Um estudo atual das coleções arqueológicas tapajônicas: análise e descrição das Coleções Townsend e Frederico Barata

Abstract

The archaeological collection of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi has been growing since its foundation through material collected in the field and private collections. Among these collections that are currently housed in the Mário Simões Technical Reserve, we directed our attention to the Townsend collection and part of the Frederico Barata collection, seeking to uncover this material that has significant historical and cultural value, taking into account the Project of Reorganization and Documentation of the Goeldi Museum's Archaeological Collection. This study allowed us to get information about the collector Charles Henry Tyler Townsend Jr., which results in giving a scientific meaning to this decontextualized collection. Thus, laboratory analysis was carried out, in which the pieces and fragments were classified according to the criteria established by Guapindaia (1993) and Gomes (2000) for the ceramic material, and Laming-Emperaire (1967) and Costa & Caldarelli (1989) for the lithic material; also following the new terminology established by the Archaeology Area team. The analysis of the Townsend collection was prolonged due to the presence of polished lithic material and the scarcity of references on the subject, therefore no time was available for the analysis of the Frederico Barata collection. Thus, we can identify the presence of the following artifacts in the Towsend collection: statuettes, vases of various shapes, pipes, whistles, spindle tortuals, vase fragments - body, base and rim -, anthropomorphic ornaments, zoomorphic ornaments, indeterminate ornaments, axe blades, hammer blades, wedges, percutor, pestle, pestle hands, net weight, punch and indeterminate objects. The material was quantified, catalogued and photographed, and the information obtained was stored in the General Management System of the Technical Reserve and in the Database created exclusively for the Townsend Collection.