This article presents the first findings of a topographic survey plotting the location of archaeological material and of a technological study of the lithic industry at the SC-CHA-030 open-air archaeological site along the Pesqueiro riverbank, located in the upper course of the Uruguay River Basin in southwestern Brazil. We analyzed raw material selection and the production of shaped/façonnage tools (unifacial, bifacial, and trihedral) associated with the production (debitage) of cortical and semi-cortical flakes that were then transformed into tools by simple retouch. From the geoarchaeological point of view, the spatial distribution pattern of the material is meaningful in the context of the geomorphic transition between foothills and alluvial plain. Our study of technological behavior and the formation of archaeological sites finds that raw material and shaped pebble tools are a crucial aspect of the industries on the Paraná Basaltic Plateau of southern Brazil.

This article presents differences and similarities in dietary practices of fisher-gatherer groups excavated from two sambaquis (shell-mound archaeological sites) in Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. We analyzed the buccal apparatus of 35 individuals excavated from Sambaqui da Beirada, dated from 5437 to 3440 years cal BP, and Sambaqui do Moa, dated from 4770 to 3199 years cal BP. Our oral health analysis of 852 alveoli and 704 teeth assessed the frequency and degree of teeth wear and the prevalence and frequency of caries, linear enamel hypoplasia, calculus, periapical cavities, and antemortem teeth loss. We applied the chi-square test and Fisher exact test to test statistical significance. Severe tooth wear, the absence of caries, a high frequency and prevalence of dental calculus, and a low prevalence of linear enamel hypoplasia were found in both sites, although periapical cavities and antemortem teeth loss indexes varied greatly. Despite a superficial homogeneity, the results point to variation in the physiopathological processes that occurred at both sites, including differences related to age and sex. These oral health-related results, together with other archaeological data from both sambaquis, showcase the expected cultural differences stemming from dietary practices.

At times funerary practices do not end with the deposition of the corpses in their final resting place, because occasionally these supposedly definitive burials are disturbed later. When we can confirm that people were mainly responsible for these disturbances, even when other natural taphonomic factors are present, then we have a situation of anthropic postfunerary manipulation of bodies and graves. Some precontact sites in northeastern Brazil have mortuary contexts with “anomalies” in the deposition of bodies into their graves. Applying a taphonomy-based approach, we analyze these cases and compare them to other burials with similar characteristics from central-eastern Brazil in our discussion of the “alternative” phenomenon of postburial manipulation. The evidence suggests that the anthropic disturbance of older burials and corpses should be understood not as a random event, but as an integral and meaningful part of the mortuary practices of ancient inhabitants from across different regions of Brazil throughout the Holocene. With this work we highlight not only unusual mortuary patterns of precontact human groups in Brazil and South America but also the importance of a taphonomic approach to understanding the complexity and variability of funerary and postfunerary actions.

Among other zooarchaeological remains, terrestrial snails’ shells from the Thaumastus and Megalobulimus genera are found in some Brazilian shellmounds, presenting a potential substitute for charcoal in radiocarbon dating analyses, as reliable representatives of the atmospheric carbon isotopic ratio. In this paper, we present statistically similar results of both charcoal and land snails samples from the same archaeological contexts in three settlements on the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The Manitiba I shellmound results range from 4.2 to 3.7 ka cal BP (95.4%), contemporary with the Saquarema shellmound, occupied during the period from 4.3 to 3.6 ka cal BP (95.4%). For the Usiminas shellmound, two groups of samples revealed different periods of time for two occupational layers from 2.3 to 2.1 ka cal BP (95.4%) and from 1.6 and 1.3 ka cal BP (95.4%). A model constraining each group of samples to within a single phase has a general agreement of 97% with only two outliers out of 22 dates, yielding minimum individual agreement of 74% and 7% posterior outlier probability for Saquarema shells. These are good examples of sites in which the occupation chronology can be successfully obtained by the radiocarbon dating of land snails.

Archaeology in Brazil shares many empirical similarities with Latin American and North American research but, as a social science, it has remained isolated from mainstream theoretical and methodological advances. The large size of the country, the lack of resources and government support, the difficulties of working in tropical environments, the lack of monumental architecture, and Brazil's being neither a Spanish- nor an English-speaking country have all been thought of as shaping Brazilian archaeology and its failure to integrate into a larger, Latin American or international context.