Identity is one of anthropology’s oldest and favorite topics of inquiry. Interests have bounced between polemic ideas of primordial conditions, biology, descent, and natural communities to those of situation and contingency, alliance, and imagined communities. Identity in cultural anthropology is most commonly viewed as a sense of self or self-awareness – of personhood or subjectivity – that involves reflexive understandings of sameness and difference with “others” (Jenkins 1996). This paper discusses questions of identity and, particularly, historical and archaeological identities in Amazonia. It takes as its point of departure the idea that questions of identity, like those of equally popular agency or practice, are scalar. Further, in place of traditional views of cultural and ecological uniformity, recent research on all fronts, aided by the immense power of computers and remotely sensed imagery, suggests that variability and dynamic change are no less pronounced in Amazonia than any other equally proportioned place on earth (and see Chapters 11, 12, 20 and 50 in this volume).
Archaeologists also have grappled protractedly with questions of identity (see, e.g., Jones 1997), insofar as they attempt to reveal how groups of artifacts or other material things reflect the identities (ethnicity, gender, and role) of the people who made or interacted with them and how these identities were deployed in social interactions (by agents). Recently, archaeologists have turned to questions of the body and personhood as strategic loci of social agency in the archaeological record. They approach these questions quite differently than cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists who take the present as the point of departure. Archaeologists see the human body not only as a privileged site of cultural process, but instead as an inflection point between the microscopic worlds of specific events, individual cultural acts, and particulate phenomenon (bone chemistries, genetics, fish bones, stone chips, charcoal, and the like), with the mesoscopic world of gender, status and role, and household and community, which, in turn, articulate with macroscopic worlds of cultural identity within regional systems. While students of the present may concentrate on one or another level of analysis, for the archaeologist personhood must be understood from a multi-scalar and iterative perspective, linking local to regional and short-term to long-term, and boundaries change according to perspective.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Agostinho da Silva, P., 1972, Informe sobre a situação territorial e demográfica no Alto Xingu. In La Situacion del Indigena en America del Sur, edited by G. Grunberg, pp. 355–379. Biblioteca Cientifica, Tierra Nueva, Uruguay.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., 1999, The Arawakan Languages. In Handbook of Amazonian Languages, edited by R. M. W. Dixon and A. Y. Aihkenvald, pp. 65–106. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Balée, William, 1989, The culture of Amazonian forests. In Resource Management in Amazonia: Indigenous and Folk Strategies. Advances in Economic Botany 7: 1–21.
Balée, William, 2006, The research program of historical ecology. Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 75–98.
Balée, William, and Clark L. Erickson (eds.), 2006, Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical Lowlands. Columbia University Press, New York.
Basso, Ellen, 1973, The Kalapalo Indians of Central Brazil. Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston, New York.
Carneiro, Robert L., 1957, Subsistence and Social Structure: An Ecological Study of the Kuikuru Indians. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Carneiro, Robert L., 1970, Theory on the origin of the state. Science 169: 733–738.
Carneiro, Robert L., 1983, The cultivation of manioc among the Kuikuru Indians of the Upper Xingu. In Adaptive Responses in Native Amazonians, edited by R. B. Hames and W. T. Vickers, pp. 65–111. Academic Press, New York.
Carneiro, Robert L., 1986, The Ecological Basis of Amazonian Chiefdoms. Unpublished ms. on file at the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Clement, Charles R., 1999, 1492 and the loss of Amazonian crop diversity. I. The relation between domestication and human population decline. Economic Botany 53: 188–202.
Clement, Charles R., 2006, Fruit trees and the transition to food production in Amazonia. In Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical Lowlands, edited by William Balée and Clark L. Erickson, pp. 165–185. Columbia University Press, New York.
Clement, Charles R., J. M. McCann, and N. J. H. Smith, 2003, Agrobiodiversity in Amazonia and its relationship with dark earths. In Amazonian Dark Earths: Origins, Properties, and Management, edited by Johannes Lehmann, Dirse Kern, Bruno Glaser, and William I. Woods, pp. 159–178. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Cooper, John M., 1942, Areal and temporal aspects of aboriginal South American culture. Primitive Man 15: 1–38.
Denevan, William, 1976, The aboriginal population of Amazonia. In The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, edited by William Denevan, pp. 205–234. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.
Denevan, William, 1992, Stone vs. metal axes: the ambiguity of shifting cultivation in prehistoric Amazonia. Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 20 (1–2): 153–165.
Denevan, William, 1996, A bluff model of riverine settlement in prehistoric Amazonia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82: 369–385.
Denevan, William, 2001, Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Descola, Philippe, 1996, In the Society of Nature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Dole, Gertrude, 1978, The use of manioc among the Kuikuru: some interpretations. In The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany, edited by Richard I. Ford, pp. 217–247. Museum of Anthropology Monographs, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Erickson, Clark L., 2000, An artificial landscape-scale fishery in the Bolivian Amazon. Nature 408: 190–193.
Erickson, Clark L. 2006, Domesticated landscapes of the Bolivian Amazon. In Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical Lowlands, edited by William Balée and Clark L. Erickson, pp. 235–278. Columbia University Press, New York.
Fausto, Carlos, Bruna Franchetto, and Michael J. Heckenberger, 2006, Ritual language and historical reconstruction: toward a linguistic, ethnographic, and archaeological account for Upper Xingu society. In A World of Many Voices, edited by P. Harris and A. Dywer. (in press).
Fausto, Carlos, Bruna Franchetto, and Michael J. Heckenberger (eds.), 2006, Time and Memory in Indigenous Amazonia: Anthropological Perspectives. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Franchetto, Bruna, 2001, Linguas e história no Alto Xingu. In Os Povos do Alto Xingu: Cultura e História, edited by Bruna Franchetto and Michael J. Heckenberger, pp. 111–156. Editora UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro.
Franchetto, Bruna, 1992, O aparecimento do Caraíba: para uma história Kuikuro e Alto Xinguana. In História dos índios no Brasil, edited by Maria Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, pp. 339–356. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo.
Franchetto, Bruna, and Michael J. Heckenberger (eds.), 2001, Os Povos do Alto Xingu: História e Cultura. Editora UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro.
Galvão, Eduardo, 1967, Indigenous culture areas of Brazil, 1900–1959. In Indians of Brazil in the Twentieth Century, edited by Janice Hopper. Institute for Cross-Cultural Research, Washington, D.C.
Gilij, F. S., 1780–1784, Saggio di Storia Americana. 4 Vols. Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, Caracas.
Glaser, Bruno and William I. Woods (eds.), 2004, Amazonian Dark Earths: Explorations in Space and Time. Springer, Verlag, Berlin.
Gomes, D. M. C., 2002, Cerâmica Arqueológica da Amazônia: Vasilhas da Coleção Tapajônica MAE-USP. FAPESP/EDUSP/Imprensa Oficial de São Paulo, São Paulo.
Heckenberger, Michael J., 2002, Rethinking the Arawakan diaspora: hierarchy, regionality and the Amazonian Formative. In Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia, edited by Jonathan Hill and Fernando Santos Granero, pp. 99–122. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Heckenberger, Michael J., 2005, The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place, and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, AD 1000–2000. Routledge, New York.
Heckenberger, Michael J., 2006, History, ecology, and alterity: visualizing polity in ancient Amazonia. In Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies from the Neotropical Lowlands, edited by William Balée and Clark L. Erickson, pp. 311–340. Columbia University Press, New York.
Heckenberger, Michael J., A. Kuikuro, U. T. Kuikuro, J. C. Russell, M. Schmidt, C. Fausto, and B. Franchetto, 2003, Amazonia 1492: pristine forest or cultural parkland. Science 301: 1710–1714.
Heckenberger, Michael J., James B. Petersen, and Eduardo G. Neves, 1999, Village size and permanence in Amazonia: two archaeological case examples from Brazil. Latin American Antiquity 10 (4): 353–376.
Hill, Jonathan and Fernando Santos-Granero (eds.), 2002, Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Culture Area and Language Group in Amazonia. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Kern, Dirse, 2003, The distribution and variation of ADE in the Brazilian Amazon. In Amazonian Dark Earths: Origins, Properties, and Management, edited by Johannes Lehmann, Dirse Kern, Bruno Glaser, and William I. Woods, pp. 51–71. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Jenkins, Richard, 1996, Social Identity. Routledge, London.
Jenkins, C., 1999, Tupi-Guarani. In Handbook of Amazonian Languages, edited by R. M. W. Dixon and A. Y. Aihkenvald. pp. 125–164. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Jones, Sian, 1997, The Archaeology of Ethnicity. Routledge, London.
Lathrap, Donald W., 1970, The Upper Amazon. Praeger, London.
Lathrap, Donald W., A. Gephart-Sayer, and A. M. Mester, 1985, The roots of the Shipibo artstyle: three waves at Imariacocha or were there ‘Incas’ before the ‘Inca’. Journal of Latin American Lore 11: 31–119.
Lehmann, Johannes, Dirse Kern, Bruno Glaser, and William I. Woods (eds.), 2003, Amazonian Dark Earths: Origins, Properties, and Management. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Lima, Helena Pinto, Eduardo G. Neves, and James B. Petersen, 2006, A fase Açutuba: Um novo complexo cerâmica na Amazônia Central. Arqueología Suramericana / Arqueologia Sul-americana 2 (1): 26–52.
Martius, K. F. von, 1869, Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachangenkunde Südamerika’s zumals Brasiliens. Freidrich Fischer, Leipzig.
Medina, José Toribio (ed.), 1988, The Discovery of the Amazon. Dover, New York.
Meggers, Betty J., 1971, Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise. Aldine, Chicago.
Meggers, Betty J. and Clifford Evans, 1957, Archaeological Investigations at the Mouth of the Amazon. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Meggers, Betty J. and Clifford Evans, 1961, An experimental formulation of horizon styles in the tropical forest area of South America. In Essays in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, edited by Samuel K. Lothrop et al., pp. 372–388. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Murdock, George P., 1951, South American culture areas. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 4: 415–36.
Neves, Eduardo G., 2005, A arqueologia amazonica. Scientific American Brazil.
Neves, Eduardo G., and James B. Petersen, 2006, The political economy of pre-Columbian Amerindians: landscape transformations in central Amazonia. In Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical Lowlands, edited by William Balée and Clark L. Erickson, pp. 279–310. Columbia University Press, New York. (in press).
Neves, Eduardo G., J. B. Petersen, R. N. Bartone, and C. A. Silva, 2003, Historical and socio-cultural origins of Amazonian dark earths. In Amazonian Dark Earths: Origins, Properties, and Management, edited by Johannes Lehmann, Dirse Kern, Bruno Glaser, and William I. Woods, pp. 29–50. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Neves, Eduardo G., J. B. Petersen, R. N. Bartone, and M. J. Heckenberger, 2004, The timing of terra preta formation in the Central Amazon: archaeological data from three sites. In Amazonian Dark Earths: Explorations in Space and Time, edited by Bruno Glaser and William I. Woods, pp. 125–134. Springer Verlag, Berlin.
Nimuendajú, Curt U., 1944, Mapa Etno-historico. IBGE, Rio de Janeiro.
Nimuendajú, Curt U., 1952, The Tapajo. Kroeber Anthropological Society, Paper No. 6. University of California, Berkeley.
Noelli, Francisco Silva, 1998, The Tupi: explaining origin and expansions in terms of archaeology and historical linguistics. Antiquity 72: 648–663.
Petersen, James B., Eduardo G. Neves, and Michael J. Heckenberger, 2001, Gift from the past: terra preta and prehistoric Amerindian occupation in Amazonia. In Unknown Amazon: Culture and Nature in Ancient Brazil, edited by Colin McEwan, Cristiana Barreto, and Eduardo G. Neves, pp. 86–105. British Museum Press, London.
Petersen, James B., Eduardo G. Neves, Michael J. Heckenberger, Eduardo G. Neves, and William I. Woods, 2005, Tropical forest archaeology in central Amazonia: landscape transformation and sociopolitical complexity. Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting, Salt Lake City, April 2005.
Pires de Campos, A., 1862 [1720]. Breve notícia que dá o capitão Antônio Pires de Campos do gentio que há na derrota da viagem das minas de Cuyabá e seu recôncavo. Revista Trimestral do Instituto Histórico, Geográphico e Ethnográfico do Brasil 5: 437–449.
Posey, Darrell A., 2004, Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics: A Darrell Posey Reader. Routledge, London.
Rappaport, Roy, 1994, Post-Modern Science. In Assessing Cultural Anthropology, edited by Robert Borofsky, pp.. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Rodrigues, A., 1999, Macro-Tupi. In Handbook of Amazonian Languages, edited by R. M. W. Dixon and A. Y. Aihkenvald, pp. 107–124. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1980, Parmana: Prehistoric Maize and Manioc Subsistence along the Amazon and Orinoco. Academic Press, New York.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1989, Resource management in Amazonia before the Conquest: beyond ethnographic projection. Advances in Economic Botany 7: 30–62.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1991, Moundbuilders of the Amazon: Geophysical Archaeology on Marajó Island, Brazil. Academic Press, San Diego.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1997, The Excavations at Corozal, Venezuela: Stratigraphy and Ceramic Seriation. Yale University Publications in Anthropology No. 83. New Haven.
Roosevelt, Anna C., 1999, The development of prehistoric complex societies: Amazonia, a tropical forest. In Complex Polities in the Ancient Tropical World, edited by Elisabeth A. Bacus and Lisa J. Lucero, pp. 13–33. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association. No. 9. Washington, D.C.
Schaan, Denise, 2004, The Camutins Chiefdom: Rise and Development of Social Complexity on Marajó Island, Brazilian Amazon. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh.
Schmidt, M., 1917, Die Aruaken. Leipzig.
Steinen, K v. d., 1886. Durch Zentral Brasilien. F. Brockhaus, Leipzig.
Steward, Julian H., 1946–1950, Handbook of South American Indians, 6 vols. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., and Louis Faron, 1959, The Native Peoples of South America. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Strathern, Marilyn, 1999, Property, Substance, and Effect: Anthropological Essays on Persons and Things. Athlone, London.
Sweet, D. G., 1974, A Rich Realm of Nature Destroyed: The Middle Amazon, 1640–1750. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo B., 1984, Proposta da um II Encontro Tupi. Revista de Antropologia 27/28: 403–407.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo B., 1992, From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Whitehead, Neil L. (ed.), 2003, Histories and Historicities in Amazonia. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Wissler, Clark, 1917, The American Indian: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the New World. Oxford University Press, New York.
Woods, William I. and Joseph M. McCann, 1999, The anthropogenic origin and persistence of Amazonian dark earths. Yearbook of the Conference of Latin American Geographers 25: 7–14.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Heckenberger, M.J. (2008). Amazonian Mosaics: Identity, Interaction, and Integration in the Tropical Forest. In: Silverman, H., Isbell, W.H. (eds) The Handbook of South American Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_47
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_47
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-74906-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-74907-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)