This paper traces back the domestic mode of economic production that existed among the prehistoric Guarani, bringing together the archeological and ethno-historic information about the past with the more current ethnographic and ethnological data on Guarani groups. By means of an analytical framework borrowed from economic anthropology, we can recognize the Guarani economic system as one founded on familiar relations of production, circulation and consumption of services, resources and goods; these relations are all subordinated to a Logic of Gift and Reciprocity. The Guarani economy is seen as field that is dependant upon the social field. Production is made so as to furnish the domestic unit with food and is founded on simple technology, without any complex division of labor and with relative freedom as to the use of resources. This paper also reflects upon how ideas from authors such as Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi, Maurice Godelier, and Marshall Sahlins may be applied for the Guarani economy.
domestic economy; Guarani Ethnoarchaeology