Sambaquis have been the subject of archaeological inquiry since the late nineteenth century. Only much later did archaeologists begin to address the cultural and organizational characteristics of the associated societies. A strongly empirical orientation focused early attention on aspects such as artifact technology, composition of faunal assemblages, and the physical traits of skeletal populations. Nevertheless, important reports appeared regarding distribution, composition, subsistence, human remains, and even relationships to Quaternary coastal evolution (e. g., Loefgren 1893; Krone 1905, 1914). Until the late
1940s, a central question was whether the sambaquis were natural shell deposits (which also occur in Brazilian coastal areas) or cultural phenomena.
Advocates of the “natural” position initiated a legacy of geological approaches that examine the positioning and chronology of sambaquis as references for the study of coastal landscape processes. Such studies have generated models that explore the distribution and positioning of sambaquis in relation to geological phenomena and sea level fluctuations (e. g., Caruso 1995; Giannini 1993; Martin et al. 1986). Advocates of the cultural origin of sambaquis predominantly assumed them to be the unplanned accumulations of shellfish collectors during successive camp episodes. A small number of researchers, considering the repeated presence and frequent abundance of burials, suggested shell mounds were cemeteries, or even that they were built as monuments (e. g., Duarte 1968; Wiener 1876).
Systematic excavations and radiocarbon dating began in the 1950s with French and North American archaeologists (e. g., Bryan 1993; Emperaire 1955; Emperaire and Laming 1955; Hurt 1974; Hurt and Blasi 1960) and pioneering investigators from Brazil’s developing archaeological institutions (e. g., Castro Faria 1955; Fernandes 1955; Duarte 1968). Deeply impressed by the rapid destruction of sambaquis due to mining of shell for modern uses and urban expansion, these scholars promoted laws for the protection of the archaeological heritage, enacted in 1961.
In the early 1960s, a group of Brazilian archaeologists, with support from Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans of the Smithsonian Insitution, launched the five-year Programa Nacional de Pesquisas Arqueologicas, a reconnaissance, mapping, and dating project throughout Brazil. This program generated models for regional archaeological interpretation and, with the French “paleoethnographic” approach (e. g., L. Kneip 1977), established mainstream methodological paradigms that are still influential today. A methodology that privileged surface collections and test pits on a regional scale was better suited to provide preliminary insights on inland Archaic and ceramic traditions than on the deeply stratified sambaquis of coastal zones. Despite recognition of a sambaqui tradition, cultural parameters remained poorly understood.
For many years, relatively early dates, scarcity of ceramics, and repetitive deposits dominated by shells prompted most archaeologists to describe sambaquis as a sequence of campsites. Nomadic shellfish gatherers, fishers, and hunters were thought to have occupied the same location over time because it offered a dry, secure setting with immediate access to aquatic resources. Grinding stones suggestive of plant processing, and the variety of bone tools pointing to an intensive fishing technology, were seldom taken into account, although the increase of bone tools in the upper layers of many sambaquis was interpreted as a late economic shift from shellfish collection towards intensified fishing strategies (e. g., Dias 1972; Mendonga de Souza 1981; Lima 1991, 1995).
Archaeologists now acknowledge the full ecological potential available to coastal societies that could allow them to intensify subsistence, experience population growth, and achieve higher levels of social complexity (e. g., Arnold 1996; Price and Brown 1985). In fact, the emergence of “complex hunter-gatherers” is often associated with these rich environments, such as on the Northwest Coast and in southeastern portions of the United States (e. g., Sassaman 2004). Recent zooarchaeological studies (Bandeira 1992; Figuti 1992, 1993; Figuti and Klokler 1996; Klokler 2001) reveal that from at least 5000 BP, sambaqui economies were based on intensive fishing rather than collection of low calorie shellfish, especially net fishing in bay and lagoon ecotones, complemented by gathering from mangrove areas. An oxygen isotopes analysis of skeletons from a Santa Catarina sambaqui indicates a diet based mainly on fish but without evidence for seasonality, reinforcing an
Interpretation of substantial year-round catches (DeMasi 1999). Observations of traditional fishing communities that still occupy lagoon settings today point incisively to the intensive practice of communal net fishing in all seasons, in which families work together and share the yield3.
In the state of Rio de Janeiro, Scheel-Ybert (1998, 2000, 2001) has reported the presence of plant resources, most notably cara (Dioscorea sp.), an edible root. Together with wood charcoal identifications of tree species, these findings suggest the management of forests and preferred plants, and perhaps even garden horticulture (Tenorio 1991). Significantly, in the earthen cerritos of Uruguay, Iriarte (2004) has documented cultivated plants as early as 4,000 years ago.
Bioanthropological studies on sambaqui skeletal populations beginning in the nineteenth century (Ladislao Netto 1882; Lacerda 1885) described a strong, robust biotype of short stature. Teeth show almost no caries, indicating a low carbohydrate intake, and arms show intense muscular stress, taken as evidence for rowing and canoeing. A recent paleopathological study (Storto et al. 1999) found signs of endemic diseases, indicative of sedentism and relatively dense populations.
Consideration of sambaquis within regional approaches of settlement analysis and efforts to understand their societal significance (e. g., Barreto 1988; Gaspar 1991) focused attention on the contemporaneity of mounds in the same region and the implications for interaction. Linkages among the social groups associated with massive sambaquis are revealed by patterns of intervisibility within regional landscapes and their status as landmarks from vantages on land, sea, and lagoon (Gaspar 1989). As issues of social complexity have come to the fore and excavations have amassed new data, perspectives on sambaqui cultures have changed from a singular emphasis on nomadic, highly mobile shell fish collectors (who eventually intensified fishing) to a recognition of denser, sedentary societies that evolved toward more complex patterns of social organization (DeBlasis et al. 1998; Lima and Mazz 2000; Gaspar 2000). The massive sambaquis, now frequently regarded as monuments impregnated with symbolic meaning, are viewed as the result of socially articulated effort involving mortuary ritual and a cult of ancestors (Fish et al. 2000; Gaspar 2000). Investigators discuss evidence for social inequality and territorial configurations (Storto et al. 1999; Lima and Mazz 2000; Gaspar 2000; Fish et al. 2000) as well as trans-regional ideological systems (DeBlasis 2005).
The prolonged and widespread sharing of fundamental cultural patterns exhibited in sambaquis indicates intense, sustained interaction among the corresponding communities. Major shifts in cultural trajectories are not apparent, and there is no appreciable evidence for interaction and exchange with inland hunters and gatherers of other cultural traditions (for rare exceptions, see Miller 1969 and Figuti et al. 2004), or with subsequent ceramic people, until after 2000 BP. Regional differences, to the extent that they exist, have not been systematically defined. In view of this notable economic and social stability and the absence of competing developments in coastal environments, Gaspar (1994) has proposed that sambaquis are the product of homogenous societies, probably with a shared ethnic identity, that were differentiated from other hunter-gatherer traditions of the adjoining highlands from middle to late Holocene times.
Both pervasive burials and extensive food remains characterize almost all investigated sambaquis throughout Brazil’s central and southern coast (Gaspar 1998). Even if some were not domains reserved exclusively for the dead, the importance of shell mounds as burial places persisted for millennia. The study of sambaquis as mortuary structures is recent and has opened new avenues for archaeological inquiry. Just prior to
The implementation of this perspective, investigators demonstrated that some sambaquis were intentionally built, overturning the traditional assumption that even the massive ones originated with successive camping, but not yet addressing the decisive role of mortuary ritual in building processes (Afonso and DeBlasis 1994; DeBlasis and Afonso 1999; DeBlasis and Gaspar 1992). The towering sambaquis of the southern coasts now have been identified and examined as mortuary monuments within regional settlement systems in the course of a long-term research project in southern Santa Catarina (DeBlasis et al. 1998, 2001; Fish et al. 2000).
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