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EDITORIAL

In its fourth year, Amazônica presents this first issue a collection of the state of the art articles on Amazonian archaeology. It is amazing how the discipline has grown in the last ten years! At the end of the 20th century, you could count on your right hand fingers the number of archaeologists working in the area. Now, there are dozens of young archaeologists facing the challenge of doing fieldwork in the tropical forest. As one would notice, reading the authors’ names in the summary, research has increased due to the scholarly work supported both by the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Pará. It is a fact that establishing long term research programs in a disciplinary field depend upon universities. History is instructive in this case. Archaeology in the United States started within the Bureau of American Ethnology in the late 19th century. However, despite the enormous contribution of the Bureau to set the basis for archaeological and ethnological work focused on the American natives, it was only when Franz Boas came into the picture that anthropology spread throughout the country as Anthropology departments were created and talented scientists could
get their PhDs in the emerging four field discipline.

The articles in this edition deal with important issues for Amazonian archaeology, such as the interpretation of ceramic styles’ distribution, funerary practices, conflicts, and settlement patterns. Ceramic styles that originated along the Orinoco river spread into other Amazonian regions, to the south and east, a fact that places this area as critical to understand ancient population movements. Culture contact remains a hot topic in the archaeology of the region, and different approaches are pursued by the authors.

Amazonian archaeology became more diversified in themes and approaches, which is excellent. Grand theories are no longer suitable to grasp the amazing variability in cultural developments in the area. Amazônia has long been a laboratory for the study of indigenous cultures, past and present. We can now see a trend towards more pluralistic views on the Amazonian past, which can surely benefit from an anthropological archaeology.

The editors