Archaeologists refer to the period spanning ca. 4500-2000 BP in Amazonia as the Formative, to indicate the presence of sedentary village farmers and nascent complex polities (Roosevelt 1999:319-24). Unfortunately, it is precisely during the Formative that the data on economy (especially subsistence), in most parts of Amazonia is very scarce. The lack of knowledge about the critical shift from incipient to intensified agroeconomy is one of the big “unknowns” in Amazonian prehistory (Oliver 2001).
There is a marked increase in the number and size of known Formative period sites dating after about 4000 BP (2000 BC). These sites reveal prodigious quantities of broken sherds from ceramic vessels used for food preparation, cooking (including budares or clay griddles), food presentation, consumption and storage, as well as specialized vessels for activities other than food-related (e. g., funerary offerings). This evidence leads one to conclude that agriculture provided the bulk of subsistence in terms of calories, although it is
Suspected that in a balanced, healthy diet plant foraging and fishing/hunting would have remained significant (see Petersen et al. 2001). While a reasonable inference, the fact is that during the Formative and even post-Formative periods the empirical evidence regarding subsistence patterns is often lacking. There is a paucity of adequate archeobotanical data, including human bone isotope analysis, which should become a regular feature of excavation reports (e. g., van Merwe et al. 1981). For example, while (bitter) manioc is undoubtedly a key crop among Amazonian societies, past and present, it cannot be assumed that it always had the same dietary preeminence or was the only high-yield source of carbohydrates in the past as it is today (on manioc, see Oliver 2001 and references within) (Figure 12.18). As a result of these limitations, archaeologists interested in paleoeconomy and subsistence can only offer educated guesses about the precise nature of the food production systems that were in operation throughout the Formative and beyond.
What is clear is that between 4500-3500 BP sites with elaborate ceramic assemblages are found widespread throughout the greater Amazonian lowlands, especially along river bluffs adjacent to floodplains, and relatively close to main-stream channels. In Peru’s middle Ucayali, around the Yarinacocha oxbow lake, the Tutishcainyo tradition with zoned-incised/hachured decoration and a complex set of vessels appeared sometime around 4000-3800 BP (Lathrap 1958, 1970; Myers 2004). Venezuela’s La Gruta-Ronquin (Saladoid tradition) complexes, characterized by a wide range of vessels, including clay griddles, presumably used to bake cassava (but could be other flour-yielding tubers) appeared “suddenly” along the middle Orinoco bluffs, sand bars and back canos (creeks) from 4500-3000 BP (Cruxent and Rouse 1958-59; Rouse 1978; Roosevelt 1980; Vargas 1981; see also Zucchi 1992, 1999). An even earlier (5300-4000? BP) non-Saladoid/Bar-ranocid ceramic component was excavated at the Aguerito site (Zucchi and Tarble 1982, 1984;
Figure 12.18. A Bare (Arawak) woman is straining squeezing bitter manioc juice from a tipiti by sitting on a wood lever. Manioc (Manihot escluenta) is a key staple crop in Amerindian diet. (photo by Eduardo Neves)
Zucchi et al. 1984; Lathrap and Oliver 1987). Situated on a point bar, in a sandy deposit of the Orinoco-Apure confluence, Aguerito also yielded abundant clay griddles. Barrancoid tradition (Figure 12.19) sites (3000-1000 BP) situated on the high levees of the left bank of the lower Orinoco are associated with patches of ADE (Figure 12.20), which could potentially have been used for cultivation after sites abandonment. Maize in the Orinoco does not appear until very late Corozal times (ca. AD 500) as a Pollo-related race. But it is not until after about AD 1000 (Camoruco phases, Arauquinoid traition) that a Chandelle-like race, together with manos, metates and aripos (slim clay griddles) favor the hypothesis of maize becoming a key staple crop (Roosevelt 1980, 1997a). Although the Saladoid-Barrancoid traditions from Venezuela are regarded as historically and culturally related to the Amazonian versions, the environmental and ecological characteristics in the Orinoco
Figure 12.19. Barrancoid ceramics from the lower Orinoco. Top: a harpy eagle holds a trophy head on in its beak; bottom: a biomorphic head surmounted by a harpy eagle (ca. 900-500 BC). (Jose Oliver)
Figure 12.20. The site of Barrancas on a high levee along the lower Orinoco in 1950. The Los Barrancos site is visible on in the bluff’s profile, a thick terra preta (ADE) created by midden deposition and habitation activities. The ADE relative date ranges between 900 BC (Barrancas style at bottom) and AD 1000 (Guarguapo style at the top). A maize garden is visible to the right (east) of the site. This particular site has long since collapsed into the Orinoco River. Curiously, modern (1950s) maize is not planted on the richer ADE. (photo by Jose M. Cruxent)
River area are different from Amazonia proper—albeit to the same degree that southern Xinguan differs from, say, the upper Amazonian biomes. It follows that the historical, developmental trajectories of agriculture in the Orinoco do not necessarily parallel those of other regions in the Amazon. Other Formative sites and areas could be mentioned, but the archaeobotanical data is simply too limited to be able to specify the agroeconomic systems that characterized the sites belonging to any of these Formative traditions.
World History
