ARCHEOMETRIC STUDIES ON THE HATAHARA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Author(s)

Kelly Plaça Nunes

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (IPEN/BT)
• Defense date: 2009-03-13

Examining board members

Casimiro Jayme Alfredo Sepulveda Munita; Eduardo Goes Neves; Jorge Eduardo de Souza Sarkis

• Advisor: Casimiro Jayme Alfredo Sepulveda Munita

Abstract

The reconstruction of the past and the understanding of historical and cultural aspects of societies that developed at archeological sites have been enabled by archaeometric studies undertaken on ceramics located at these areas. This study aims to be a contribution to the elucidation of these aspects with the application of three physical methods of analysis: neutron activation analysis (NAA), thermoluminescence dating (TL) an electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to ceramic fragments from the Hatahara archaelogical site, located at central Amazon. The elemental concentrations obtained by NAA for 120 ceramic fragments were interpreted by means of cluster analysis and discriminant analysis. The results showed the existence of five distinct ceramic groups. This information, supported by archaelogical interpretation, confirm the existence of four distinct occupation Phases at Hatahara site. In order to establish a chronology for the occupations, the ages of three ceramic fragments were determined by TL. The dating of two fragments did not confirm the archeological interpretation about their occupation Phases. However, the dating of the third fragment allowed the confirmation that it belongs to the Manacapuru Phase. The determination of the burning temperatures of four ceramic fragments was performed by EPR. It was observed that although the analyzed ceramic samples belong to three distinct groups, there was no significant variation on their burning temperatures. (AU)