Landscape Transformation and Sociopolitical Organization in Marajoara Phase, Brazilian Amazon

马拉霍岛以其不同寻常的地理和非凡的考古遗址而闻名。在以季节性洪水和严重干旱为特征的地形上，马拉乔拉人建造了土丘和运河，并制作了新大陆最精致的仪式陶器之一。在欧洲人到来之前的千年里，马拉霍拉文化影响了亚马逊盆地社会复杂性的进一步发展。马拉霍岛位于亚马逊河入海口，在征服早期阶段，马拉霍岛是欧洲国家争夺亚马逊河控制权的中心。虽然土著居民的占领可以追溯到3500年前，但直到公元400年左右，岛上才出现复杂的社会，早于巴西亚马逊地区政治集权的地区性社会的发展。从公元400年到公元1400年，马拉乔拉时期的丘陵在泛滥的草原上成倍增加，代表着巴西文化发展的顶峰。考古学家在其中一些仪式遗址进行了挖掘，他们的解释导致了一场关于亚马逊地区酋长级别社会崛起的本质的辩论。一些研究人员将MoundBuilder描述为等级组织，酋长控制着一大片地区的政治控制权。在此情况下，这一发展发生在盆地之外。其他人认为，社会复杂性是在当地发展起来的，但在建筑和物质文化方面，土丘群体之间几乎没有区别。因此，这些土丘将容纳更平等类型的社会中的独立村庄。拟议的研究将在卡穆廷斯遗址检验这两个相反的假设，卡穆廷斯遗址是位于马拉霍岛中心的卡穆廷斯河沿岸的一组37个土丘。该遗址代表着某种社会政治规则下的第一个区域人口聚集。为了调查卡穆廷人社会是在单一酋长的等级制度下组织的，还是仅仅代表了更平等的基础上的人口聚集，将对该地区进行一次重大的系统聚落模式调查，然后在选定的土丘中进行挖掘。这项研究将根据放射性碳年代测定和对发掘中发现的陶器的分析，建立卡穆廷斯遗址Marojoara酋长地位崛起的时间顺序。这项详细的研究将为今后关于马拉霍岛的区域研究提供重要的基础，并使不仅在马拉霍岛，而且在整个亚马孙盆地都能就社会政治组织提出更复杂的假设。虽然人们普遍认识到，在史前亚马逊的许多地区存在着复杂的社会，但与美洲其他地区相比，该地区缺乏重大的考古调查。这个项目的目的是让马拉乔拉社会和亚马逊更广泛地参与当前关于古代复杂社会的辩论。该项目还将帮助培养一名非常有前途的研究生。

Marajo Island is famous for its unusual geography and remarkable archaeological sites. On a landscape characterized by seasonal flooding and severe droughts, Marajoara people built earthen mounds and canals, and produced one of the most elaborate ritual ceramics of the New World. Marajoara culture influenced further developments of social complexity on the Amazon Basin, during the millennium that anteceded the Europeans arrival.Located at the mouth of the Amazon River, Marajo Island was in the center of the dispute between the European nations for the control of the Amazon River during the early stages of the conquest. Although its indigenous occupation dates back to 3,500 years ago, it was only around A.D. 400 that complex societies emerged on the Island, predating the development of regional, politically centralized societies on the Brazilian Amazon. From A. D. 400 to A. D. 1,400, Marajoara Phase mounds multiplied on the Island flooded grasslands, representing the height of cultural development in Brazil. Interpretations by archaeologists who have excavated at some of these ceremonial sites, has led to a debate on the nature of the rise of chiefdom level society in the Amazon. Some researchers have characterized the moundbuilders as hierarchically organized, with chiefs holding political control over a large region. Under this senario, this development took place outside the Basin,. Others believe that social complexity developed locally but that there is little difference between the mound groups in terms of architecture and material culture. Accordingly, the mounds would have hosted independent villages within a more egalitarian type of society.The proposed research will test these two opposing hypotheses at the Camutins site, a group of 37 mounds located along the Camutins River, on the center of Marajo Island. That site represents the first regional aggregation of population under some kind of sociopolitical rule. In order to investigate whether the Camutins society was hierarchically organized under a single chief or simply represents population aggregation on a more egaliatarian basis, a major systematic settlement pattern survey will be accomplished on the area, followed by excavations in selected mounds. The research will construct a chronological sequence of the rise of the Marojoara chiefdomship at the Camutins site, based upon the radiocarbon dating and the analysis of the pottery recovered from the excavations. This detailed study will provide the critical foundation for future regional studies on Marajo Island, and permit more sophisticated hypotheses to be formulated on the socio-political organization, not only on Marajo Island, but throughout the Amazon Basin. Although it has become widely recognized that complex societies were present in many areas in prehistoric Amazonia, the region has lacked significant archaeological investigation as compared to other areas in the Americas. This project aims to place Marajoara societies and Amazonia more broadly on current debates on ancient complex societies. The project will also assist in training a very promising graduate student.