Historical Archaeology in the Amazon: the Murutucu Sugar Cane Mill Field School Project
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Historical Archaeology in the Amazon: the Murutucu Sugar Cane Mill Field School Project Diogo Menezes Costa 1
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017
Abstract Based on research on the Murutucu Sugar Cane Mill Field School Project in Belém City, Pará State, Brazil, this article presents a novel approach to historical archaeology in the Amazon. An anthropological view is described with a focus on ethnic, social, economic, political, gender, and generational groups. Although archaeology in the Amazon has a long tradition of more than 150 years of research, most studies on the region examine precontact sites. In contrast, the few pioneering studies on Amazonian historical sites have pursued chronological and technological objectives and have been primarily restricted to military and religious sites. Keywords Brazil . Amazon . Sugar cane mill . Murutucu site . Field school
Introduction First, a synopsis is presented of historical archaeology in the Amazon that describes the trajectory of such archaeology in the region from its beginnings until the present. This history is represented through a review that reveals the topics that have been examined and the regionalization of the research. These primary investigations must be considered in a context in which archaeological research on historical sites in the Amazon was not an academic priority but a patrimonial necessity. Second, the Murutucu Sugar Cane Mill is explained through a brief summary of the site’s history and the history of research on the site. Next, all three field campaigns currently being conducted at the site are described in the form of a short exposition of each investigation and its achievements. This section of the article offers more than a
* Diogo Menezes Costa [email protected]
1
Graduate Program in Anthropology, Federal University of Pará – PPGA/UFPA, Campus Guamá, Rua Augusto Corrêa, 01 Guamá, Belém, PA 66075-110, Brazil
Int J Histor Archaeol
tiresome inventory of the site’s particularities. Instead, the focus is on methodology and how the data have been collected, analyzed, and interpreted. Third, the partial results of the Murutucu Sugar Cane Mill Field School Project are presented. This section is not intended to be a list of research achievements but to show the diversity of results that can be reached with an archaeological investigation. This segment primarily reveals that archaeological research is not the work of a single individual but of many and how individual studies on the same object can complement one another. In addition, other endeavors are presented for the non-academic public, which has access to the site and its developments. Finally, a new perspective on Amazonian historical archaeology is offered based on our research efforts at the mill. This perspective reveals the necessity of a novel archaeological approach to the historic sites in the region that includes a more anthropological view. In recent years, this subdiscipline of archaeology has developed energetically in Brazil, including now in the Amazon. Given
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