Achados arqueológicos no baixo rio Fresco (Pará).

Abstract

In 1969, a geological team of the IDESP made a surface collection and a stratigraphic test excavation in a habitation site on the right bank of the lower Rio Fresco in the State of Pará. The site covers approximately 20000 square meters in a forested zone; blackened soil and archeological remains occurred to a depth of 1.2m. At the time of invesgation, there were several modern structures, fruit tress, and garden plots on the site. The archeological remains consist of a small vessel and a moderate number of sherds, various stone objects, flakes, and rocks. Pottery appears to have been utilitarian, although the presence of large corrugated fragments suggests possible burial urns. The seherds, tempered with sand containing quartz grains and particles of mica, were classified into two plain types (coarse sand and fine sand temper), 8 decorated types (painted black or red on white, red slipped, corrugated,grooved, insised, coiled, brushed, and modeled), and one um classified plain type (cariapé tempered). Ten vessel forms were resconstructed, representing globular, sub-globular, and carenated jars, rounded bowls, and t-shaped axes, a bead or cylindrical pendant, and a fragment of a possible spade, raw materials were andesite, andesite-porphyry, diabase, and gabbro,; technique of manufacture was pecking and polishing. In spite of the small size of the artifact samples, this and other types of evidence permit the recognition of a distinct cultural complex, which has been designated as the Carapanã Phase. It represents a semi-permanent sedentary agricultural gropu of the Northern Kayapó. Comparison with archeologial evidence fron adjacents areas (Rios Xingú, Iataciunas, and Pau d´Arco) reveals ceramic similarities in paste, decoration, and vessel shape that imply that the Xingú-Araguaia basinwas occupied in relativelyrecent times by groupes with a different pottery-making tradition, among the one or more of probable Tupi-Guarani origin. The proximity of the villages, trade relations, or some other mechanism of intertribal communication apparently facilitated the dissemination and adoption of certain ceramic patterns characteristic of the Tupiguarani Tradition of the Coasted Strip.