This project builds on preliminary research along the middle Berbice River, Guyana (NSF International Planning Grant, OISE #0923703), which revealed an extremely long sequence of settled agricultural occupations, spanning five millennia. The primary objective is to characterize initial settled agricultural occupations (ca. 5200-4700 year before present), which include one of the earliest ceramic industries in the Americas. These occupations provide the earliest examples of heavily modified 'black earth' or 'Amazonian dark earth'(ADE) soils from tropical forest regions of South America (Amazonia), typically associated semi-intensive land management. A further objective is to refine the regional chronology of agricultural occupations, including an early complex of agricultural mounds (ca. 2000-1500 BP) and large settlements reported in early historical documents (ca. 1540 and later). The project, designed as the initial phase of a multi-year, interdisciplinary study, involves archaeological survey and excavations at several occupation sites and associated agricultural earthworks within a 30 x 10 km study area, as well as related studies on paleoethnobotany, soils studies, biogeography, and ethnohistory within the study area.
Archaeological perspectives on Amazonian tropical forests have changed dramatically in the past few years. Long portrayed as relatively pristine tropical forest, recent archaeology suggests novel pathways of early domestication, agriculture, and semi-intensive resource management, including large occupations sites, agricultural and village earthworks, and substantially human-modified soils (ADE). However, sites that pertain to the earliest agricultural populations, which regional specialists suggest may have appeared ca. 5,000 to 4,000 BP, are virtually unknown. This project provides an important case for the transition from incipient to more intensive agro-economies and land-use in Amazonia. It helps situate the region in broader archaeological discussions regarding the development of agriculture, settled community life, and landscape transformation in other parts of the world. The project will also refine the chronology of agricultural occupations in this little known portion of northern Amazonia, notably including periods of agricultural intensification associated with the construction of artificial farming mounds and the transitional period between late prehistoric and historic period occupations.
The project contributes to broader discussions of long-term change in coupled natural-human systems in tropical forest regions, notably the effects of early agricultural populations on tropical ecology. Researchers from varied disciplines agree that planning, conservation, and local, regional, and global ecological modeling must account for the human dimensions of long term change. The findings of this study will therefore have critical implications for contemporary questions of conservation, sustainable development, biodiversity, and ecological integrity in the region. The project, which integrates archaeology, historical anthropology, and ecology, will strengthen international collaboration and provides diverse opportunities for local communities and Guyanese students, including collaboration with descendant Amerindian communities.
The Berbice Archaeology Project was initiated in 2009-2011 with NSF support. The two primary objectives are: 1) to develop a robust interdisciplinary study of the archaeology and indigenous history of the Middle Berbice River, including mid-Holocene occupations (6,000-3,000 BP, before present), later Holocene occupations along the middle Berbice (ca. 3,000-500 BP), and historic period occupations through integrated ethnohistory, oral history, historical ethnography, and ethnoarchaeology; and, 2) to develop collaborative research strategies with diverse Guyanese institutions and individuals, notably related to the co-production of knowledge with local Lokono indigenous groups in the Middle Berbice. NSF-supported research in the Middle Berbice in July-August 2011 (BCS 1022537) identified 10 pre-Columbian archaeological sites within a ~ 400 km² study area, with the large Dubulay and Hitia sites situated on high (non-inundated) river bluffs and occupied from initial mid-Holocene times. Five primary pre-Columbian cultural components were documented based primarily on excavations at the Dubulay site: (1) initial semi-sedentary occupations, pre-6,000-5,000 BP, based on dated human modified soils called Amazonian dark earth (ADE) or terra preta (black earth) ADE and ceramic bearing deposits; (2) major ceremonial mound construction, ca. 5000-4500 BP and apparent adjacent open public area; (3) domestic occupations immediately adjacent the large mound, including partially intact food processing features (with disturbed areas from recent plowing), with ceramics similar to earlier mound and ADE deposits, dated to ca. 3300 BP; (4) savanna agricultural and wetland raised field farming, after ca. 3000-2000 BP; and (5) late pre-Columbian occupations, ca. 1000-500 BP, with continued use of savanna areas for agricultural, occupation, and other activities.. This suggests relatively continuous occupation during the mid- and late Holocene, including the Lokono (Arawak) Amerindian peoples, first reported in the area in the early 16th century. Of particular importance, results of excavations and survey on the middle Berbice River document mid-Holocene (6,000 to 3,000 BP) ceramic manufacture, mound-building and raised-mound agriculture, indicative of very early sedentary villages in this interior tropical forest setting. These early settled societies laid the foundation for later developments by large-scale late Holocene social formations, such as semi-intensive land-use in broad domesticated landscapes, which suggests substantial early human influence on Amazonian ecosystems. This research provides an important contribution to understanding the transition from mobile food foraging to more settled life ways and agriculture in Amazonia, recognized across the globe as one of the most important general processes in Holocene human history, and suggests independent pathways of settled life, domestication and agriculture, and technological development, including early ceramic industries, mound-building and landscape odification, such as anthropogenic soils and artificial constructions. These findings highlight the complexity of relations among subsistence technology and land-use, local ecology and socio-political and ideological factors, as manifest in landscape, built environment, and material culture. The project findings underscore the need for centennial and millennial scale data provided by archaeology for understanding changes in coupled natural-human systems in Amazonia, particularly for contemporary interests in neo-tropical biodiversity, sustainable development, climate change and indigenous cultural heritage.
