Santarém Culture

East of the Andes there was an elaborate late prehistoric culture, known to historians through its pottery, called the incised and punctate horizon. (In archaeology, a "horizon" is an area in which roughly contemporary and clearly similar artifacts have been found, defining the geographical limits of a culture or complex of related cultures. "Incised and punctuate" refers to decorative characteristics of some pottery.) Santarém culture, whose dates are roughly 1000 to 1550 ce, in the Brazilian lower Amazon near the city of Santarém, is the most elaborate culture of the horizon, although whether it was at the center of the horizon is not certain because there are few radiocarbon dates available. So far, the earliest dates for the horizon are approximately 1000 years bp (before the present), from the middle Orinoco region. The few Santarém radiocarbon dates suggest that the culture existed there by 500 years before the European conquest of the Amazon and died out soon after the Conquest. This finding contrasts with the expectations of earlier scholars that it was an ethnohistoric culture.

Santarém culture is distinguished by elaborate pottery decorated with modeled animal and human images and incised or polychrome geometric designs. (A related but bolder pottery style in the area is called "Kondurí.") There are vessels with scenes from creation myths that survive among South American lowland Indians. Also found are terra cotta sculptures of nude humans (mostly female) with long, slit earlobes. Some of the figures are life size.

In addition to the pottery, carved jade pendants, stone scepters, ground rock mace heads, and projectile points have been found. The jades are shaped like frogs and other animals, such as insects. The scepters depict alter ego figures of humans or animals with animals perched on their shoulders.

Known sites of the Santarém culture are numerous, varied, and widespread within the lower Amazon, indicating a complex settlement system. Many major sites are located in defensible locations on cliffs high above the Amazon flood plain. Roads and round wells have been reported in the area of such sites. Santarém city, with many acres of low archaeological mounds containing ritual caches, hearths, and middens, may have been the capital. Pottery found in domestic contexts was simple and washed with red paint. Stone tools were limited mostly to small flint flakes and sandstone abraders. Ceremonial areas had fancy incised, punctate, and polychrome vessels and decorated stone artifacts such as spindle whorls and tools to make artifacts. Food remains also varied, depending on their site context. In domestic house floors, the bones of small fish and palm fruits are common. In ritual caches and activity areas, in contrast, larger fish, some game, and cultivated fruits and rare maize kernels were found. The isotopic chemistry of the carbon-dated specimens is suggestive of open, disturbed forest.

In a hinterland cave occupation of the period, dry maize cobs were recovered in a large pole-and-thatch structure, along with a wide range of fruits and faunal remains from closed-canopy tropical rainforest. At this cave site, richly decorated ceremonial pottery is lacking and simple, redwashed pottery is common.

Conquest documents mention a warlike chiefdom called Tapajó, a ranked society with a paramount chief over lower chiefs, some of whom were women. The chief was said to be descended from the sun and from a woman culture hero, in whose name maize tribute was given for beer for ceremonies. Cultivation and fishing furnished subsistence, and there was extensive trade. Large war parties with poisoned arrows resisted the Europeans but eventually were defeated, and the Tapajó merged into the racially mixed population of the region.

See alsoArchaeology; Precontact History: Amazonia; Santarém.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harrison, Regina. "The Order of Things: An Analysis of the Ceramics of Santarém." Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 4 (Fall 1972), 39-57.

Palmatary, Helen Constance. The Archaeology of the Lower Tapajós Valley, Brazil. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1960.

                            Anna Curtenius Roosevelt