The Relative Chronology of Cultural Episodes at the Coastal Sambaqui, Jabuticubiera II, in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

Initially attributed to natural formation processes, shellmounds were eventually acknowledged as cultural products. They were presumed to be the remains of prehistoric hunter-gatherer subsistence practices and of no great antiquity. Scholarly analysis of shellmounds focused on human consumption and discard accumulation rates aimed at establishing population estimates and the antiquity of the mounds. The identified strata were considered to represent insignificant cultural changes during the presumed short existence of the mounds and were analyzed as an after thought. The stratigraphic sequence of the mounds, however, is essential to understanding the behavior responsible for the mounds' formation. The 1999 field season at the coastal sambaqui, Jabuticubiera II, in Santa Catarina, Brazil conducted a horizontal excavation of an approximately 32 square meter area. The excavation defined three strata, nine inhumations, twenty-eight hearths and 317 postholes. This report will reconstruct the temporal and spatial relationship of these features using a Harris Matrix and AutoCAD drawings. The resultant temporal and spatial framework will be used to confirm a relationship between the individual burials and hearths. It will further imply that all these cultural features are contained within a single stratum of activity and the JABII/LII is a graveyard.