Eighth Millennium Pottery from a Prehistoric Shell Midden in the Brazilian Amazon

doi:10.1126/science.254.5038.1621

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Science 13 December 1991:
Vol. 254. no. 5038, pp. 1621 - 1624
DOI: 10.1126/science.254.5038.1621

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Eighth Millennium Pottery from a Prehistoric Shell Midden in the Brazilian Amazon

A. C. ROOSEVELT ¹, R. A. HOUSLEY ², M. IMAZIO DA SILVEIRA ³, S. MARANCA ⁴, and R. JOHNSON ⁵

¹ Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 60605-2496
² Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3QJ, England
³ Arqueologia, Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, CP 399, 66.000, Belem, PA, Brazil
⁴ Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, Universidade de Sâo Paulo, Sâo Paulo, SP 42.503, Brazil
⁵ Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

The earliest pottery yet found in the Western Hemisphere hasbeen excavated from a prehistoric shell midden near Santarémin the lower Amazon, Brazil. Calibrated accelerator radiocarbondates on charcoal, shell, and pottery and a thermoluminescencedate on pottery from the site fall from about 8000 to 7000 yearsbefore the present. The early fishing village is part of a longprehistoric trajectory that contradicts theories that resourcepoverty limited cultural evolution in the tropics.

Submitted on May 13, 1991
Accepted on August 7, 1991

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:

Two histories of environmental change and human disturbance in eastern lowland Amazonia.: M. B. Bush, M. C. Miller, P. E. De Oliveira, and P. A. Colinvaux (2000)
The Holocene 10, 543-553
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