Temporality of archaeological ceramics at the Teotônio site

Abstract

In the portion of the Upper Madeira River which contains multiple waterfalls, the Teotônio archaeological site is especially notable: it is located on a plateau on the right side of the waterfall bearing the same name, and has been submerged by the construction of the Santo Antônio dam. The significance of this landscape, which includes an exceptional abundance of aquatic resources, seems to have contributed to the fact that all the known ceramic assemblages of the region are concentrated there, occurring over the more than three thousand years that the site was occupied. Technological analysis of this material permits inferences on the different ways these indigenous populations occupied Teotônio over time; treating this site as a microcosm of the long-term history of the Upper Madeira allows distinct temporalities in the use of this location to be identified.

Keywords
Meaningful and persistent places; Landscape; Archaeological ceramics of the Amazon; Long-term history; Teotônio site