CEstA Duo with Cliverson Pessoa and Márcia Rodrigues
10/03/2025 - 5:30 PM
CEStA Headquarters - Rua do Anfiteatro 181, Colmeia - Favo 8
Cliverson Pessoa – PhD in Archaeology, MAE/USP
Landscapes of Movement in the Madeira-Purus Interfluve
In models of Amazonian occupation, large rivers have traditionally been privileged
as the main axes of circulation, fundamental to understanding processes of migration, dispersal, and expansion of people, objects, and ideas in the past. The Madeira-Purus Interfluve, in southwestern Amazonia, offers new possibilities for considering the relevance of land routes built by Indigenous peoples by revealing a body of archaeological evidence of roads and earthen structures that challenge interpretations centered solely on river courses. This work analyzes the main characteristics of the formation of this landscape, which has been continuously transformed over the last four millennia, reaching the period of the rubber economy, when rubber tappers established different forms of relationship with the region's indigenous communities. This is a long-term history, the remains of which have been severely threatened by the recent advance of deforestation, reinforcing the urgency of its recognition as archaeological heritage.
Márcia Rodrigues – PhD student in Environmental Sciences and Sustainability in the Amazon, UFAM
Amazonian Black Earth: archaeology, anthropogization, and sustainability
In this presentation, I intend to discuss my thesis project, which will portray the sustainability of the Anthropological Black Earth of the Amazon. This topic can be seen as relatively recent and complex, as it still holds great mysteries regarding the formation processes and the permanence of these soils' characteristics. However, I am aware that this cannot be the only concern guiding the project. In other words, there is no anthropological soil without human hands, hands that cannot identify enemies or areas that should be prevented or cut so as not to touch the environment. I assume that these soils are the result of anthropization processes carried out by indigenous peoples. Furthermore, in many archaeological sites, the so-called "forest peoples" continue to manage this land today. Therefore, I make it clear that the general objective of this research is to analyze the temporal sustainability and nutrient storage capacity of the Amazonian Black Earth, focusing on the archaeological sites of Laguinho and Caldeirão, in Iranduba (AM), and Teotônio, in Porto Velho (RO). However, it is important to emphasize that the term "sustainability" is not limited to the care of an isolated space. For it to occur, both in fact and in law, cooperation between various living and non-living beings is necessary. Thus, although the soil is the center of the analysis, I recognize that it is integrated into a whole, of which the human is a fundamental part in all exchanges and relationships established.