, past and present.
This also implies that the present indigenous societies of Amazonia, or as
we have known them for the last hundred years or so, cannot be taken as
models of how these peoples have lived and created throughout the long span of
their existence, i. e., during a 10 000 year-long cultural and social trajectory. The
massive disruptions caused by European colonization, such as dramatic
population losses due to disease and war, enslavement, and territorial
displacement, have markedly changed their social practices and political nature.
Indeed, contrary to the common view of the region, recent archaeology clearly
shows that, just before 1500 AD, the Amazonian floodplains were densely
inhabited by large populations organized into many complex polities, most of
which participated in region-wide exchange networks. Estimates of the total
population of the Amazon basin now reach six million inhabitants (Denevan
1992a) .
The flourishing of sophisticated pottery styles throughout the middle and
lower Amazon approximately 2000 years ago is perhaps the best testimony of
cultural developments among pre-colonial Amazonian societies. And while no
monuments, temples, or cities were left behind to give us a better picture of
cultural achievements, archaeology has unveiled other kinds of remarkable
human interventions in the regional landscape.
This brings us to state clearly the most important implication of the long
presence of man in Amazonia: their long-term successful adaptation to tropical
forest environments, involving the cumulative development of knowledge about
natural resources and resource management strategies as to not only preserve
but also increase the region’s bio-diversity. This is perhaps the greatest
technological achievement of ancient Amazonian societies.

Arrows and axes:

Forest management and agriculture in ancient Amazonia
We chose to open this exhibition with two groups of relevant artifacts in
the history of Amazonian forest management: projectiles points for hunting
arrows and spears of diverse shapes and sizes made of chipped stone that
indicate ancient hunting traditions in the forest; and the polished stone axe
blades that indicate the intense practices of forest clearing for both village settling
and gardening.
Forest management in the Amazon probably began around 10 000 years
ago, when foraging groups lived in a changing environment by the end of the
Pleistocene. These first human interventions in the forest were probably a major
factor that contributed to the extinction of large Pleistocene animals through the
systematic and predatory hunting of such species, although climatic changes
may have also contributed to their extinction.
Since big game hunting succeeded as a human survival strategy, hunting
strategies evolved throughout 10 000 years becoming not only a matter of
subsistence but also a highly symbolic practice of native Amazonia, through
which relations between humans and animals have been constantly conceived
(Politis 2001, Rival 1996).
In addition to instruments made of stone, which were certainly special, an
equally wide range of hunting instruments (arrows, bows, blow guns, spears,
darts, and atlatls) were most likely fashioned from wood and vegetal fibers, along
the lines these instruments are still made today, but have not survived the
archaeological record.
Most chipped stone projectile points are isolated finds in the Amazon, and
rarely have they been encountered in their original contexts, i.e., in early hunter-
gatherers sites. They can, however, be linked to the early human occupation of
the region, prior to development of agricultural societies since they are absent in
these better known-sites.
The sophisticated technological skills of stone chipping (using both
bilateral percussion and pressure) in the making of the projectile points for
hunting arrows and spears indicates the importance of hunting as a subsistence
activity very early on, specially considering the scarcity of stone sources in the
region and the rarity of stone implements in general.
Furthermore, the wide variation in size and shape of these hunting
instruments suggest a diversity of hunting practices, involving both large and
small game, as perhaps a way to preserve the faunal diversity of the region from
very early times. Fishing arrows and spears are also still used in select parts of
the Amazon along with other fishing techniques.
Indeed, in one of the very oldest sites in the Amazon, dated from between
11 700 to 9 800 years ago, a flaked projectile and organic remains have been
preserved, and analysis of remains indicate that these groups were living on a
broad-spectrum diet, one based on a wide variety of both terrestrial and aquatic
animals as well as plants, including fruits, nuts, and seeds (Roosevelt et all 1991,
1997; Oliver 2001).
Along with specialized hunting, the gathering of plants have led very early
on to human intervention in terms of the distribution and reproduction of certain
plant species in forested areas. The clearing of forests and management of
secondary growth (capoeiras) seem to be very ancient practices, the evidence of
which is found in the numerous artificial groves of highly valued palm or fruit
trees throughout the region (Balée 1993).
In pre-colonial times, forest clearing was achieved mainly through the
cutting of large trees with stone axes and burning of delimited forest areas, a
technique usually known a “slash-and-burn”. Stone axes, such as the ones
exhibited here, were therefore important subsistence tools (Denevan 1992b).
Men probably dedicated a great deal of their time in the making and use of stone
axes. The polishing of stone pebbles (sometimes preceded by chipping)
necessary for the making of an efficient hafted axe is a task that probably took
more than a day’s labor. And while the very large trees of the Amazon (some
reaching 50 m high and 10 m diameter) can today be easily felled with power
chainsaws in a few hours, the cutting of large trees in the past with stone axes
was certainly a very demanding task.
Forest clearing was not only necessary for building villages but also for
gardening and farming, and this was probably the most significant way in which
Amazonian societies have altered their environment. Through a cyclical system
of village mobility and forest clearing, by letting palm trees grow in abandoned
village clearings, by rotating garden plots, by storing edible roots underground,
and by the manipulation of an wide range of wild plants, ancient Amazonian
societies could create a world of diverse, abundant and reliable resources (Balée
1989).
Traditional Amazonian agriculture relies mainly in high caloric tuber
varieties of manioc as the staple, a crop for which consumption levels in tropical
regions is surpassed only by Asian rice. In the past, it is possible that peoples
had a more varied diet. The most impressive evidence of human agency in the
preservation and increase of plant diversity in the Amazon is perhaps the series
of hundreds of species that were originally domesticated (or semi-domesticated)
in the region, including manioc (Manihot esculenta), pineapple (Ananas
comosus), peanuts (Arachis hypogea); passion fruit (Passiflora edulis), papaya
(Carica papaya), and many other nut and fruit trees such as gouava, cashew,
cocoa, and Brazil nuts, to cite just the ones which are known worldwide (Balée
1989,1993; Rival 1998).
Since European colonization of the Amazon, farmers have noticed
the remarkable fertility of the very dark soils along most of the basin’s floodplains.
Thanks to recent research, we now know that most of these dark soils are
anthropogenic, that is to say of human origin, either because the decay of
indigenous settlements contributed to a high proportion of organic materials in
the soil, or because these soils were purposely enriched with organic materials
by indigenous peoples in the past. These black soils, known by local farmers as
“terra preta de índio” (indian’s black earth), are evident across most of the
Amazonian basin’s floodplains, attesting both to the very high degree of human
intervention in the landscape by Amazonian pre-colonial societies and that,
before Europeans arrived, these people had found the means of sustainable
development for large populations (Petersen et all 2001).

Green stones and ancestral worship:

The making of a regional tradition
Amazonia is an enormous region with many local cultural expressions and
practices. The language and cultural diversity of its indigenous peoples is
surpassed only by its bio-diversity. What bounds the region together, culturally
speaking, is not only its traditional subsistence practices, as described above, but
also truly pan-Amazonian ways to conceive and represent the world, ways that
can display particular and partial similarities with those of other regions of the
Americas, such as the Andean, the Mesoamerican or North American indigenous
peoples, but that are fundamentally integrated as a unique, whole, Amazonian
cosmos. This can be said especially for the set of rules and rites that regulate
marriage, residence, and individual power, for their mythology, for the way
communities are conceived, for their notions about the place of humans in the
world, for their relations with other living beings, and for their means of access to
spiritual worlds.
In the past, this regional unity can be seen in two sets of material
evidence: materials (and associated values) that were shared throughout the
entire region, and that probably circulated through a wide regional exchange
network, as is the case with a variety of small artifacts made of green stone, such
as beads, pendants and amulets (or muiraquitãs); and assemblages of similar
artifacts that performed similar functions across the local cultures of ancient
Amazonia, such as ceramic funerary urns.
Amazonian green stones (varieties of nephrite and quartz) appear mainly
as small pendants in the shape of frogs, but other animal (fish, birds, bats) and
human forms are also known. Although their exact use is still a matter of
research, we know that some clay figurines from lower Amazon depicting high
status women seem to display similar objects as hair ornaments (Gomes 2001).
These semi-precious stones have also been found in funerary contexts, inside
highly decorated burial urns alongside other offerings and personal belongings of
the dead (Palmatary 1950, Shaan 2003a).
However rare these items seem to have been, the muiraquitãs were
distributed very widely in geographical terms, being found throughout the
Amazon and Orinoco basins, and as far as the Caribbean Islands. Although the
exact sources of these stones have not yet been identified, it is believed that their
main area of production was along the Jamundá and the Trombetas rivers, two
northern Amazon tributaries near the town of Santarém. This region seems to
have been densly occupied by large settlements since at least 800 AD, probably
by the ancestors of the Tapajó, an ethnic group now extinct. The frog pendants,
in particular, vary little in shape and size and can therefore be easily recognized
as being Amazonian in origin, even when found far away from the region.
Considering the existence of wide trading networks (Colson 1985, Myers
1981, Porro 1994), it is plausible to view muiraquitãs as prestigious items traded
among Amazonian chiefdom elites of the time. Indeed, scholars have advanced
the hypothesis that these green stones were exchanged by tribal leaders and
chiefs as means for death compensation, marriage transactions, and peace
making ceremonies, as well as other forms of non-commercial payment to
establish or maintain alliances (Boomert 1987).
Today, many legends of Amazonian popular tradition explain the origins of
muiraquitãs as involving the mythical warrior women called Amazons, who also
gave their name to the river. Amazonians still confer special powers on
muiraquitãs as good fortune amulets. Indeed this is one of the few items of pre-
colonial indigenous traditions that have not only remained in use in contemporary
popular and literary traditions, but also are still cherished by common people as
symbols of happiness and good fortune.
But if the region seems to have been bound together through regional
exchange networks, it is also true that many shared beliefs have cemented
regional traditions. One of these is a strong belief that ancestors need to be
called upon for maintenance of their cosmos, not to mention the general
importance assigned to ancestry and particular attachments to ancestors. This is
still expressed throughout Amazonia in the extremely long, complex, and
demanding rituals dedicated to the dead, whether in funerals or other
ceremonies.
In the past, this tradition can be observed in the widespread funerary
practices of burying the dead inside anthropomorphic urns that display symbols
representing the individual’s place in the community. These urns, in many areas
of lower Amazonia, were kept unburied in caves or shelters in order to facilitate
direct access. This sort of funerary immortalization of the dead seems to coincide
with the flourishing of more complex cultural traditions about 2000 years ago, and
are observed throughout the basin, from Marajó island, at the mouth of the
Amazon, till the Upper Amazon, close to the present Colombian border.
In this exhibition we chose to show five groups of urns belonging to these
different traditions from the middle and lower Amazon: Marajoara, Aruã, Aristé,
Maracá, and Guarita. All of these urns served for the secondary and final burial
of bones from individuals whose bodies had previously been buried and left to rot
in order to separate flesh from bone, and whose bones were thereafter carefully
recovered, treated, and placed inside these ceramic vessels in a second funerary
ceremony, sometimes with other offerings and belongings.
All urns have, in one way or another, anthropomorphic references, some
very clear, such as Maracá urns which display seated individuals with a number
of specific attributes such as size and gender (relating to the age and sex of the
deceased), as well as body painting and head decoration (probably relating to
the social status of the deceased) (Guapindaia 2001). Other urns, such as those
from the Guarita or Marajoara, exhibit only a face or eyes, in more or less
stylized representations. However different these local styles may be, they all
belong to a pan-Amazonian ancient tradition of burial practices in
anthropomorphic urns (Meggers 1957).
 Pots and figurines:
The body language of ancient Amazonian ceramics
We noted above how Amazonian indigenous traditions have survived
through time without a writing system, as has been the case with many other pre-
Colombian cultures. Indeed the role of oral traditions in passing on cultural
practices and values from generation to generation through time is well known
(Chernella, 1988; Hill 1993). Objects, and the way they are produced and
utilized, also play an important part passing on cultural values.
The different styles of decoration and representation that have survived on
pre-colonial ceramic artifacts indicate that true systems of communication of
ideas, values, and beliefs were at use on ceramics. These systems displayed
more or less ambiguous sets of graphic references and designs that most likely
could be understood throughout the region. They probably represented a variety
of information about the potter’s specific community and origins. Considering that
ceramics were widely produced throughout Amazonia by the year ca. 1000 AD,
as attested by extremely dense ceramic sites, and considering that by this time
the region was fully integrated by a wide ranging fluvial trade network ensuring
the flow of goods, people, and, most importantly, of ideas, ceramic objects were
an ideal portable and durable base for displaying and spreading information
about the particular societies who made them.
The most striking information these artifacts display is related to the
identity of individuals or social groups within their communities. We have already
mentioned how funerary urns can display information about the deceased
individuals buried inside them, in terms of their age, gender, and group affiliation.
In Marajó, urn sizes and decorations are also clearly related to the prestige and
social status of the dead: the larger and more decorated the urn, the greater the
power and access to prestige goods of the individual.
In addition to referents to funerary urns and items, objects used in rituals
of initiation also seem to display information about an individual’s place in
society. The ceramic pubic covers (or tangas) found in Marajoara sites, probably
worn by girls during puberty rites of initiation, have been found to be composed
of patterns and variation in graphic design that seem to relate to different levels
of information.
As with other Marajoara decorative patterns, the designs on the tangas
seem to follow very strict rules. The external triangular area is usually divided into
three fields: The first a thin band at the top, where bars and filled areas are
combined in patterns that are found throughout the majority of tangas; a second
band displays linear and horizontal patterns that seem to differ a bit more across
the universe of decorated tangas, but still are often repeated patterns. Below this
band, a third and larger triangular area displays crosses, spirals, and straight and
zigzag lines combined to form totally unique compositions.
This gradual variation of motifs in well-ordered fields has been interpreted
by archaeologists as displaying information about the wearer’s different group
affiliation and social status, perhaps following some order of group inclusion,
from larger groups (such as gender, lineage, and clan) to the wearer’s more
specific individual identity (Barreto 2002; Shaan 2001b, 2003b).
Body painting and ornamentation are traditional practices among
indigenous Amazonian groups that still thrive today. Contemporary studies of
such practices have documented how they are performed, especially during
rituals, in terms of following strict rules as to the designs and materials used.
These studies also show how designs display information about the individual’s
affiliations, but may also relate to elements in their cosmologies, representing, for
instance, ancestral and mythical beings (Vidal 1985, 1992; van Velthem 1992).
Close parallels can be traced between the way human bodies and ceramic
vessels are decorated among past Amazonian societies (Roosevelt 1988; Shaan
2001a). Indeed, Brazilian anthropologists have shown that the way people
conceive of and represent their bodies can be seen as mental models of their
selves (Viveiros de Castro 1987). This is probably why peoples of ancient Marajó
and Santarém produced a great number of ceramic figurines depicting people, in
most cases, showing their decorated bodies. Because of they are portable,
figurines allow human bodies to be shown wherever they are taken. Man,
women, and children are represented in figurines with a wide variety of body
paintings and ornaments around wrists, ankles, and necks, with perforated ear
lobes, headdresses and hair adornments.
Among the different types of ceramics produced during the Marajoara
phase on Marajó Island, figurines of woman, often depicted in a squatting birth-
giving position are also famous for their overall phallic shape, combining both
female and male attributes in the same object. Many of these figurines seem to
have been used as rattles for ceremonial performances. Intentional decapitation
seems likely, for most are found headless. While the composition of heads
seems always to differ from one figurine to another (perhaps because hair
ornaments and headdresses had an important role as asserting individual
identities), body decorations, mostly body-painting designs, are often shared by
other figurines, most likely as signs of membership to a particular social group
(Barreto 2002, Roosevelt 1988, Shaan 2001a, 2001b).
The more realistic depictions of people in ancient Tapajós figurines seems
to also stress differences between individual and group identities, in particular
between men and women. While men are always depicted in either very relaxing
or thoughtful poses, women faces often display a clear expression of
discontentment.
Body ornaments such as ear plugs, labrets, muiraquitãs, pendants and
necklaces are found in the archaeological record in a number of materials, sizes
and shapes. Some were probably highly prestigious items, like the rare green
stone muiraquitãs and labrets. However, similar ornaments were also made out
of clay, following the exact same shapes, perhaps allowing less prestigious
individuals to decorate their bodies in similar fashions. Body decoration appears
to have been performed across entire communities and not as an exclusive
practice of elites.
The potential of ceramic analysis has long been recognized as an
important tool that may reveal better understanding of past Amazonian societies.
However, in-depth iconographic studies of the graphic designs displayed on
ceramics and people’s bodies (as represented by figurines and anthropomorphic
urns), have just begun. Such studies, by incorporating iconographic
interpretations with the more in-depth archaeological data acquired during the
last decades, seem to be the most promising research able to increase
knowledge about past Amazonian worlds (Gomes 2001, Guapindaia 2001,
Shaan 1997,1999, 2001b).

Stools, pipes, and special pots:

Identity and power in ancient Amazon
Results of archaeological research during the last decades seem to
converge toward a reconstruction of Amazonian peoples across the region prior
to European contact as fairly hierarchical societies, organized into more or less
stable chiefdoms, integrated by regional networks, but also competing amongst
each other through constant warfare (Carneiro 1995, Heckenberger 1996,
Heckenberger et all 1999, Roosevelt 1999, McEwan et all 2001, Neves 1999).
Although the nature and dynamics of the hierarchical principles that
organized past Amazonian societies are still poorly understood, two characters
seem to be of central relevance for understanding how political leadership,
differential access to goods, and social mobilization may have developed: the
chief and the shaman.
Until today, objects such as necklaces, batons, rattles, and other items are
found to be for exclusive use by chiefs and shamans, functioning as truly special
objects and power insignias. In the past, the existence of such exclusive objects
is suggested by select items which seem to have performed similar roles, either
because of their similarity with contemporary ceremonial objects, or because of
how rare they are in the archaeological record.
Ceramic stools or head-rests, seem to have been one such special item.
According to different sources (Zerries 1970, 1985; McEwan 2001) it is likely that
seats, as in other parts of South America, would have served to mark rank and
status, and, especially in the Amazon, would have been an essential possession
of chiefs, warriors, and shamans. Indeed, carved wooden stools such as the
ones still made today by contemporary indigenous groups, seem to be present in
a number of legends and origin-myths as special objects. Stools often represent
symbols of stability and wisdom, and were seen as essential tools for shamans to
sit upon and reach spiritual worlds (McEwan 2001, Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975,
Zerries 1970).
In the archaeological record, ceramic seats appear both represented in the
anthropomorphic funerary urns, such as the Maracá urns which depict individuals
seated on zoomorphic stools, and as isolated items, such as the ceramic stools
found in Marajoara sites. The latter display a variety of decorative patterns that
replicate traditional woven patterns.
In ancient Marajó, other objects also seem related to shamanistic
practices, such as the ingestion of hallucinogenic herbs to induce trances, or
smoke pipes, as well as pots for the fermentation of alcoholic beverages and the
storage of drugs. Some display dramatically altered human expressions to
suggest the shamans altered states while performing cures or talking to
ancestors in dreams.

Conclusion
When displaying objects that have survived in the archaeological record of
past Amazonian societies one needs to constantly keep in mind that stone and
ceramic objects must have been but a small part of the diverse material cultural
universe of these peoples. We know that a wide range of other objects made of
wood, leather, cotton, bone, shells, seeds, feathers and many other materials
must have existed in the past, perhaps displaying just as many symbolic
meanings as the stone and ceramic objects we can admire.
Among the earliest indigenous materials to reach Europeans were the
colorful works of feather that seemed so exotic, and which were to be forever
associated with Amazonian peoples, in a way overshadowing the other aspects
of a rich repertoire of utilitarian and ceremonial objects fully embued with
symbolic meanings.
Objects have an enormous potential for telling stories and are normally
used in exhibitions as means to recreate particular universes. Non-material
expressions such as music, stories, myths, designs, and beliefs are also
important to define and communicate Amazonian traditions. Unfortunately, in the
case of Ancient Amazonia, only material objects and, often, just fragments of
these objects, are the only clues left by this rich cultural tradition.
Archaeology can, however, unveil the deep knowledge embedded in the
making and use of these objects, the same way it has brought attention to how
the past peoples of Amazonia have, for millennia, managed and sustained large
populations in the forest.
This exhibition also hopes to show how the material culture of ancient
Amazonia can open new perspectives on how contemporary indigenous objects
can be viewed, showing not only the long history behind them, but also alerting
for the importance of preserving this rich cultural heritage.

Acknowledgements
This paper benefits from discussions about Amazonian material culture with many
archeology colleagues who, in one way or another, have brought to my attention
different ways of reading objects and interpreting their meanings, in particular Eduardo
Neves, Denise Shaan, Vera Guapindaia, Colin McEwan and Julia Berra. The curatorial
partnership with ethnologist Luis Donisete Benzi Grupioni and our memorable journeys
inside museum reserves have been extremely rewarding in the learning of and
comparison with ethnographic materials and their contexts. I am alone responsible for
any shortcomings and contentious interpretations herein advanced.
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