Archaeology at Xokleng´s indigenous land: territory and memory

• Grant number: 12/23411-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: April 01, 2013
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology - Theory and Methods in Archaeology
• Principal Investigator: Fabíola Andréa Silva
• Grantee: Juliana Salles Machado Bueno
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to understand the history of the Xokleng´s territorial formation of Santa Catarina. The Xokleng are an indigenous group speakers of a Jê linguistic family and nowadaysinhabi the Ibirama-La Klãnõ Indigenous land, at the mata atlântica biome, inserted within the Itajaí valley. Historically the recognized southern Jê tradicional territory extends from the south os São Paulo State untill Rio Grande do Sul, occupying the high lands of the plateaus as well as the valleys and coasts of these states. The Xokleng had a late contact and were documented as a high mobility group, lacking a more dense and permanent settlement, as well as for the absence of pottery production, being identified as a hunter-gatherer population. However, more recently, this interpretation changed and their social and economic organization was understood as a response to a restructuring period related to the contact. Nonetheless, mobility and the use to the Xokleng territory remains as a important question on the comprehension of their historical trajectory, having some authors proposed successive waves of group desterritorialization. Archaeologically however there is no clear view of the record related to this population, due to the variability in their forms of spatial occupation and technological similarity with the Kaingang´s record. The Xokleng territory, their historical formation, form of occupation and management, appropriation and conceptualization by the people that inhabit it is our research theme. The co-existence of particular historical trajectories within this territory and the knowledge of this occupation and reoccupation palimpsest is the core point of this research, thus establishing a dialogue with other research realized in indigenous lands (Silva 2012, 2011, 2009; Silva et al 2010, 2007). This archaeological research will be held in a collaborative form with the Xokleng, scientific practice which has been demonstrating as an important tool on the construction of multivocal discourses, allowing thus the formation and incorporation of distinct notions of time, space, history and memory. Its development offers a unique opportunity of more inclusive notions about what is cultural heritage and how it can be lived, preserved, used and managed. This project has the potential to contribute to a more deep understanding about the pre-colonial indigenous populations of the south of the country, as well as to the construction of more alternative views about the archaeological heritage, its identification, preservation, fruition and interpretation. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MACHADO, JULIANA SALLES; TSCHUCAMBANG, COPACAM; FONSECA, JIDEAN RAPHAEL. Stones, Clay and People Among the Laklano Xokleng Indigenous People in Southern Brazil. ARCHAEOLOGIES-JOURNAL OF THE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS, v. 16, n. 3, AUG 2020. (12/23411-3)