Paleodiets and plant cultivation in the Southwestern Amazon during the Late Holocene (1,000 - 1,500 CE) from archaeobotanical isotopes and ceramic lipid analysis

• Grant number: 22/05776-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2022
• End date: July 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology - Prehistoric Archaeology
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo Góes Neves
• Grantee: Laura Pereira Furquim
• Supervisor: Patrick Roberts
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Max Planck Society, Jena, Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 18/26679-3 - Relationships and movements: an archeology of cropping and mobility patterns in Southwestern Amazon, from 1.000 A.D. to the present, BP.DR

Abstract

The aim of this project is to conduct archaeological analyses of the paleodiet of human populations from the southwestern Amazon at the end of the pre-colonial period, between 1000-1600 A.D. We will seek to characterize the use of local plant and animal biodiversity, as well as the ways of cultivating corn on the eve of European colonization, in order to understand the impacts of this contact on the food culture and territoriality of these peoples. To this end, we will conduct lipid analyses on archaeological ceramics from the Teotônio (Rio Madeira) and Sol de Campinas do Acre (interfluve between the Purus and Madeira rivers) sites, and compare the values of stable isotopes of carbon 13 and nitrogen 15 of corn kernels in different archaeological and modern contexts. (AU)