\u201cThe exchange of data between research programs in Brazil, the Guianas, and the Caribbean showed that this ceramic style did, in fact, achieve an extraordinarily wide geographic distribution,\u201d says Barreto, one of the editors of the book, which brings together 32 authors and is the fruit of a partnership between the Goeldi Museum, the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, and the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. Everything indicates that before European colonization there existed a very unique form of cultural expression that spread from the Caribbean region to the south bank of the Amazon River\u2014an enormous area of approximately 1.5 million square kilometers (km\u00b2), larger than the size of Peru.<\/p>\n
The book got its impetus during two international meetings at the Goeldi Museum, in 2014 and 2017, on archaeological ceramics found in the vast Amazon region. During the events, dozens of archaeologists, anthropologists, and linguists from countries such as Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and French Guiana shared their knowledge about different ceramic cultures, including the Koriabo. \u201cAt the time, I had found unidentified fragments in the municipality of Gurup\u00e1, at the confluence of the Xingu River with the delta of the Amazon River,\u201d says archaeologist Helena Pinto Lima, also from the Goeldi Museum. \u201cI presented some samples to colleagues and one of them commented, ‘This looks like Koriabo.’ From there, we started a collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scientist who put forward that guess\u2014and got it right\u2014was French archaeologist St\u00e9phen Rostain, from the CNRS, who has been working at archaeological sites in the Guianas for decades. \u201cMost of them are located along large rivers. The connection of villages via waterways probably explains the appearance of Koriabo ceramics in the lower Amazon,\u201d he told Pesquisa FAPESP<\/em>. Thanks to the dialogue the researchers established it became possible to map and analyze the geographical distribution of the Koriabo ceramic style, which spreads from the Caribbean, through the Guianas and along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, down to the Xingu and Trombetas rivers (see map<\/em>). The researcher explains that sites that date to the era after Europeans arrived in the Americas were found in the Antilles, in Central America. “This suggests a redistribution of the Koriabo style, as a result of the societal and territorial effects induced by colonization.”<\/p>\n River courses that start in the Guiana Shield and flow into the Amazon would have served, therefore, as communication and exchange routes between different indigenous communities. \u201cThis is one of the consensuses arrived at among the authors of the book,\u201d Lima says. \u201cAs with other ceramic styles, the circulation of the Koriabo style took place through dense social networks through which different indigenous peoples moved.\u201d These interconnections evidently did not depend exclusively on river routes. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of roads in connecting settlements during pre-Columbian eras (see <\/em>Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 299<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n Archaeologist Eduardo G\u00f3es Neves, a specialist in Amazon archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (MAE-USP), explains that links between villages in the Caribbean, the Guianas, and the lower Amazon\u2014dozens or hundreds of kilometers apart\u2014were already known. \u201cRecent research on the Koriabo culture, however, now presents stronger evidence of this exchange,\u201d says Neves, who did not participate in the studies published in the book. Due to collaborative work between linguists and archaeologists, it was already known that there was a concomitant expansion of Arawak languages\u2014originating in the western Amazon\u2014with the production of various ceramic styles. \u201cThe geographic diffusion of the Arawak language took place over 2,500 years ago,\u201d he says. In the case of Koriabo ceramics, the researchers believe the dispersion is linked to more recent geographic expansion by speakers of the Caribbean language group.<\/p>\n Another example is the circulation of muiraquit\u00e3s<\/em>, small objects made of green stone, which appear at sites in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and the Brazilian Amazon. \u201cIn many places there was no such type of rock. One hypothesis to explain how the muiraquit\u00e3s ended up in these locations is the existence of well-structured trade networks, which existed in the region long before the colonial period,\u201d the MAE researcher adds. For Neves, one of the book’s strong points is that it not only shows that such connections between these peoples had always existed, but that they persisted for some time after European colonization.<\/p>\n The oldest radiocarbon samples indicate that the Koriabo culture flourished after 1000 ACE and spread geographically until about 500 years ago, when Europeans first arrived in the Amazon. The Dutch, English, and French, as well as Portuguese missionaries took advantage of indigenous exchange networks to settle in the region. \u201cWe know Dutch forts were being built as early as 1560 in the lower Xingu. Koriabo pottery fragments were found in the same area,\u201d says Lima.<\/p>\n The competition between European empires for dominion in the Americas contributed to an interaction between colonizers and indigenous peoples that was marked simultaneously by both conflict and cooperation (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 302<\/em><\/a>). \u201cFor Europeans, participating in exchange networks was a way to dispense with their products, in addition to providing contact with traditional knowledge about plants and local geography,\u201d observes Barreto. “The objective was to effect a territorial occupation.”<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/076-081_koriabo_307-0-img.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n