Arqueologia e estudo paleoambiental no planalto de Santa Catarina

Abstract

In this thesis will be presented the results of efforts applied in order to elaborate an interpretative framework for the process of pre-colonial occupation undertaken by the Southern Jê populations in the Santa Catarina plateau. The construction of the plot was subsidized by archaeological data, obtained from pit-houses located in the municipality of São José do Cerrito, and by paleoenvironmental studies carried out in the same municipality, specifically for the development of this work. This research is part of a large project carried out by the team of the Instituto Anchietano de Pesquisas, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, whose beginning dates back to 2008 and had its last field stage in 2017. The archaeological data manipulated in this thesis of 12 sites excavated under this project, and compose an important database on the material culture that characterizes the archaeological sites with pit-houses of the Campos de Lages region. From these data it was possible to establish four settlement patterns for the sites of São José do Cerrito, which, according to the chronological data obtained in the sites, represent three different moments of the Southern Jê occupation in this portion of the Santa Catarina plateau: a first moment, situated in the first millennium BC, and marked by settlements without underground structures; the second moment, chronologically situated between the sixth and tenth centuries of the Christian era, which is characterized by the large clusters of small pit-houses and the large areas of fire located immediately to the depressions; and the third, which extends from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries, and which at the beginning is represented by the great pit-houses, their respective landfills and the occurrence of small ceramic vessels; but in its final part it records the resumption of pit-houses with diameters of less than 10 meters and the introduction of large ceramic vessels and their use as domestic furniture. The paleoenvironmental data, on the other hand, demonstrate that during the occupation process undertaken by these populations, the environment does not undergo significant modifications, and that the landscape would be composed predominantly of open grasslands with butiazeiros, interspersed by forest mesh with araucaria.