Identificação topográfica e hidrográfica nas paisagens de vegetação aberta (Cerrado) na Amazônia

Abstract

This project is part of the first phase of a broader work, an attempt to deepen the study in relation to the oldest occupants of the Amazon. Investigating such an' occupation in this area means first trying to identify the possible territories inhabited by these ancient civilizations, known as hunter-gatherers. But which territories would these be? They would probably be regions occupied by savanna vegetation (cerrado). Hypotheses indicate that this vegetation originally extended over many areas now covered by humid forest, mainly plateaus and depressions. With the transformations that occurred from the Upper Pleistocene to the Lower Holocene, the existing rainforest cores would have expanded over much of those regions previously covered by Cerrado. With this, regions of savanna still existing today would correspond to their original vegetation, not having undergone considerable transformations with those climatic oscillations. This work aims to map these regions, registering those localities that would best serve human occupation (areas with the best natural resources, etc.), so that the landscapes with the greatest archaeological potential can be identified. To identify these areas, the topographic and hydrographic maps of the region will be used, as well as Iandsat 7 Image Mosaics, data that will be analyzed in a format compatible with the ARCVIEW program. A supervised classification of the images covering the cerrado vegetation will be done using the technique of digital processing of images of multispectral signatures in the ERDASEs program. The processing will be done in two stages, the first consisting in doing a macroclassification in order to separate the types of terrestrial environments and the drainage network. The second part consists of a macro classification of the terrestrial environments in order to determine the predominant vegetation types in the region. The analysis of this data will indicate the savanna regions which have sufficient resources for probable human occupation, and which could serve as the object of study for further studies on hunter-gatherers.