“At the site in the coastal city of Sao Luis had uncovered thousands of artifacts left by ancient peoples up to 9,000 years ago, 43 human skeletons and more than 100,000 artifacts, stone tools, ceramic shards, decorated shells and bones. The top layer was left by the Tupinamba people, who inhabited the region when European colonizers founded Sao Luis in 1612. Then comes a layer of artifacts typical of Amazon rainforest peoples, followed by a “sambaqui” (Shell Mound): a mound of pottery, shells and bones used by some Indigenous groups to build their homes or bury their dead. Beneath that, about 6.5 feet below the surface, lies another layer, left by a group that made rudimentary ceramics and lived around 8,000 to 9,000 years ago, based on the depth of the find. That is far older than the oldest documented “pre-sambaqui” settlement found so far in the region, which dates to 6,600 years ago, Lage said. Lage’s find suggests they settled this region of modern-day Brazil at least 1,400 years earlier than previously thought. The announcement of the discovery came just as archeologists said they uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest that was home to at least 10,000 farmers about 2,000 years ago in Ecuador.” ref
“The sambaquis (Shell Mounds), also known as “shell mounds,” were established about 8,000 to 1,000 years ago along a stretch of more than 3,000 kilometers on the eastern coast of South America. According to archaeological records, the sambaqui builders shared clear cultural similarities. However, contrary to what was expected, these groups of people showed significant genetic differences. In their study, published today in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution,” the scientists attribute this to different demographic trajectories, possibly due to regional contacts with inland groups.” ref
The people of Jabuticabeira II: Reconstruction of the way of life in a Brazilian shellmound
“Sambaquis (Shell Mounds) are huge shellmounds built along almost the entire Brazilian coast between 8000 and 600 years ago. In the present article, 14 osteological markers from 89 individuals excavated at the Sambaqui Jabuticabeira II (around 2,890 years ago) are analyzed in order to reconstruct the population’s health status and way of life. The present palaeopathological findings (such as lower frequency of degenerative joint diseases in legs, as compared to arms, and the rarity of traumas) together with archaeological findings support the idea of nearby resource abundance and infrequent interpersonal competition. The presence of auditory exostoses mainly in males corroborates previous findings indicating the importance of marine resources. The low caries frequency and the high degrees of dental wear point to a diet poor in cariogenic food, and rich in abrasives such as sand, shell fragments and phytoliths. This suggests a broader diet, based on marine protein as well as plants, than previously thought. The etiology of cribra orbitalia could be explained by gastrointestinal parasites or other sources of physiological stress. These parasites, in turn, could have led to higher frequencies of infectious diseases, either by the debilitation of the immune system or by the direct contact with infectious agents. Despite the periods of illness various individuals experienced, the daily life among the builders of the Sambaqui Jabuticabeira II seems to have been relatively easy due to the abundance and predictability of resources and the paucity of violent traumas.” ref
“Sambaquis (shellmounds) are archaeological sites associated with populations that intensely colonized the entire Brazilian coast, specially the Southern regions. The name given to these sites originates from the tupi words ‘‘tamba’’ (mollusk) and ‘‘ki’’ (accumulation), thus meaning ‘‘shellmound.” These coastal populations lived from 8000 to 600 years ago. This long period of time and large area of occupation, associated with the huge size of many of these sites, suggests that these populations were very well adapted to the coastal environment. Because of their use for the extraction of lime, the Portuguese colonists knew the Sambaquis already in the 16th century. But these sites have only been scientifically studied since the 19th century. Although about 1000 of these sites have been catalogued and partially analyzed until the present, there are only a few reports published in international journals.” ref
“In early Sambaqui (shellmound) studies, two main ideas about their origin predominated. One of these interpreted Sambaquis as natural structures formed by sea level decline. The other one stated that they were artificially formed by the accumulation of food remains left over by prehistoric populations. However, the fact that some of the Brazilian Sambaquis are so huge (some sites measure 30 m in height and several hundred meters in diameter) suggests that they were not incidental structures, but rather the result of the intention to form a well-visible construction. The presence of beautiful bone and lithic artifacts in the Sambaquis, along with findings of recent zooarchaeological and stable isotope studies indicate that the subsistence of these peoples was mainly based on fishing and gathering of molluscs. This latter process would have been the activity that led to the construction of the Sambaquis.” ref
“The occurrence of pottery in Sambaquis (shellmounds), although used to define pre-ceramic and ceramic periods, is limited to a few pieces usually scattered around the surface of the site, without any other cultural change and no burial associations. These ceramic fragments might represent occasional trade with surrounding groups, and appear to indicate that pottery did not play a significant role in their cooking technology, nor that pottery can be safely associated with high caries indices. Although there are hypotheses that propose the existence of two or three morphologically distinct populations within the Sambaqui culture some authors favor the occurrence of a morphological unity of these groups. However, more detailed comparative morphological studies are necessary to test these hypotheses. Apart from craniometrical studies, most of the research carried out on skeletal remains is concentrated on the description of oral pathologies, as well as cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis in single Sambaquis.” ref
“Recently, archaeological excavations in the Sambaquis (shellmounds) have been more systematic, and permit the meaningful analysis of population history at specific Sambaquis sites. The present article focuses on the description of the health status of 89 individuals buried in the shellmound Jabuticabeira II based on an assessment of 14 osteological markers. Archaeological context of Sambaqui Jabuticabeira II The material reported in this article was excavated from a Sambaqui called Jabuticabeira II. The excavation of this site is part of a multidisciplinary project called ‘‘Settlement patterns and formation of Sambaquis from the Santa Catarina state’’. Its main objective is the systematic approach of a whole series of Sambaquis, localized around the lake Camacho, at the southern coast of Brazil, in order to obtain understand their construction processes.” ref
“Besides Jabuticabeira II, there are 22 Sambaquis built between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago that are scattered around this lake. In the past this group of Sambaquis was significantly closer to the coast, due to the decrease in sea level that began 5,100 years ago. Thirty-nine radiocarbon dates for Jabuticabeira II indicate that it was constructed between around 2,890 and 2,186 years ago or over a period of about 700 years. What remained of this site after mining activities measures approximately 400 m (NW–SE) by 250 m by 6 m height. The osteological material from Jabuticabeira II derives from profiles as well as traditional horizontal excavations, which reveal a long and continuous depositional history involving recurrent burial and mortuary activities and the lack of habitation structures. The high number and great density of burials, each of which is often covered over by a layer of sand and shells, suggest that the utilization of this Sambaqui as cemetery was linked to its construction process.” ref
“The burials are distributed over most of the locations excavated, and are accompanied, in the majority of cases, by hearths, post-holes, as well as lithic artifacts, beads, some evidence of food (mainly fish), red pigment and different ways of interment indicating elaborate funeral rituals (Edwards et al 2001). Based on the ratio of burials per cubic meter, Fish et al (2000) estimated an astonishing number of approximately 40 000 persons that must have been buried during the construction of Jabuticabeira II. Even if this is an overestimate, it suggests a large number of people living nearby the Sambaqui, sharing a common social identity and getting together for the construction of this mortuary monument.” ref
Sex and age at death
“The estimation of the MNI yielded a total of 89 persons. The distribution of the age at death is shown in Table 1. Due to their incompleteness (76.4% of all individuals had less than 50% of all bones) many of the adult skeletons lack a more precise age determination. That is why the sample of adults was not divided into age categories when analyzed. The same problem of incompleteness prevented sex determination in 63% of the adults. An interesting palaeopathological finding refers to a double burial of a six-month old infant and a three-year-old child. Both were buried together in an undoubtedly secondary burial, with many beads and a carved shell positioned near their heads. The data obtained from Jabuticabeira II revealed that approximately one-third of the buried individuals were juveniles. This high proportion of juveniles has been observed in most prehistoric cemeteries, this indicates that burial rituals were not altering the natural demographic composition. This statement was corroborated by the fact that the sexes were evenly distributed and that the age at death of adults ranged from 21 to more than 50 years.” ref
“Out of 14 adults (six males and eight females) only two of the females presented trauma, against three of the males. Moreover, two out of seven adults (28.6%) of undetermined sex presented traumas. They were localized on one femur, two vertebrae, one ulna, one elbow and also on one skull. Most of them were not severe and presented no evidence of interpersonal violence. Furthermore, they were in the process of healing at the time of death. Skeletal markers are among the most powerful tools used to reconstruct the biological features of ancient populations. A more complete reconstruction of their way of life can be made if there is an integration of the study of these markers with data obtained from other sources such as zooarchaeology, palaeobotany, material culture and settlement patterns. According to more recent studies, Sambaqui populations were fisher-gatherers who used a wide variety of plants for food, fuel, artifact production and construction and engaged in elaborate mortuary rituals. They possibly shared a common identity with neighboring Sambaqui peoples and used their often huge mounds for purposes as diverse as habitation, cemetery and as a place for tool production.” ref
“Besides its benign nature, the low frequency of traumas observed in Jabuticabeira II is not unexpected, since this has also been observed at other Sambaqui sites. The broad temporal and geographic distribution of Sambaquis and especially the use of multiple concomitant neighboring sites sharing the same territory, suggest that the Sambaqui populations. The daily life among the Sambaqui dwellers from Jabuticabeira II seems to have been relatively easy due to the abundance and predictability of marine and plant resources and the rarity of traumas, be they violent or not.” ref
“Research at Jabuticabeira II was essential for reformulating the meaning of the largest sambaquis of the southern coast of Santa Catarina. Its construction continued uninterrupted for hundreds of years and its function was strictly oriented to funeral activities points out that faunal remains, especially fish, played an integral role in feasts performed to honor the dead. An important feature of Jabuticabeira II is the presence of a dark sediment layer covering the conchiferous layers across the whole site. This dark layer, also described as fishmound, is composed primarily of fish bones and sediments rich in charcoal and organic materials. Both Jabuticabeira II and Cabeçuda are cemeteries, and systematic archaeological excavations observed variability in relation to burial practices that could indicate different moments of occupation. In Jabuticabeira II, there are visible changes in the site construction layers (shellmound vs. fishmound), with the presence of pottery in the latest one. During excavations of Cabeçuda during the 1950’s, were identified two distinct contexts with higher burial density and different funerary characteristics: one group of burials located between 2 and 3 meters deep and another group between 6 and 8 meters deep, which could indicate different moments of occupation with potentially different morbidity and mortality realities.” ref
“Human skeletal remains were exhumed in an area of the site with older dates (between around 3,235 and 2,925 years ago) that could also be related to another moment of occupation. Changes related to funerary rituals occurred throughout the construction of Cabeçuda. Archaeologists usualy argued for the continuity and stability in the lifestyles of the sambaqui builders, as reflected in the homogeneity of various aspects of material culture. According to these studies, these groups could have an egalitarian political organization, sharing the same environment and resources, and recognizing themselves as belonging to the same identitary group. This paper aims to discuss this hypothesis for the study area through the analysis of physical stress markers (Porotic Hyperostosis, Cribra orbitalia, and Linear Enamel Hypoplasia) in individuals buried in the Cabeçuda and Jabuticabeira II sambaquis. Sambaquis are shellmounds situated along the Brazilian coast, intentionally constructed by fisher-hunter-gatherer groups through the long-term accumulation of shells, fish bones and sediments, interspersed in a complex stratigraphy, with a material culture that includes burials, lithic and bone artifacts, hearths, and food waste. They are one of the most numerous and well-documented Brazilian sites, with a great density of archaeological datas that allow important inferences about the lifestyle of their builders.” ref
“Most coastal sambaquis are located in bays, estuaries, lagoons, and mangroves, that constitute a range of environments or ecological zones with high and diverse biotic productivity. The southern coast of the state of Santa Catarina is an ecotonal zone characterized by the meeting of Atlantic Forest, restinga vegetation, mangroves, lagoons, and Atlantic Ocean marine environments. It is thus a region with a vast and varied availability of resources that perhaps facilitated human settlement. Currently, it is known that sambaqui people had a broad dietary spectrum, based on marine protein, but which also incorporated terrestrial protein and a diversity of plants. The high concentration of sambaquis on the southern coast of Santa Catarina state, active for thousands of years, with large dimensions, high burial density, similar building patterns, and similar bone and lithic industries, suggest that these people would constitute a complex and long-lasting social system, with an economic, social, and political stability over these years of permanence in the coast. Taking as a case study this region of interest, the present research studied the human remains from two large and important sambaquis in the region: Cabeçuda and Jabuticabeira II.” ref
Ancient Sambaqui Societies Were Genetically Diverse
“The investigation that covered four different parts of Brazil carried out analysis of genomic data from 34 fossils, including larger skeletons and the famous mounds of shells and fishbones built on the coast. DNA analysis of ancient remains, obtained across four different parts of Brazil, reveal new insights into the ancient communities that occupied eastern South America thousands of years ago. In pre-colonial South America, populations of Sambaqui societies inhabited large regions across the Atlantic coast from approximately 8,000–1,000 years ago. Sambaqui is a Brazilian term that describes large mounds of fishbones and shells that were built by these ancient communities and often used as cemeteries, homes and markers of territorial boundaries. They are considered an iconic feature of Brazilian archeology, with over 1,000 sambaqui locations recorded in the country’s national register of archeological sites.” ref
“According to Strauss and colleagues, Sambaqui societies are “among the most intriguing archaeological phenomena in pre-colonial South America.” However, our understanding of how these populations might have been connected to early Holocene hunter-gatherers – and whether this contributed to the processes that saw the late Holocene ceramists “rule the coast” – is limited. The earliest evidence of human activity and settlement on the Atlantic coast dates back ~8,700 years ago, with an intensification of sambaqui construction approximately 5,500 years ago. We know that there were both coastal and riverine Sambaqui societies, but there are a number of outstanding questions surrounding their genetic similarities, and their relationship to present-day Indigenous populations. Further questions stem from the seemingly mysterious disappearance of the dominant Atlantic coast sambaqui builders: “After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” Strauss says.” ref
“Among the archeological material analyzed by Strauss and team was “Luzio”, São Paulo’s oldest male human skeleton that is estimated to be ~10,400 years old. “This individual was named ‘Luzio’, as a reference to ‘Luzia’, a final Pleistocene female skeleton found in the Lagoa Santa region in east-central Brazil. Both individuals are at the center of long-lasting debates for exhibiting the so-called paleoamerican cranial morphology that differs from that of present-day indigenous peoples. Genome analysis revealed Luzio was, in fact, an Amerindian “like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee,” says Strauss. The term Amerindian is used to refer to American Indians, also referred to as Native Americans, Indigenous Americans and Aboriginal Americans. “That doesn’t mean they’re all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn’t leave descendants among these groups.” Luzio is not considered to be a direct ancestor of the huge classical Sambaqui population that appeared later in time, as his remains were discovered in a river midden.” ref
“A subtle difference between these communities, and the genetic analysis confirmed it,” Strauss says. “We discovered that one of the reasons was that these coastal populations weren’t isolated but ‘swapped genes’ with inland communities. Over thousands of years, this process must have contributed to the regional differences between Sambaquis.” Why did the coastal sambaqui builders vanish? The researchers say that when coastal and inland contact increased – approximately 2,200 years ago – there was a decline in the construction of shell mounds and the introduction of pottery, which led to changes in practices such as cooking. “This information is compatible with a study that analyzed pottery shards from sambaquis and found that the pots in question were used to cook not domesticated vegetables, but fish. They [the coastal Sambaqui] appropriated technology from the hinterland to process food that was already traditional there,” Strauss explains.” ref
“The complex history of intercultural contact between inland horticulturists and coastal populations becomes genetically evident during the final horizon of sambaqui societies, from around 2,200 years ago, corroborating evidence of cultural change,” the authors say. They emphasize that their data challenges descriptions of ancient populations in archeological records, and “highlights the need to perform more regional and micro-scale studies to improve our understanding of the genomic history of eastern South America.” ref
Sambaquis (shellmounds) from the Southern Brazilian Coast: Landscape Building and Enduring Heterarchical Societies throughout the Holocene
“Abstract: This paper presents a heterarchical model for the regional occupation of the sambaqui (shellmound) societies settled in the southern coast of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Interdisciplinary approaches articulate the geographical scope and environmental dynamics of the Quaternary with human occupation patterns that took place therein between the middle and late Holocene (approximately 7,500 to 1,500 years ago). The longue durée perspective on natural and social processes, as well as landscape construction, evince stable, integrated, and territorially organized communities around the lagoon setting. Funerary patterns, as well as mound distribution in the landscape, indicate a rather equalitarian society, sharing the economic use of coastal resources in cooperative ways. This interpretation is reinforced by a common ideological background involving the cult of the ancestors, which seems widespread all over the southern Brazilian shores along that period of time. Such a long-lived cultural tradition has endured until the arrival of fully agricultural Je and Tupi speaking societies in the southern shores.” ref
“These sites achieve impressive dimensions especially in the southern Atlantic shores, where they may reach up to 70 m high and 500 m wide. It is also towards the southern shores that they reach larger aggregates, with hundreds of mounds clustered into the bay and estuarine and coastal island areas, ecologically diverse and very productive coastal niches. Sambaquis, especially the bigger ones, typically exhibit heterogeneous stratigraphic sequences, with packs of light-colored shell interspersed with darker strata rich of organic materials. These last ones are composed mostly of charcoal, burnt fishbone, and smashed soft shell into a sandy substrate, and into them a variety of stone and bone tools can be found, and a great deal of fire-cracked rocks. These dark layers frequently include as well abundant burial structures, configuring a sequence of specially prepared funerary areas located on former mound platform surfaces. Eventually, from time to time, these funerary areas are closed and covered by packs of clean shell, setting the place for new burials, at a higher platform ground.” ref
“In fact, several burials, usually tightly flexed and disposed in shallow pits, are reported in most sambaqui descriptions. The dead are carefully, ceremonially lain down into these prepared places, accompanied by adornments and artifacts, food offerings, and hearths. Remains of wooden tumular structures and palisades (postholes) have also been described. In sum, most of the sambaquis, especially the large ones, are collective funerary structures. In some excavated larger mounds, dozens of burials have been documented, such as Cabeçuda (337 individuals), Congonhas (22 individuals), Armação do Sul (86 burials), Jaboticabeira II (204 burials), and Morro do Ouro (some 100 burials). Several other mounds are reported as having a large number of burials, such as Carniça and Jaboticabeira I, but they have never been studied or accounted properly. Small interventions (such as test-pits and small-scale profiling) at some mounds have disclosed a few burials, suggesting a much bigger number of them, among many others).” ref
“Habitation areas of the sambaqui people have never been acknowledged. Smaller mounds and other discreet features, without burials, often surround larger funerary mounds, but there is no undisputable evidence of habitational debris on them. It might be that the bulk of debris from living areas located at the sandy terraces, not far from the mounds, has been remobilized into them, perhaps on a regular basis (funerary occasions, for instance). This behavior would generate low visibility for habitational contexts in such a plastic, unconsolidated environment, such as the discreet activity traces described by Attorre surrounding larger mounds.” ref
“Moreover, there is very scanty evidence that moundbuilders might have lived on palafittes (stilt-houses), wooden constructions located in the shifting fringes of the ever-changing lake borders. Such structures have been reported towards northern coastal lacustrine contexts, in the southeastern border of the Amazon area. However, if such structures really existed along the southern shores, they have long disappeared due to Holocene dynamic coastal landscape reshaping by sea level fluctuations. The chance of finding them seems very elusive, but some might have survived at low-energy filling-in patches of the old lagoon borders.” ref
“Though recognition and analysis of the relationship between sambaquis and the dynamic quaternary coastal environment appear in early studies, ecological approaches remain rare. The connection of older mounds to former coastal lines, as well as paleo beach strands which, sometimes, are located well back from the coast today. Mound distribution as related to former regional landscapes, noting the significant difference between past and present coastline and island configurations along Holocene sea-level fluctuations and associated sedimentary processes.” ref
“Indeed, sambaqui chronology throughout the Brazilian coast coincides with the maximum sea level oscillation and the following regressive processes, along the middle and lower Holocene (approx. 7,000 to 1,500 years ago). Nevertheless, the principal characteristics of the sambaqui culture (moundbuilding related to funerary activities, technological and stylistic patterns of lithic and bone industries, the close connection to large bodies of water, among others) are already tied together in the oldest known sites (around 8,000 to 6,000 years ago), strongly suggesting that it is a much older culture, probably deriving from coastal migrations by the end of the Pleistocene. Mounded sites even older than that have survived into inland riverine locations, but ancient coastal ones seem to have been mostly wiped out by coastline remodeling along the early and middle Holocene.” ref
“Bone and lithic technology is similar across the southern and southeastern coast, where cutting, carving, drilling, and polishing techniques have been used for manufacturing a variety of tools such as points, spatulas, and even sculpted effigies. The presence of spindle disks strongly suggests the practice of some kind of weaving among sambaqui societies. Several authors point out that most burials of the southern shores have been tightly disposed, probably enveloped by some kind of tissue or straw mat for evidence in another interesting Pacific coast context). This artefactual similarity reinforces the hypothesis of a common origin for these sambaqui societies from the southern and southwestern coast, and maybe also from the northern shores.” ref
“Since the beginning, our investigations in the sambaquis from the southern shores have developed an adequate balance between understanding ecological and environmental factors, on one side, and sociocultural adaptation on the other. This perspective eventually evolved towards the understanding of demographic and economic intensification on coastal resources and the emergence of a long-lived integrative, heterarchical social organization around the lagoon and its ecological patches along the Holocene. Indeed, gradually, the idea of “adapting to nature” has given place to the perception of the influence of cultural behavior as regards landscape constitution and shaping—that is, “adapting the nature” to human purposes. Ultimately, we have been committed to understanding the evolution of the landscape and social environment as a whole, integrated phenomena.” ref
“Most studies of Archaic and Formative societies link the development of social and economic complexity to the emergence of hierarchical social differentiation. This sort of evolutive thinking has been a kind of rule of thumb since the XIX century, becoming common sense after the influential models from the 1960s. Alternative perspectives on social evolution argue that many past societies maintained and even expanded social organization without the emergence of structured or formal social stratification or any kind of statutory political leadership. Proposed models where politically equivalent communities share specific territories into a network structure are starting to appear (see 68 and 9 for examples in very different contexts). As we shall see in this paper, sambaqui societies from Brazilian southern Atlantic shores seem to provide a pretty good case for such an interpretive perspective.” ref
This approach is not a new one. Indeed, the conception of “primitive communism”, first elaborated by Engels, has gained wide influence on social sciences since the late 19th century. Throughout the 20th century, both European and American archaeologies have drawn deep into materialistic and techno-economical perspectives of investigation. In Latin America, a strong line of research in Social Archaeology has appeared and acquired wide influence, especially across Spanish-speaking research groups.” ref
“Some 20th century ethnographies of South American indigenous peoples argue that several societies from different environments developed mechanisms inhibiting aggrandizement and social differentiation based on the accumulation of material goods. In such societies, social prestige achieved by non-material means corresponds with individuals’ social status, but do not imply in rigid hierarchical structuring (see, particularly). Viveiros de Castro has noted a deep-rooted ecological worldview, characteristic of Amerindian societies, connecting culture and nature, including transfiguring, interchangeable perspectives across these worlds. Complementary, Vilaça, among others, has pointed out the deep connection of the living with the dead. Her study among the Wari people from southwestern Amazonia evinces how funerary events have this powerful capability of creating strong bounds among people from villages across a wide territory.” ref
“Following these lines, the model delineated further on in this paper can be summarized by this: Initial communities spread all over the area, always keeping close contact among themselves. Working in cooperative ways, they expand demographically and intensify the management of the landscape. Local community identities, probably based on familiar bonds (tribes or tribelets) remain strong, expressed as they are in the architecture of the mounds. This thriving expansion, in due time, develops new systems of social organization at a regional scope, with the development of an overall religious ideology regulating and mediating relationships among communities. Apparently, this religious apparel has never acquired a structured political dimension; sambaqui communities remain integrated in a rather equalitarian, heterarchical way.” ref
“Thus, the researchers makes a case for the sambaqui societies of the southern Brazilian coast, focusing on moundbuilders’ heterarchical behavioral patterns. Available economical, ideological, and organizational evidence for it is summarized below, in order to contextualize the sambaqui society’s endurance in living into these affluent coastal settings throughout several millennia. As most of the information herein discussed comes from the southern Santa Catarina coast, natural characteristics and ecological changes of the shoreline environment of this area throughout the Holocene.” ref
“The Santa Marta lagoon area, in the southern shores of Brazil, Santa Catarina State, encompasses an expansive, mostly flat, and open lagoonal system infilled with recent (quaternary) sedimentary deposits. Interspersed rocky promontories and small isolated outcrops, that once formed a string of islands at the mouth of an open bay, today anchor elongated sand strips and dune fields enclosing several lakes of brackish water. Canals connect these remnant lakes throughout this complex and dynamic mosaic of inter-related marine, lagoon, and aeolian deposits, where the Tubarão river, running from the scarped mountains at the hinterland, configures one of the largest inner deltas of the world.” ref
“Early Holocene sea-level rise drowned older marine terraces and dune formations before stabilizing around 5,700 years ago. The slow and regular lowering of the sea level since the middle Holocene has allowed the development of sandy barriers that gradually isolated the former bay area into the almost closed lagoon system we see today. Open dune fields frequently intersperse with archaeological deposits, creating intricate depositional contexts. This area displays a large aggregate of sambaquis, reinforcing the perception that great and productive bodies of brackish water are fundamental environmental references for the adaptive patterns of sambaqui communities. Indeed, this open and mostly flat landscape congregates nearby environments including shallow aquatic settings, mangrove, and rain forest patches on the fringe of surrounding hills, making it truly an ecological (sub) tropical paradise, with abundant and diversified resources from sea and ground.” ref
“Minor climatic oscillations along the middle and recent Holocene, particularly as regards humidity, temperature, and water salinity, have made of it an ever-changing scenario, especially in terms of the small-scale distribution of vegetation patches (such as mangrove) and spots of fish and shellfish concentration. In spite of these variations, landscape structural and environmental characteristics have changed at a rather moderate pace and scale, providing stable and reliable conditions for human adaptation. Into such a very productive landscape, as well as at several others along the Atlantic Brazilian coast, sambaqui-making people clustered and built mounds over many millennia. This southern area has been chosen as strategical for archaeological research due to its optimal combination of environmental diversity and the presence of a large number of mounds still preserved, including some of the biggest ever recorded anywhere in the world.” ref
“Since the middle 1990s, our research group has systematically explored this portion of the southern shores of Santa Catarina, with an international team of interdisciplinary investigators from different institutions. Such a setting provided for an approach focusing on regional understanding of territorial patterns and settlement evolution, as well as mound formation processes and architectural design, with special attention to the interrelationship of natural and cultural phenomena into site and off-site formation processes. This research project, generically named Sambaquis and Paisagem, has produced a considerable amount of literature, especially as academic works such as theses and dissertations. For the investigation of moundbuilding processes, the strategy has been systematically profiling into some large mounds, taking advantage of extensive walls left on them by intensive mining for shell materials in the past. This approach has allowed us to explore stratigraphic sequences across the whole mound, mapping the distribution of burials and other structures therein, as well as sampling for dating and zooarchaeological and sedimentological analyses. Some mounds, especially Jaboticabeira II (JabII), have been studied in greater detail, including trenching and small-scale excavations.” ref
“More than 120 sambaquis have been recorded so far in the Santa Marta study area, and, surely, other mounds have succumbed facing intensive mining and recent urban development. Almost three hundred radiocarbon dates provide a fairly well distributed sample for a regional chronology. Intra mound dating into large sambaquis shows coherent and uniform sequences, usually without important interruptions for centuries—indeed, some larger funerary mounds have been continuously built throughout more than two thousand years. On a regional perspective, dating indicates that sambaqui occupation in this area has no important interruption throughout at least five thousand years ago. It starts around 7,500 years ago, showing an expansion of active funerary sites up to approximately 3000 years ago, decaying after that, but with sites still active until 1000 years ago approximately.” ref
“During the “classic” sambaqui period (between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago approximately), small mounds and other discreet peri-sambaqui structures appear, frequently with a single stratigraphic horizon. Although the compositional and functional variability of these smaller sites/events are still poorly explored, most of them seem to gravitate around the bigger mounds, being functionally related to them. Moreover, several sambaquis constituted by twin-mounds, frequently sharing the same basal platform, appear around this period. Similar concomitant funerary moundbuilding processes at different locales across the area, and along several generations, point to stable and enduring cultural patterns towards the dead, shared by all communities around the lagoon. Such a homogeneous architectural design (and its endurance) finds resonance into the long permanence of lithic and bone technological and stylistic patterns all through this area, and well beyond.” ref
“Sites located up to 10 km away from the actual seashore indicate that the sambaqui occupation of this paleo bay/lagoonal system was already flourishing on its inner and most sheltered portion by at least 7,500 years ago —that is, well before the medium sea level reached its maximum, about 2.3 m above actual sea level. These small older mounds are rare and rather difficult to find—and, usually, very disturbed by modern land use. Nevertheless, they already display a well-defined trace association pattern, featuring typical characteristics of the later (“classic”) sambaqui culture. It includes settling at the border of large water bodies (lakes, bays, estuaries), shell-mounding formation processes involving funerary use, and the presence of peculiar votive sculptures (see ahead). These deep-lagoonal mounds, once located at the very bottom of the paleo bay area, reveal that sambaqui adaptive patterns to coastal environments, already present and active by the early/middle Holocene, are even older, probably of Pleistocene origins. Deep inland shell-mounded funerary sites found further to the north (at the São Paulo state), settled at lowland riverine environments and dated from the end of Pleistocene, make a strong case for this argument.” ref
“Available estimates for demography are in the order of a few thousands of people living together around the lakes around 3,500 to 2.500 years ago. Sedentary life and population increase are also reinforced by available paleopathological data on the skeletal population of the sambaquis Cabeçuda and Jaboticabeira II. This demographic expansion, however, apparently does not bring perceptible changes or disruption on the homogeneous cultural and economic patterns of the sambaqui society along its enduring existence. There is almost no evidence of violent death among the buried population, and, as far as we can see, economic and organizational solutions for conflicting situations were “socially orchestrated”, in order to support population growth and the intensification of social interaction in the area. This orchestration, as already pointed out, involves free-flow and cooperation at a regional scale among several communities, and an ideological/religious “superstructure” promoting (or stimulating) integration and social isonomy.” ref
“Mound distribution into long-lasting clusters evinces that, throughout the middle and late Holocene, the large body of brackish water was the epicenter of the sambaqui social sphere. It became a shared and communal territory, vital space for economic and social interaction. Eventually, this has led to an increase in territorial circumscription in the lagoon area, and intensification upon available resources, drawing on the abundance, stability, and reliability of environmental conditions. Social flexibility and interaction among sambaqui communities around the lagoon are indicated by their similarity (that is, cultural homogeneity), concomitance, and the evenness of their spatial distribution.” ref
“This evidence points to an articulated social network and territorial sharing as fundamental aspects of the systemic integration among these communities. It suggests that each of these clusters represent, in both social and economic perspectives, a nuclear focus of occupation with its own social—and, to some degree, also territorial—identity, as represented by each unique (and long-lived) funerary locale. However, as regional chronology clearly shows, they are never alone, living among other analogous communities distributed around the lagoon, involved in a “face-to-face” (frequent, quotidian) network interaction.” ref
“An apparently abrupt change in depositional patterns occurs around 2100 to 1800 years ago. By this time, darker organic sediments rich in fish remains and charcoal replace the fore predominant shell accumulation. This “upper black horizon”—that, in some mounds, may reach more than two meters thick—is related to carefully disposed burials and assorted structures. Associated lithic and bone industries, also similar to previous phases, exhibit consistent functional, technological, and locational persistence. Depositional patterns involve remobilization of faunal (mostly fishbone) materials, charcoal, and burnt stone fragments within and above the burial ground. Despite the low frequencies of shell, the funerary ritual is still the principal mounding up driving process, and the large amounts of food remains, remobilized and frequently burnt, have been interpreted as resulting from well-attended, community-bound feasting upon the dead.” ref
“Shortly after (around 1,700 years ago), discreet dark-earthen mounded sites start to appear along the coast and nearby areas. Some of them are clearly funerary, while others look to be fishing shoreline campsites or aggregation places. The features and structures appearing in these sites, particularly as regards faunal composition, burial inception (including cremation, never present in the mounds before this period), and accompaniments, are rather distinct from earlier sambaquis. Differences also include the introduction of ceramics, around twelve hundred years ago. These events indicate significant cultural changes taking place around the lagoon, leading to the end of a long period of stability and cultural continuity of the sambaqui culture.” ref
“The characteristic ceramic styles occasionally found in these smaller “late sambaquis” are related to the ethnographically known Je speaking societies that have occupied most of the southern Brazilian coast since around seven hundred years before the arrival of European settlers. These later sites display higher evidence of violence among buried people, and also some evidence of changes in post-marital residence patterns. No archaeological settlement typically related to the coastal sambaqui culture has ever been found deeper into the mainland, outside the lagoon area and its surroundings—except for some scanty evidence of artifact circulation in a few large open valleys located to the northern shores, in Santa Catarina and São Paulo. Settlement distribution and sambaqui life center in the lagoon area; large bodies of water constitute the focal interaction sphere as regards social and economic relations among these circum-lacunar communities.” ref
“Although only a small number (around three hundred pieces) of these sculptures has ever been found, based on its distribution, it might be inferred that such a religious ideology has an ample regional dispersion and endurance, widespread among sambaqui societies from the southern and southeastern Brazilian shores. In fact, although shellmounds are conspicuous throughout the Atlantic coast of Brazil, these lithic sculptures have never been found to the north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Thus, this is a typically southern sambaqui cultural trace.” ref
“Such technical refinement and aesthetic taste are also evident in bone and teeth artifact production. A variety of items have been described, including fine tools such as needles and spinning implements, small-scale sculpted effigies and a variety of spatulas and adornments. Bone, teeth, and vertebrae from sea, land, and bird species have been used to manufacture exquisite, sophisticated collars and other adornments, frequently incorporated into the burials. Wooden tools did not preserve, but the typology of lithic implements, such as a variety of axes and wedges, although not yet specifically accessed in functional terms, leaves no doubt of intense wood use as raw material. It is important to call attention to the fact that the sambaqui culture is very much related to large bodies of water, living on the fringe of bay, lagoon, and estuarine environments among coastal islands and promontories. Aquatic environments and canoeing were essential to their way of life and subsistence. Marks on large bones and the auricular structure of human skeletal remains indicate that rowing and underwater activities were practiced regularly.” ref
“Most of the knowledge on mound formation processes comes from the Santa Marta area in the southern shores, where these funerary locales are enduring occupation places, actively used along several centuries. At Jaboticabeira II (3,300 to 1,200 years ago approximately) and Cabeçuda (circa 4800 to 1500 years ago), for instance, stratigraphically controlled radiocarbon dating shows an uninterrupted activity for more than two thousand years. These sites display an impressive volume (estimated 32,000 and 53,000 m3, respectively), reflecting this continuous and intensive building-up occupation for a long period of time. Ultimately, the succession of funerary areas, continuously reenacted throughout many generations (indeed, bigger mounds are millenarian), contributes to the incremental architecture and massive proportions of these sambaquis. This social phenomenon demonstrates a deep-rooted and enduring worldview based on the cult of the ancestors, where ritualized funerary ceremonies play a very important role. The impressive amounts of food consumption on such occasions, as well as the progressive monumentality achieved through continuous reenactment of feasting parties, indicate that funerary ceremonies were important occasions, socially meaningful events incorporating and integrating local people as well as from surrounding communities.” ref
“As already stated, exceptional, rare burials with distinctive and peculiar accompaniments such as lithic finely carved effigies and burial decor, seem to be related to some kind of religious leadership, given the association with votive effigies and some other occasional signs of prestige. In rare documented cases, these finely appareled burials are located at the base of the mounds, suggesting that a few socially influential personas might be the founding reference for brand new funerary areas—that is, the very starting up of new sambaquis, or new funerary locales at higher ground, accreting volume to the mounds. The presence of iron oxide (ochre) in mortuary contexts is recurrent (although not imperative) in sambaqui burial descriptions, usually dyeing, more or less intensely, bone, shell, and lithics associated with mortuary contexts. It is unclear if it was sprinkled over the body during burial inception, or eventually placed directly over the defleshed bones. On several sambaquis, a large amount of ochre, rendering the soil red, appears in some funerary features. In a dramatically suggestive way, Rohr describes some burials as drenched “in blood-red mud”. It does not seem to be related to any specific social category, though; its occurrence contemplates indistinctly both sexes and aged burials alike.” ref
“Shell and bone adornments are common accompaniments in sambaqui burials. Collars made of modified shark and monkey teeth, shell, and carp beads are not rare, although these items are not featured in most of the burials. As said, zoomorphic sculptures appear as rare and peculiar funerary accompaniments, and large bone pieces, such as whale ribs and big tortoise casks, have been described as funerary accompaniments in several sites, among others). Occasionally, sophisticated burial paraphernalia have been found, such as whale ribs arranged as a “coffin”, encircled by large amounts of ochre and hearths. Painted terracotta coverings and carved bone vessels have also been described. There are several records of child burials with rich accompaniments, such as ochre, collars, special rare shells, and large animal bones. Upon and surrounding these funerary structures, thin deposits of charcoal, burnt shellfish, and fishbone form small heaps, interpreted as residues of feasting on the deceased, carefully disposed over and around the burials. Evidence of burial revisiting has also been reported, as well as manipulation of former burials, with bone parts of older ancestors incorporated into new burials.” ref
“The initial evolution of the sambaqui occupation in the southern shores of Santa Catarina seems to follow what has been described as a “ideal free distribution” pattern, that is, “the movement of individuals and families from places where conditions were worse to places where they were better, in a way that equalizes fitness”. It has developed among early focal and well-located communities evenly distributed around former bay/lagoon borders and nearby coastal islands, exploring its rich resources in cooperative ways, mainly as organized fishing and sea hunting parties. Cooperation in these tasks must have been of adaptive significance, enhancing productivity and sharing of staple marine and also dryland resources.” ref
“The connection between these communities, possibly organized in sibs (or tribelets), seems to derive from common ancestors—real and/or mythical (totemic) ones. The archaeological perception of it is given by the regular and systematic construction, across several centuries, of funerary spaces at the same, permanent places, where all deceased group members are ritually disposed. Flexible marriage rules probably provide mobility and integration among social compounds, stimulating fitness and social isonomy, while funerary rituals (and probably others) tighten their social bonds. Indeed, the impressive amount of food (mostly fish and shellfish) incorporated into funerary features strongly indicates that the scale of these events is well beyond the local level, enhancing the perception of a territorially wide ideological and cultural background, certainly also linguistic.” ref
“Gradually, such a pattern increases economic (and demographic) intensification at specific patches of the landscape, including the management of animal and vegetal species. Intensification and management of resources in the lagoon and surrounding areas suggest the taking advantage of cooperation, maintaining a large regional network—that is, above the community level—of social integration. This tendency is favored by linguistic, parental, and ideological connections between these communities which, after all, have never been isolated. Their connectivity and interdependence persist towards later periods, expressed as they are on ceremonial occasions (funerary ritual is the most visible archaeologically), where common ancestors connected to an eschatology related to natural entities (as indicated by the votive effigies) seem to be of paramount, foundational importance.” ref
“It is suggested that for California hunter-gathering societies, this pattern promotes some degree of territorial compartment, always maintaining “mutually beneficial relations in trade, marriage, and ceremony”. Spatial proximity allows for high levels of interaction between community members; daily interaction reinforces social relationships and a common worldview. Shared practices and communal landscapes lead to what has been called “practices of affiliation”, conducting to the emergence, and maintenance, of community identity on a local/regional scope. Eventually, sustained demographic growth has favored the establishment of moieties among these communities, as a way to minimize conflict and organize relationships inside and among them. These moieties would be expressed archaeologically as twin-mounds, which became common sometime after four thousand years ago.” ref
“Most burial patterns, which exhibit some variability through time, are always ritualized and widespread throughout mounds on a regional scope. Nevertheless, some differentiated ones, more appareled than most, suggest that eventual “principals” might have a role in starting new lineages, as represented by new funerary areas, or even new mounds. Characteristic animal and geometric lithic zoomorphic sculpted representations (described above), found in connection with such atypical burials, suggest that social coordination might have been structured by religious leaders who, by means of collective rituals, promoted pacific articulation, economic cooperation, and political balance among communities. The small number of these sculptures ever found into these mounds seems to indicate that they result from very rigid stylistic rules on making and using them, across several generations, with symbolic meanings encompassing a large, all-inclusive social outreach.” ref
“Again, ritual occasions (of which, funerary rites surely are among principals) have a paramount and decisive function in accomplishing social and economic balance at a regional level, acting as a “glue” into a rather isonomic, heterarchical system. Such religious leadership, however, does not seem to have a consistent, or permanent, political presence at a regional, pan-lagoonal scale. As already pointed out, sambaqui clusters are evenly distributed around the bay/lagoon system of Santa Marta. They are not only concomitant, but also exhibit a high degree of cultural homogeneity. These characteristics indicate a social system in which the lagoon territory and its surroundings are shared by several communities, a regionally articulated pattern integrated within the scope of a greater pan-lagoonal organizational structure.” ref
“Heterarchy is expressed, particularly, by the even territorial distribution of the mounds and assorted sites, as well as their chronological, formal, volumetric, and stylistic similarity (both in an architectural as well as a technological sense). Especially among larger mounds, despite some variability in stratigraphic composition and internal distribution, structural characteristics of the formative processes are very similar. Mounds are equivalent; there is no evidence of central places, principal mounds, or the like. The lake is the center of the system, indicating that it is regularly used by the communities around it, a common “territory” that is shared by them all, in a network of social and economic relationships. As one researcher once said, they are “the people of the lake.” ref
“A heterarchy is a system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non-hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways. Definitions of the term vary among the disciplines: in social and information sciences, heterarchies are networks of elements in which each element shares the same “horizontal” position of power and authority, each playing a theoretically equal role. In biological taxonomy, however, the requisite features of heterarchy involve, for example, a species sharing, with a species in a different family, a common ancestor which it does not share with members of its own family. This is theoretically possible under principles of “horizontal gene transfer“. A heterarchy may be orthogonal to a hierarchy, subsumed to a hierarchy, or it may contain hierarchies; the two kinds of structure are not mutually exclusive. In fact, each level in a hierarchical system is composed of a potentially heterarchical group which contains its constituent elements.” ref
“Into the mounds, some variability among burials occurs, but, in general, nothing seems to indicate noticeable structured social differentiation. For instance, distribution of bone and lithic artifacts among burials, even in the same mound or funerary area, is much diversified, with no clear distributive pattern. That is, although some differentiation among burials is evident (in terms of presence/absence and quantity of items), it does not appear to be particularly related to gender, age, or even some clear-cut, or well-defined, kind of social ranking. Differentiated and exuberant treatment for children, as well as other rare outstanding and “out of the curve” cases, does not seem to mean the emergence of any formal, institutionalized, or structured socio-political hierarchy. More likely, these distinctions are related to specific circumstances and/or beliefs as regards death—newborn or child, aged, in the sea or at the forest, by disease or while hunting, and so on. South American ethnographic analogies are abundant but not immediately applicable to the sambaqui context. In a careful examination, a small degree of sexual distinction as regards funerary accompaniments in the Saquarema Lake district, northern coast of Rio de Janeiro. They suggest the absence of well-defined gender roles among moundbuilders in that area, thus reinforcing the perception of a rather plastic society.” ref
“Occasional and exceptional, outstanding burials are found scattered in different mounds all over the southern and southeastern shores. In some situations, as already mentioned, it might well be related to prestigious personalities or lineage leaders, or religious paramount individuals related to deep-rooted beliefs regarding ancestors and mythic heroes. The occurrence of rare animal sculptures (zooliths, described above) within a number of these special burials reinforces this perspective. Perhaps the relationship with the ancestors was intermediated by important shamanic authorities, who would usufruct of considerable social distinction, reflected in these exquisite burials. Definitely, this is not yet clear enough, and should be an object of future research. Both intra-site as well as regional distributions of these richly appareled burials, and their apparently foundational inception among several other burials, seem to indicate that they symptom local prestige, expressed in a widespread cultural pattern. They do not seem to represent the emergence of a higher-ranking political instance, related to a more stable political establishment at a regional level.” ref
“From a socio-economic point of view, some useful contemporary ethnographic analogies might help to understand the sambaquis society and their socio-economic characteristics. Today, among vanishing traditional fishing communities from the southern shores, net fishing in canoes or small boats is always performed by parties, whether in the lagoon or nearshore open sea. This social articulation around subsistence production is based on kinship as well as acquaintanceship (neighborhood relations). Besides, traditional communities around the lagoon are socially equivalent; they not only share mutual recognition but also intense social relations involving kinship, work parties, and festivities (patron saints, weddings, etc.). These relations imply great regional mobility, with people frequently moving from one locality to another. In an analogous way, the sambaqui settlement distribution indicates the lagoon as a privileged area for social interaction and an economic emphasis among concomitant and culturally homogeneous moundbuilding communities.” ref
“The understanding of the lagoon as the social-economic sphere that structured sambaqui subsistence and life leads to the perception of it as a highly socialized landscape. It is characterized by intense production, circulation, and interaction, a communal space sharing different management areas for fishing, shell fishing, hunting, and other activities. This organization is reflected in the circular, that is, “face-to-face” configuration of the settlements around a “territory” that, after all, is centered and focused on water, a water land.” ref
“As far as we can see at this point, sambaqui clusters seem to constitute heterarchical social nuclear entities of a larger territorial organization with loose political ties, but configuring a network of intense social and economic connections. Mounds appear as landmarks associated with specific social groups (perhaps extensive family clans, or lineages), with enough demographic and political expressiveness, or identity, justifying the incremental construction of the same sambaquis along many generations. The construction of twin-mounds is reminiscent of the dual social organization of the historically known Je speaking societies from central and southern Brazil, but the existence of dual (clan) organization among moundbuilders is still to be adequately demonstrated.” ref
“The model hereby delineated—still too broad and filled with gaps, but consistently exploring available data—speaks of sedentary moundbuilding communities of fishers-hunters-gatherers and small-scale cultivators, socially articulated on a regional level and very well-adapted to the coastal environment. In such a water land, they have created a social landscape on their own. Their social organization patterns go far beyond the idea of small nomadic family bands that have guided archaeological interpretations about sambaquis in Brazil until recently. The persistence of ideological/religious traditions embodied in the mortuary program over several millennia is a hallmark of the sambaqui era. The scanty occurrence of the lithic zoomorphic sculptures and its association with specific burials evoke the emergence of early religious leadership; it strongly suggests that the cult of the ancestors has been the “glue” of the sambaqui society’s cohesiveness.” ref
“Funerary events would promote social integration of the communities across the lagoon by means of communal feasting, and recursive visiting afterwards. The ritualized funerary character of these mounds makes them sacred ground, where the memory of the ancestors is ever-present in social life, and common to all its members. These bonds are recurrently reinforced by intentional, standardized ways of moundbuilding at the same (persistent) places for many generations. Indeed, evidence shows that moundbuilding and recurrent visiting involve manipulation of former burials, reenacting the presence of the ancestors and the bonds they represent to the living. Therefore, there are essential structural (in Levi-Strauss’ sense) meanings linking the sambaqui society, their ancestors, and their (mostly aquatic) territory.” ref
“From that perspective, the highly visible shellmounds placed all around the lagoon create a rather culturally domesticated landscape, still visible to this day. The ever-present ancestors and their cosmological/ecological connections take part on the every-day life of the sambaqui builders’ society. These meanings grow stronger every time ritual funerary moundbuilding takes place, reenacting communal conceptions of world and life and perpetuating specific territorial rights upon these monumental landmarks easily and extensively recognizabl. Such events offered opportunities for social negotiation and balance, reinforcing the integration among communities and their ideological/cultural homogeneity. Monumental building, and rituals that create them by means of connection to the ancestors, assign ancestral (mythic) belonging in the landscape, and the entities that take part on it. In addition, as sambaqui distribution evokes a sharing and cooperative manner in the exploitation and management of the lagoon and its surroundings, it becomes a central reference for the perception of social heterarchy in their organization on a regional level.” ref
“In conclusion, regional chronology and settlement organization indicate permanent and long-lasting moundbuilding occupation in this ever-changing bay/lagoon environment for at least 6,000 years (about 7,500 to 1,500 years ago). The sambaquis emerge as monumental representations of a long, stable, and well-adapted coastal occupation, evincing as well the strong symbolic relationships established between the sambaqui people and their mostly aquatic habitat. Such a landscape has been incorporated into their culture as much as their culture has remained incorporated into the landscape until today.” ref
“We argue that it is a case for a heterarchical model of social organization, with several politically equivalent communities integrated into a pan-lacunar social network, which has indeed endured for most of the Holocene. Such a pattern strongly highlights this successful long-lasting tradition connected to a lagoon-adapted life style—which would only change significantly after the arrival of the Je speaking, pottery-making, and plant-cultivating societies, from around 1,500 years ago onwards. It is for no other reason that the sambaqui people from the southern shores have remained, for several millennia, rather introspected among themselves, with very scanty evidence of contacts with other, foreign cultures—the very “sovereigns of the coast.” ref
Genomic history of coastal societies from eastern South America
“Abstract: Sambaqui (shellmound) societies are among the most intriguing archaeological phenomena in pre-colonial South America, extending from approximately 8,000 to 1,000 years ago across 3,000 km on the Atlantic coast. However, little is known about their connection to early Holocene hunter-gatherers, how this may have contributed to different historical pathways and the processes through which late Holocene ceramists came to rule the coast shortly before European contact. To contribute to our understanding of the population history of indigenous societies on the eastern coast of South America, we produced genome-wide data from 34 ancient individuals as early as 10,000 years ago from four different regions in Brazil. Early Holocene hunter-gatherers were found to lack shared genetic drift among themselves and with later populations from eastern South America, suggesting that they derived from a common radiation and did not contribute substantially to later coastal groups. Our analyses show genetic heterogeneity among contemporaneous Sambaqui groups from the southeastern and southern Brazilian coast, contrary to the similarity expressed in the archaeological record. The complex history of intercultural contact between inland horticulturists and coastal populations becomes genetically evident during the final horizon of Sambaqui societies, from around 2,200 years ago, corroborating evidence of cultural change.” ref
“The settlement of the Atlantic coast by maritime societies is a central topic in South American archaeology. Across ~3,000 km of the coast of Brazil, semi-sedentary populations, with seemingly large demography, produced thousands of shellmounds and shell middens, locally known as sambaquis (heaps of shell, in the Tupi language), for over 7,000 years. Subsistence was based on a mixed economy, combining aquatic resources and plants, complemented by hunting of terrestrial mammals and horticulture. Sambaquis are the product of planned and long-term deposition of shells, fish remains, plants, artefacts, combustion debris and local sediments, and they were used as territorial markers, dwellings, cemeteries and/or ceremonial sites. On the southern Brazilian coast, funerary shellmounds can reach monumental heights (of up to 30 metres) and often contain hundreds of human burials, suggesting a high demographic density unparalleled in the South American lowlands. In a singular enclave south of São Paulo State, further inland from the coast (Vale do Ribeira de Iguape), sambaqui sites are within the Atlantic Forest.” ref
“Here there is evidence of early Holocene settlement in the riverine sambaqui of Capelinha, as revealed by a male individual directly dated to ~10,400 years ago. This individual was named ‘Luzio’, as a reference to ‘Luzia’, a final Pleistocene female skeleton found in the Lagoa Santa region in east-central Brazil. Both individuals are at the centre of long-lasting debates for exhibiting the so-called paleoamerican cranial morphology that differs from that of present-day indigenous peoples. The earliest evidence of human settlement on the Atlantic coast starts between ~8,700 and 7,000 years ago with an intensification of sambaqui construction between 5,500 years ago and 2,200 years ago. The relationship between riverine and coastal sambaquis is still a matter of debate, although bioarchaeological studies point towards a biological link, and some researchers suggest a late Pleistocene/early Holocene cultural connection that faded through time.” ref
“The disappearance of Sambaqui societies started 2,000 years ago, when funerary fishmounds replaced shellmounds in the territory where they previously thrived. This abrupt change in the archaeological record is concomitant with environmental and ecological changes related to coastal regression and climatic events that had an irreversible impact on the availability of key resources. Between 1,200 and 900 years ago, thin-walled non-decorated pottery (Taquara-Itararé tradition) appeared for the first time on the southern Brazilian coast. The makers of Taquara-Itararé ceramics were horticulturists that arrived in the southern Brazilian highlands about 3,000 years ago, lived in pit houses and cremated their dead in funerary mounds. They are considered to be the ancestors of present-day Jê-speaking indigenous peoples of southern Brazil (Kaingang, Xonkleng, Laklãnõ and the extinct Kimdá and Ingáin), a language family of the Macro-Jê stock.” ref
“The dispersal of Taquara-Itarare ceramics on the southern coast was first interpreted as resulting from the demographic expansion of inland horticulturists. However, evidence points to a complex scenario of social interaction between inland and coastal populations, with changes in funerary practices and post-marital residence patterns after the introduction of ceramics, biological continuity and maintenance of mobility patterns (with local variations), persistence in the exploitation of aquatic resources, and development of sophisticated fishing technologies. Ceramics appear in the southeast coast about 2,000 years ago but are associated with the Una tradition, also probably produced by speakers of the Macro-Jê language stock.” ref
“Shortly after the appearance of southern proto-Jê ceramics, another major transformation occurred on the Atlantic coast. This is documented by the arrival of speakers of the Tupi-Guarani language family (of the Tupi stock), a forest-farming culture who migrated from southern Amazonia more than 2,500 years ago in one of the largest expansion events in the indigenous history of South America. Although still a matter of debate, the Tupi-Guarani would have dispersed southwards from southwestern Amazonia (homeland of the Tupi stock) across the core of South America, reaching the La Plata basin, and almost simultaneously from southeastern Amazonia across the Atlantic coast of Brazil.” ref
“While on the southern coast of Brazil a late Tupi-Guarani chronology is well defined, on the southeast coast a much earlier arrival (~3,000 years ago) has been proposed on the basis of the archaeological record of the Araruama region (Rio de Janeiro State). European colonists encountered thousands of Tupi-Guarani peoples both on the Atlantic coast and along major rivers and their tributaries in southern Brazil and northeastern Argentina (Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay river basins). The Tupi-Guarani produced painted ceramics (red and black on white painting), applied a diversity of plastic decorations and made pots with complex and composite contours that are archaeologically defined as Tupiguarani, Tupinambá and Guarani, depending on the geographical location.” ref
“Ancient DNA data from Brazil are still very sparse, with only 19 published individuals with analysable genomic coverage. Early Holocene individuals from Lapa do Santo in the Lagoa Santa region, dated between ~9,800 and 9,200 years ago, carried a distinct affinity to the oldest North American genome, which is associated with the Clovis cultural complex (Anzick-1, ~12,800 years ago). A genetic signal of 3–5% Australasian ancestry—known as the Population Y signal—was found in present-day indigenous individuals from southwestern Amazonia, Central Brazil and the northwestern South American coast and in one early Holocene individual from Lapa do Sumidouro (Sumidouro 5, dated to c. 10,400 years ago). However, this signal was not detected in the early Holocene burials from Lapa do Santo, located only four kilometres from Lapa do Sumidouro63. The complete absence of ancient DNA data for Amazonia and Northeast Brazil and the low-coverage data from the south/southeast Brazilian coast have prevented an assessment of whether the Population Y signal survived in those regions through time.” ref
Anzick-1
“Anzick-1 was a young (1–2 years old) Paleoindian child whose remains were found in south central Montana, United States, in 1968. He has been dated to 12,990–12,840 years ago. The child was found with more than 115 tools made of stone and antlers and dusted with red ocher, suggesting a deliberate burial. Anzick-1 is the only human whose remains are unambiguously associated with the Clovis culture, and is the first ancient Native American genome to be fully sequenced. Paleogenomic analysis of the remains revealed Siberian ancestry and a close genetic relationship to modern Native Americans, primarily those of Central and South America, rather than to contemporary Indigenous North Americans. These findings support the hypothesis that modern Native Americans are descended from Asian populations who crossed Beringia between 23,000 and 14,000 years ago.” ref
These analyses revealed that the Anzick-1 individual was closely related to Native Americans in Central and South America, instead of being closely related to the people of the Canadian Arctic, as had previously been thought likely. (The people of the Arctic are distinct from Native Americans to the south, including in lower North America and Central and South America.) The infant was also related to persons from Siberia and Central Asia, believed to be the ancestral population of indigenous peoples in the Americas. This finding supports the theory that the peopling of the Americas occurred from Asia across the Bering Strait. The Y-chromosome of Anzick-1 was sequenced, and researchers determined that his Y-chromosome haplogroup is Q-L54*(xM3), one of the major founding lineages of the Americas.” ref
“Morten Rasmussen and Sarah L. Anzick et al. sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of Anzick-1 and determined that the infant represents an ancient migration to North America from Siberia. They found that Anzick-1’s mtDNA belongs to the haplogroup D4h3a, a “founder” haplogroup that might represent people taking an early coastal migration route into the Americas. The D haplogroup is also found in modern Native American populations, which provides a link between Anzick-1 and modern Native Americans. Although it is rare in most of today’s Native Americans in the US and Canada, D4h3a genes are more common in native people of South America. This suggests a greater genetic complexity among Native Americans than previously thought, including an early divergence in the genetic lineage some 13,000 years ago. One theory suggested that after crossing into North America from Siberia, a group of the first Americans, with the lineage D4h3a, moved south along the Pacific coast and finally, through thousands of years, into Central and South America. Another line may have moved inland, east of the Rocky Mountains, ultimately populating most of what is now the United States and Canada.” ref
“Regarding Sambaqui societies, three previously published middle Holocene individuals from Laranjal and Moraes (both riverine shellmounds from the southeast coast of Brazil) and five individuals from the late Holocene site of Jabuticabeira II (one of the largest coastal shellmounds in southern Brazil) showed some level of genetic continuity with present-day indigenous populations. The analysed Jabuticabeira II individuals carried a significant affinity to present-day Kaingang (Jê speaking) from the southern Brazilian highlands. Although based on low-coverage genome-wide data, this supports a shared ancestry between the Sambaqui societies and the speakers of proto-Jê.” ref
“The long-term permanence, cultural similarity and rapid disappearance of Sambaqui societies, plus their archaeological and seemingly genetic disconnection from early Holocene hunter-gatherers, raise numerous questions about their origins and demographic history. First, were Sambaqui individuals genetically different from hunter-gatherers from the hinterland (for example, east-central and northeastern Brazil)? Second, were the riverine Sambaqui groups genetically related to the ones on coastal sites? Third, was there genetic homogeneity across Sambaqui groups from the south and southeast coast of Brazil? Fourth, was the demise of sambaqui construction after 2,000 years ago and the appearance of ceramics associated with an intensification of contacts with inland populations? Finally, are there genetic connections between Sambaqui groups and other archaeological and present-day indigenous populations from Amazonia and central and northeastern Brazil?” ref
“The oldest human presence in southeastern Brazil is directly attested by the ‘Luzio’ individual, a skeleton buried in the riverine shellmound of Capelinha genetically analysed here (Capelinha_10,400 years ago). The morphological similarity of this male individual to paleoamerican features observed in early Holocene groups from the Lagoa Santa region, and the chronological gap of almost 3,000 years with other burials from the same site, call into question his association with riverine Sambaqui societies. We investigated the genetic affinities of Capelinha_10,400 years ago to other ancient Brazilian individuals using f4 statistics of the form f4(Mbuti, Capelinha_10,400 years ago; ancient Brazilians—left, ancient Brazilians—right.” ref
“None of the tested ancient individuals show a higher allele sharing with Capelinha_10400 years ago, even when the temporally close and phenotypically similar Lagoa Santa groups are considered. The same pattern is observed when Capelinha_10,400 years ago is compared with an early Holocene hunter-gatherer from Loca do Suin, dated to ~9,100 years ago and located 200 km southwest of the Lagoa Santa region (Loca do Suin_9100 years ago). Conversely, the Lapa do Santo_9600 years ago and Sumidouro_10,100 years ago groups share a higher genetic affinity with each other than with any other ancient Brazilian group. These results indicate that Capelinha_10,400 years ago does not represent an early occupation of the southeast coast by inland groups carrying Lagoa Santa–related ancestry and suggest that his population did not leave a substantial genetic contribution in the later Brazilian individuals analysed here.” ref
“We then used qpWave to estimate the minimum number of streams of ancestry necessary to explain the genetic variation observed among early Holocene hunter-gatherers across South America. Our results show that Capelinha_10,400 years ago and Loca do Suin_9,100 years ago cannot be distinguished from other early Holocene populations as part of a distinct wave of ancestry (P > 0.01). To the limit of our resolution, the lack of close affinity among early Holocene individuals from different South American sites suggests that they derived from a rapid radiation event. A previous study also revealed that the oldest South American genomes, Los Rieles_11,900 years ago from Chile and Lapa do Santo_9,600 years ago from Brazil, carried a higher affinity to the Clovis-associated Anzick-1 individual from North America than Lauricocha_8,600 years ago from Peru did. With f4 statistics, we could show that while Capelinha_10,400 years ago and Sumidouro_10,100 years ago do not have a lower affinity to Anzick-1 than Los Rieles_11,900 years ago and Lapa do Santo_9,600 years ago do, they also do not show a higher affinity to Anzick-1 than Lauricocha_8,600 years ago does.” ref
“To measure the relative proportion of the Anzick-1-related ancestry in ancient South American groups, we performed an f4-ratio test70 (Methods), using Los Rieles_11,900 years ago and Lauricocha_8,600 years ago as the reference individuals with the maximum and minimum amount of such ancestry in early Holocene South America, respectively. Our results corroborate that Lapa do Santo_9,600 years ago carry a significantly higher amount of Anzick-1-related ancestry than Lauricocha_8600BP (Z = 3.31), while the other tested groups show different proportions without reaching significance. This trend suggests a genetic gradient of Anzick-1-related contribution in early South American hunter-gatherers rather than a scenario of two isolated migration waves with and without Anzick-1-related ancestry.” ref
Shellmound societies from the middle to the late Holocene
“To investigate the affinities between riverine and coastal Sambaqui groups, we analysed our newly produced data alongside previously published individuals from the riverine sambaquis Laranjal (n = 2, ~6,700 years ago) and Moraes (n = 1, ~5,800 years ago). The southeast coast shellmounds are represented by the sambaqui do Limão (n = 6, ~2,700–500 years ago), located in the State of Espírito Santo. The south coast Sambaqui are represented by individuals from three shellmounds—Jabuticabeira II (n = 17, ~2,500–1,300 years ago), Cabeçuda (n = 2, ~3,200 years ago) and Cubatão I (n = 2, ~2,700–2,600 years ago)—and one individual from the fishmound Galheta IV (~1,200 years ago), representing the final horizon of Sambaqui societies.” ref
“The researchers analyses confirm the strong local genetic affinity between the riverine Sambaqui individuals compared with all other ancient Brazilian groups in our dataset (f4(Mbuti, Laranjal_6,700 years ago; ancient Brazilian group, Moraes_5,800 years ago) > 0). Individuals from the riverine sites also show genetic similarities to individuals from the southern coastal sambaquis of Cubatão I (CubatãoI_2,700 years ago), Cabeçuda (Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago) and Jabuticabeira II (JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago), indicating some level of genetic continuity through time between riverine shellmound builders and Sambaqui societies from the southern coast. Interestingly, this genetic similarity is not observed between the riverine shellmounds and the sambaqui do Limão, located further north.” ref
“To improve our knowledge on the genetic interactions among Sambaqui groups, we co-analyzed all individuals from the five coastal sites, which are located up to 1,500 km apart along the southeast and south coasts. The archaeological site with the largest number of analyzed genome-wide data is Jabuticabeira II. The 17 individuals from this site cluster in three genetically distinct groups, as revealed through f3 and f4 tests a main cluster, composed of 14 individuals dated to ~2,500–2,300 years ago (JabuticabeiraII_~2400 years ago —we identify genetic groups by rounding the mean calibrated age for all dated individuals), of which 12 are not first degree related and are grouped together for analysis; (2) two first-degree-related individuals dated to ~2,200–2,100 years ago (JabuticabeiraII_111/112_~2200 years ago, only one individual used for analysis); and (3) the most recent individual, dated to ~1,300 years ago (JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago).” ref
“This skeleton was found in the topmost shell deposit and exhibited a different funerary pattern from the older burials, including an extended rather than a flexed position and the absence of grave goods. In f4 statistics, we found a higher genetic affinity between the three groups from Jabuticabeira II compared with all other ancient Brazilian groups. The temporally intermediate individual appears to be genetically intermediate to the preceding and succeeding individuals, as indicated by f4(Mbuti, JabuticabeiraII_111/112_~2,200 years ago; JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago, JabuticabeiraII_1,300 years ago) ~ 0 (Z = 0.47). Intersite comparisons showed higher allele sharing between the JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group, JabuticabeiraII_111/112_~2,200 years ago, Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago and GalhetaIV_1,200 years ago, to the exclusion of other ancient Brazilian groups. The CubatãoI_~2,700 years ago group shows genetic connections to the other southern shellmound groups such as JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago and Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago. The affinities between these four shellmound and fishmound individuals thus reveal the presence of a late Holocene genetic cluster in the southern coast of Brazil.” ref
“On the southeastern coast, the genetic similarities ascertained through f3 outgroup and f4 statistics revealed three distinct groups at the sambaqui do Limão: (1) the oldest individual (Limão_2,700 years ago), (2) a cluster of four temporally intermediate individuals (Limão_~1,900 years ago) and (3) the most recent individual (Limão_500 years ago). The Limão_~1,900 years ago group shows the highest genetic affinities to Limão_2,700 years ago and to a possibly early to middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from the northeastern site of Pedra do Alexandre. This result demonstrates genetic connections between Sambaqui individuals from the southeast coast and hunter-gatherer groups from northeastern Brazil. When combined with the results obtained from the south coast sambaquis, our analyses indicate that shellmound societies from the south and southeast (that is, Santa Catarina and Espírito Santo states, respectively) do not constitute a genetically homogenous population, as previously suggested by the analyses of cranial and dental morphological variation.” ref
“Sambaquis (the Brazilian term for shell mounds, derived from the Tupi language) are widely distributed along the shoreline of Brazil and were noted in European accounts as early as the sixteenth century. They typically occur in highly productive bay and lagoon ecotones where the mingling of salt and fresh waters supports mangrove vegetation and abundant shellfish, fish, and aquatic birds. More than one thousand sambaqui locations are recorded in Brazil’s national register of archaeological sites, but represent a fraction of the original number because colonial through modern settlements coincide with these favorable environments. Although sambaquis are of variable scale overall, massive shell mounds are characteristic of Brazil’s southern coast.” ref
“The term “sambaqui” is applied to cultural deposits of varying size and stratigraphy in which shell is a major constituent, undoubtedly encompassing accumulations with a range of functions and origins. Proportions of soil, sand, shell, and the kinds of cultural inclusions and features in sambaquis also are variable. Small sambaquis often consist of shell layers over sandy substrates or sequences of shell and sand layers, with or without signs of burning or significant numbers of artifacts. Larger shell mounds typically have horizontally and vertically complex stratigraphy, including alternating sequences of shell deposits, narrower and darker layers of charcoal and burned bone that mark occupation surfaces, and clusters of burials, hearths, and postholes descending from these surfaces.” ref
The final horizons of shellmound societies
“The significance of Taquara-Itararé ceramics (associated with proto-Jê speakers) at coastal sites after the final horizon of sambaqui construction has been at the centre of recent academic debates. According to some scholars, an intensification in contacts with proto-Jê-speaking groups after ~2,000 years ago, even before the appearance of ceramics at the coast, would have led to the demise of Sambaqui societies. In this work, the post-2,000 years ago horizon is represented by JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago, buried at the top of the shell deposit, and by an individual from Galheta IV, a fishmound with Taquara-Itararé pottery (GalhetaIV_1200 years ago). To further investigate the genetic connections between individuals in sambaquis and fishmounds, proto-Jê-speaking groups, and present-day indigenous peoples, we merged our ancient genomic data with two published present-day genomic datasets: (1) the Illumina dataset, combined with 1240k SNP capture data generated in this study from an early twentieth-century southeastern Kaingang individual from the state of São Paulo (Kaingang burial_100 years ago), showing distinctive affinity with present-day southern Kaingang; and (2) the Human Origins dataset.” ref
“Using the Illumina dataset, we observed patterns of shared genetic drift between some Sambaqui groups and present-day Kaingang. To formally test this affinity, we performed the following f4 tests: (1) f4(Mbuti, ancient coastal group; Kaingang, other present-day indigenous groups) and (2) f4(Mbuti, Kaingang; ancient coastal group A, ancient coastal group B). The results from the first test reveal an excess of genetic similarity between present-day Kaingang and JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago. The second test expands this finding by showing that JabuticaberiaII_111/112_~2,200 years ago and even more so JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago are genetically closer to present-day and twentieth-century Kaingang, when compared with not only the JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group but also the Taquara-Itararé-pottery-associated GalhetaIV_1,200 years ago individual. This genetic link between Kaingang and the younger Jabuticabeira II individuals corroborates the hypothesis of an intensification of contacts between proto-Jê-speaking groups and Sambaqui societies of the southern coast, at least from ~2,200 years ago. The specific Jê-related ancestry contributing to southern Sambaqui groups is missing in our ancient and present-day genetic dataset. More genomic data from other Jê-speaking groups are needed to accurately assign a specific genetic contribution.” ref
“The Limão_~1,900 years ago individuals also show genetic affinity to the present-day Jê-speaking groups from central Brazil (Xavánte) when compared with other linguistic families, such as Karib (Arara and Aparai) or Tupi (Mondé, Arikém and Tupi-Guarani). Interestingly, we observed a genetic link between the latest burial at the site, Limão_500 years ago, and the Zoró (a population related to the Tupi-Mondé language) in comparison to other present-day Tupi-speaking peoples (that is, Nandeva, Gavião, Karitiana and Parakanã). This specific affinity might represent the first direct genetic evidence for the arrival on the southeast coast of Tupi-Guarani speakers, who are thought to have originated in southeast Amazonia While we cannot determine the exact arrival time of this ancestry, its absence in the older groups from sambaqui do Limão (Limão_2,700 years ago and Limão_~1,900 years ago) indicates that it occurred after the initial settlement of the site by Sambaqui groups.” ref
Links with ceramists from Amazonia and northeastern Brazil
“To investigate the chronological depth of the shared ancestry between Sambaqui and Jê-, Tupi- and Karib-speaking groups, we sequenced individuals from late Holocene archaeological sites in the Cerrado of northeastern Brazil and the lower Amazon Forest. The former is associated with the Una tradition (Vau_Una_600 years ago), a ceramic type made by horticulturists that occupied a vast territory in central and northeastern Brazil, and the latter is associated with the Koriabo tradition (Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago), a late pre-colonial/early colonial archaeological culture (~1,200–1,600 CE) that may represent the southernmost Karib expansion in South America.” ref
“The genetic patterns obtained by performing f4 tests on Vau_Una_600 years ago years ago and present-day Native American populations from the Human Origins dataset show strong evidence of genetic similarities between the Una-context individual and Xavánte, when compared with Tupi (Tupi Mondé, Arikén and Tupi-Guarani) and Karib populations (Arara and Apalai). This provides direct evidence for the association of Jê-speaking populations with pottery makers of the Una tradition. The results of the f4 test performed on Brazilian indigenous populations included in the Illumina dataset show that Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago shares genetic affinities with Arara, a Karib-speaking group from the lower Amazon, and with the Tupi-speaking Surui Paiter. In comparison to all Sambaqui individuals analysed here, both Vau_Una_600 years ago and Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago present a genetic attraction to the latest burial from the sambaqui do Limão (Limão_500 years ago), indicating some level of shared genetic drift in the most recent past.” ref
The Population Y signal
“We investigated the presence of the Population Y signal in the newly produced data with f4 statistics of the form f4(Mbuti, Papuan/Onge/Australian; present-day Mexicans, ancient Brazilians). The only ancient Brazilian group showing significant affinity to Onge, compared with present-day Mexicans, is the JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group. The signal is mainly driven by one individual (JBT009—burial 38), but it remains for the entire group even after the exclusion of JBT009. Similarly, there is significant genetic attraction between Onge and one individual from the Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago group (CBE004—burial 15), while all other tests do not reach values close to significance (Supplementary Data 7). However, no evidence of the Population Y signal is found in the recent Amazonian individual Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago, despite the fact that this ancestry was first described in present-day Amazonian populations; or in Capelinha_10400BP, despite its association with the paleoamerican cranial morphology.” ref
“Researchers further tested the presence of differential affinity of ancient Brazilian individuals to present-day Papuans, Onge and Australians, as well as the 40,000-year-old Tianyuan genome-wide data from China using f4 statistics of the form f4(Mbuti, Papuan/Onge/Australian/Tianyuan; Ancient Brazilian A, Ancient Brazilian B). Only the JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group reaches significant attraction to both Onge and Papuans, and only in comparison to LapaDoSanto_9,600 years ago. This suggests either that the Population Y signal is equally widespread in most tested ancient individuals from Brazil or that previously reported attractions to non-American ancestries are exacerbated by the use of present-day Mexican populations in comparison to ancient groups.” ref
Uniparental markers, genetic diversity and runs of homozygosity
“All males in our dataset belong to Y-chromosome haplogroup Q1b, which has the highest frequency in present-day South Americans. To the limit of the available SNP coverage, the male individuals from Jabuticabeira II carry either the common haplogroup Q1b1a1a-M3 or the currently rare haplogroup Q1a2a1b-CTS1780, confirming its higher frequency in ancient South Americans.” ref
“Haplogroup Q is thought to have originated in Central Asia or North Asia during of shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,000 to 19,000 years ago). Q descends from haplogroup P, which is also the ancestor of haplogroups R1a and R1b. Haplogroup Q quickly split into two main branches: Q1a and Q1b. The northern Q1a tribes expanded over Siberia as the climate warmed up after the LGM. Some Q1a crossed the still frozen Bering Strait to the American continent some time between 16,500 and 13,000 years ago. Q1b tribes stayed in Central Asia and later migrated south towards the Middle East. Q1a is also the main paternal lineage of Native Americans. The testing of the genome of 12,600 year-old boy (known as Anzick-1) from Clovis culture in the USA confirmed that haplogroup Q1a2a1 (L54) was already present on the American continent before the end of the Last Glaciation. The vast maority of modern Native Americans belong to the Q1a2a1a1 (M3) subclade. As this subclade is exclusive to the American continent and the Anzick boy was negative for the M3 mutation, it is likely that M3 appeared after Q1a2a1 reached America. Haplogroup Q-M242 is one of the two branches of P-P226 (M45), the other being R-M207. Q-M242 is believed to have arisen around the Altai Mountains area (or South Central Siberia), approximately 17,000 to 31,700 years ago.” ref, ref
“While Q1a is more Mongolian, Siberian and Native American, Q1b1 (F1213) appears to have originated in Central Asia and migrated early to South Asia and the Middle East. The highest frequency of Q1b1 in Europe is found among Ashkenazi Jews (5%) and Sephardic Jews (2%), suggesting that Q1b was present in the Levant before the Jewish disapora 2,000 years ago. In fact, Jewish Q1b all belong to the Y2200 subclade, which was formed some 2,600 years ago. Other subclades of Q1b1 are found throughout the Middle East, including, Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon (2%), and in isolated places settled by the Phoenicians in southern Europe (Crete, Sicily, south-west Iberia). This means that Q1b must have been present in the Levant at latest around 1200 BCE, a very long time before the Hunnic migrations. One hypothesis is that Q1b reached the Middle East alongside haplogroup R1a-Z93 with the Indo-Iranian migrations from Central Asia during the Late Bronze Age. The age estimate for the Middle Eastern Q1b1a (L245) branch is 4,500 years, which corresponds roughly to the beginning of the Proto-Indo-Iranian expansion to Central Asia. The other branch, Q1b1b (Y2265) is found in Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan and India, a distribution that also agrees with an Indo-Iranian dispersal.” ref
“In the indigenous people of North America, Q-M242 is found in Na-Dené speakers at an average rate of 68%. The highest frequency is 92.3% in Navajo, followed by 78.1% in Apache, 87% in SC Apache, and about 80% in North American Eskimo (Inuit, Yupik)–Aleut populations. (Q-M3 occupies 46% among Q in North America) On the other hand, a 4000-year-old Saqqaq individual belonging to Q1a-MEH2* has been found in Greenland. Surprisingly, he turned out to be genetically more closely related to Far East Siberians such as Koryaks and Chukchi people rather than Native Americans. Today, the frequency of Q runs at 53.7% (122/227: 70 Q-NWT01, 52 Q-M3) in Greenland, showing the highest in east Sermersooq at 82% and the lowest in Qeqqata at 30%.Haplogroup Q-M242 has been found in approximately 94% of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and South America.” ref
“The highest frequencies of Q-M242 in Eurasia are witnessed in Kets (central Siberia) at 93.8% (45/48) and in Selkups (north Siberia) at 66.4% (87/131). Russian ethnographers believe that their ancient places were farther south, in the area of the Altai and Sayan Mountains (Altai-Sayan region). Their populations are currently small in number, being just under 1,500 and 5,000 respectively. In linguistic anthropology, the Ket language is significant as it is currently the only surviving one in the Yeniseian language family which has been linked by some scholars to the Native American Na-Dené languages and, more controversially, the language of the Huns. Q-M346 is also found at lower rates in Sojots (7.1%, Q-M346), Khakassians (6.3%, Q-M346), Kalmyks (3.4%, Q-M25, Q-M346) and Khanty, and so on.” ref
“Haplogroup Q-M242 has been found in approximately 94% of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and South America.” ref
“The mtDNA analysis shows that all newly studied individuals belong to American-specific mtDNA haplogroups (A2, B2, C1b, C1c, C1d1 and D1) (Supplementary Data 1). An exception is individual Loca Do Suin_9100BP, who carries the extremely rare and primarily North American mtDNA haplogroup C4c. Finding this mtDNA lineage in Brazil during the early Holocene provides additional support to the possibility that haplogroup C4c entered the Americas during early peopling events. On the basis of the mtDNA diversity, we tested the presence of sub-structure among Sambaqui groups. Our results show a level of differentiation between Sambaqui individuals from the south coast and those from the southeast coast.” ref
“At the Jabuticabeira II site, 16 individuals share the same mtDNA haplogroup C1c with a maximum of one nucleotide distance among all mtDNA sequences. The only exception is represented by JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago, who carries mtDNA haplogroup B2. This pattern of uniparental markers, considered alongside the generally low pairwise mismatch rate, could be compatible with a scenario of consanguinity among Jabuticabeira II individuals. To test this, we calculated runs of homozygosity (ROH). Those results revealed a large number of short ROH (4–8 cM) in the JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group, suggesting a smaller effective population size (2n of ~400 to ~1,600 individuals contributing to the next generation) than for younger burials from the same site). Therefore, rather than recent consanguinity, this genetic pattern is consistent with a bottlenecked population and calls into question the expectation of large demography in Sambaqui societies.” ref
“Studies of pre-contact subsistence fisheries using data from the Cubatão I site have also indicated a lower-than-expected population size among southern Sambaqui groups. Contemporaneous individuals from the sambaqui do Limão present a similar ROH profile, while the Limao_500 years ago individual shows a pattern consistent with first-cousin consanguinity. Finally, the south coast Sambaqui groups (JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago, Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago and CubatãoI_~2,700 years ago) show lower heterozygosity levels than those at the southeast coast site (sambaqui do Limão) and even lower than late Sambaqui individuals from the south coast (JabuticabeiraII_111/112_~2,200 years ago, JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago and GalhetaIV_1,200 years ago). The increase in heterozygosity through time in southern Sambaqui groups is probably associated with gene flow of Jê-related ancestry from the inland detected here by 2,200 years ago.” ref
“The oldest individual newly sequenced in this study, Capelinha_10,400 years ago, does not carry a distinct genetic similarity to any other early Holocene or younger populations but shows a generalized affinity to ancient Brazilian and present-day South American groups. This suggests that his source population had a basal placement among the initial radiation event into South America. Moreover, both Capelinha_10,400 years ago and Sumidouro_10,100 years ago lack a significant affinity to Anzick-1-related ancestry. These individuals predate by more than a thousand years the earliest occurrence of South American individuals without evidence of this ancestry (Cuncaicha_9000 years ago and Lauricocha_8600 years ago), challenging the scenario of two subsequent waves of expansion into South America, the first one with and the second one without Anzick-1-related ancestry. However, we caution that this result could be affected by the lack of statistical power, and another potential scenario would involve early South American settlers carrying different proportions of this genetic component. Additional genomes from other regions of South America would be necessary to assess whether populations carrying Anzick-1-related ancestry were replaced by or intermixed with other early Holocene groups.” ref
“The genetic distinctiveness between early Holocene individuals from the Lagoa Santa region, Capelinha_10400 years ago and Loca Do Suin_9100 years ago, also indicates greater genetic variation among early Brazilian hunter-gatherers than previously expected. Within the Lagoa Santa region, early Holocene individuals mostly derived from a common ancestral group, as shown by the high genetic affinity between the Sumidouro_10100 years ago and Lapa do Santo_9,600 years ago groups. We also detected two distinct genetic attractions between Lapa do Santo_9,600 years ago and late Holocene groups. The first signal was observed with the southern Sambaqui JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group and Cabeçuda_3200BP, and the second with the Amazonian individual Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago. The genetic connection between individuals separated by thousands of kilometres and thousands of years might indicate the survival of this ancestry through time.
“The Population Y signal related to Andamanese and Australasian populations could not be detected in the early Holocene Capelinha_10,400 years ago individual or in the Amazonian Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago individual. However, we report this signal in individuals from the southern sambaqui sites of Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago and JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago. The latter is the only pre-colonial group exhibiting higher affinity to non-American ancestries even in direct comparison to another ancient Brazilian group. If confirmed, the sporadic identification of the Population Y signal in ancient individuals with different ancestries, locations and time periods across Brazil—where this signal was first described—suggests a higher probability that it derives from genetic structure in the founding Native American population than from multiple independent migrations into the Americas.” ref
“Middle Holocene riverine Sambaqui individuals (Laranjal_6,700 years ago and Moraes_5,800 years ago) are strongly related, confirming a local genetic structure, which might correspond to a distinct genetic group when compared with coastal Sambaqui populations. Individuals from Laranjal and Moraes also show a higher affinity with south coast than with southeast coast Sambaqui groups, suggesting potential genetic links between geographically closer populations. However, the two sites represent only a small portion of the riverine sambaquis, and additional individuals should be genetically analysed to confirm this pattern.” ref
“The coastal Sambaqui groups Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago and JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago showed high genetic affinity with each other. Both sites, only 20 km apart, exhibit genetic similarities to contemporaneous individuals from Cubatão I, about 200 km further north. The late burials from Jabuticabeira II (~2,200 years ago and ~1,300 years ago) display an incremental genetic attraction to southern Jê ancestry represented by both recent and present-day Kaingang. JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago has an 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratio above the range observed for older individuals at Jabuticabeira II and could thus be a non-local individual who spent earlier years in continental areas (that is, the Santa Catarina highlands) or in a different location on the coast45. The presence of a non-local individual after 2,000 years ago coincides with changes in the post-marital residence patterns47 and with dietary changes revealed by isotopic analyses.” ref
“The strong genetic affinity between Kaingang and JabuticabeiraII_102_1,300 years ago demonstrates a genetic relationship between proto-Jê groups from the southern Brazilian highlands and post-2,000 years ago coastal groups. However, this evidence precedes the arrival of Taquara-Itararé ceramics on the coast by around a hundred years. Considering that Kaingang ancestry is already detected in Sambaqui individuals before the 2,000 years ago horizon of cultural change, as indicated by JabuticabeiraII_111/112_~2,200 years ago, our results show that the intensification of contacts between inland and coastal populations was concomitant with a sharp decline in shellmound construction and shortly before the appearance of fishmounds. This indicates that cultural contacts associated with genetic interactions at a time of unprecedented environmental and ecological changes may have influenced the end of shellmound architecture. Our results also show that one individual from Galheta IV (Galheta IV_1200 years ago), a fishmound with Taquara-Itararé ceramics, is genetically similar to the JabuticabeiraII_~2,400 years ago group and Cabeçuda_3,200 years ago. This suggests some level of demic continuity after the arrival of ceramics in the region.” ref
“On the southeast coast, the sambaqui do Limão individuals carry at least two distinct genetic ancestries. The Limão_2,700 years ago individual and the Limão_~1900 years ago group show a significant affinity to the northeastern hunter-gatherer from Pedra do Alexandre2_undated and to the Amazonian individual Palmeiras Xingu_500 years ago. Despite cultural similarities, we do not observe an extra genetic affinity between individuals from the sambaqui do Limão and sambaqui sites on the southern coast. The genetic link between the older sambaqui do Limão individuals and hunter-gatherers from northeast Brazil as well as present-day Xávante from central Brazil may explain their separation from contemporaneous groups on the southern coast. Furthermore, the high affinity of Limão_500 years ago with Tupi-speaking Zoro provides the first ancient genomic evidence for the spread of Tupi-related ancestry to the Brazilian southeast coast. The Tupi-Guarani expansion from southeastern Amazonia across the Atlantic coast of Brazil is a well-known demographic phenomenon, and our results reveal an arrival of Tupi-related ancestry on the coast of Espírito Santo by at least 500 years ago.” ref
“In conclusion, our results demonstrate that Sambaqui societies from the south and southeast coasts were not a genetically homogenous population. Both regions had different demographic trajectories, possibly due to the low mobility of coastal groups. This contrasts with the cultural similarities described in the archaeological record and highlights the need to perform more regional and micro-scale studies to improve our understanding of the genomic history of eastern South America.” ref
“Research at an archaeological site near Laguna challenges the hypothesis that the Southern Jê’s ancestors displaced the communities that constructed shell middens and burial mounds (sambaquis) along the coast of Santa Catarina state for over 5,000 years. Brazilian researchers have revised the history of ancient sambaqui builders in Santa Catarina, showing that they were not replaced by Southern Jê ancestors, contrary to earlier beliefs, and shedding new light on their culture and interactions. Researchers don’t know why sambaqui building stopped. Possible explanations include contact with other cultures and environmental factors such as changing sea levels and salinity, which may have led to a fall in the supply of shellfish and hence of the raw material for shell mounds.” ref
“Sambaquis are middens that constitute “evidence of long-term occupation.” They consist of mounds with layers of shellfish debris, human and animal bones, remains of plants and hearths, stone or bone utensils, and other refuse. They were used for burial and shelter, and to demarcate territory. “There was far less interaction than has been thought between these midden builders [sambaquieiros] and the proto-Jê populations, as we call them. Their funerary practices and pottery were different. Moreover, the sambaquieiros lived there from birth and were descendants of people who had lived in the same place.” ref
“The theory that one ethnic group replaced the other arose partly because sites like Galheta IV mark the end of sambaqui building. The potsherds found in the most recent layers of mounds on these sites recall the pottery of the ancestors of South Jê Indigenous groups Kaingang and Laklãnõ-Xokleng. This is another reason for the long-held belief, now refuted, that the sambaqui builders who lived on the coast were replaced by people from the Santa Catarina uplands. Fish and other seafood accounted for 60% of the diet of the group in question. Analysis of the bones also showed that the individuals were not buried after cremation, a funerary practice used by Southern proto-Jê populations.” ref
Jê peoples
“Jê or Gê are the people who spoke Jê languages of the northern South American Caribbean coast and Brazil. In Brazil, the Jê were found in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Piauí, Mato Grosso, Goias, Tocantins, Maranhão, and as far south as Paraguay. They include the Timbira, the Kayapó, and the Suyá of the northwestern Jê; the Xavante, the Xerente, and the Akroá of the central Jê; the Karajá; the Jeikó; the Kamakán; Maxakalí; the Guayaná; the Purí (Coroado); the Bororo (Boe); the Gavião, and others. The southern Jê include the Kaingang and the Xokleng.” ref
Jê languages and Je–Tupi–Carib languages
“The Jê languages (also spelled Gê, Jean, Ye, Gean), or Jê–Kaingang languages, are spoken by the Jê, a group of indigenous peoples in Brazil. The Jê family forms the core of the Macro-Jê family. Je–Tupi–Carib (or TuKaJê) is a proposed language family composed of the Macro-Je (or Macro-Gê), Tupian, and Cariban languages of South America.” ref, ref
“One of the Jê people is the Kayapó people, who use intricate black body paint covering their entire bodies. They believe that their ancestors learned their social skills from insects, so they paint their bodies to mimic them and to better communicate with the Spirit that exists everywhere. The black body paint also allows them to blend into their surroundings when hunting in the forests. To help find their way through the forest, the Kayapo paint their legs with red pigment that rubs off on the surrounding terrain. The colors that a Kayapo wears is representative of their tribe’s colors. The Kayapo speak the Kayapo language, which belongs to the Jê language family.” ref
“Older generations of Kayapo men wear disks in their lower lips, but the practice is less common among younger Kayapo men. The men adorn themselves with radiating feathers, representing the universe, in their hair. Kayapo men also can be seen with rope in their hair, to represent the rope which the first Kayapo used to arrive from the sky. Traditionally, Kayapo men cover their lower bodies with sheaths. Due to increased contact with outside cultures, contemporary Kayapo often wear Western-style clothing such as shorts. Kayapo chiefs wear a headdress made out of bright yellow feathers to represent the rays of the sun.” ref
“The feathers used in their headdresses are from birds native to their area such as hyacinth macaw and crested oropendola. The birds found in the Amazon are naturally bright-colored; the Kayapo do not dye the feathers. Kayapo children wear cloth or beaded bands with colors representing their tribes. Typically, these bands are tied below the waist or crisscrossed around the torso. When a child comes of age, they go through a naming ceremony in which they wear large yellow headdresses. Kayapo women can be distinguished by the V shape shaved into their hair.” ref
“The Kayapo have incorporated a great deal of traditional myth, ritual and cosmology into their practices honouring the importance of the earth’s relationship with the people. Threats to the forest home of the Kayapo have been an area of extreme concern in the last 30 years, beginning with mining and logging enterprises which threatened to destroy the rainforest, and thus the Kayapo’s way of life. The resource patterns of the Kayapo are non-destructive to the resource base but require a very large area of land. The Kayapo people use shifting cultivation, a type of farming where land is cultivated for a few years, after which the people move to a new area. New farmland is cleared and the old farm is allowed to lie fallow and replenish itself. The particular type of shifting agriculture employed most frequently by the Kayapo is the slash and burn technique.” ref
“This process allows forested areas to be cut down and burned in order for cultivation of the lands to take place. These “new fields” “peak in production of principal domesticated crops in two or three years but continue to reproduce for many years; e.g., sweet potatoes for four to five years, yams and taro for five to six years, manioc for four to six years, and papaya for five or more years”. Old fields are important for their concentration of medicinal plants. With the spread of indigenous groups, trail-side plantings and “forest fields” were also used for cultivating crops. Trails systems were extensive in the area and were used for transporting and growing crops along their margins. The field system was done by utilizing either naturally occurring or man made clearings in the forest for crop cultivation which required little maintenance afterward. The Kayapo also cultivated “war gardens” which were hidden plots used as a resource in times of food scarcity. The Kayapo use approximately 250 different food plants and 650 different medicinal plants that they find around their village.” ref
160 Current Indigenous Languages in Brazil
“More than 160 languages and dialects are spoken by the Indigenous peoples in Brazil today. Before the arrival of the Portuguese, however, only in Brazil that number was probably close to 1,000. Among the approximately 160 Indian languages spoken in Brazil today, some have more similarities with each other than with others, which reveals common origins and diversification processes that took place over the years. Experts on the knowledge of languages (linguists) express the similarities and differences among them through the idea of linguistic branches and families. Branches mean languages whose common origins are very old, and the similarities among them are very subtle. Among the languages of the same family, on the other hand, the similarities are greater, which is the result of a separation that took place not so long ago.” ref
“In the universe of Indigenous tongues in Brazil, there are two large branches – Tupi and Macro-Jê – and 19 linguistic families that do not have enough similarities to be grouped into branches. “Indigenous peoples in Brazil have always been used to situations of multilinguism. That means that the number of languages spoken by an individual can vary. There are those who speak and understand more than one language and those who can understand several but are able to speak just one or a few of them. Thus it is not rare to find Indigenous societies or individuals in situations of bi-linguism, tri-linguism or even multi-linguism. In general, linguistic differences are not a hindrance for Indigenous peoples to relate with each other and marry among them, exchange objects, participate in ceremonies and attend class together.” ref
UNCONTACTED INDIANS OF BRAZIL
“In the depths of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil live tribes who have no contact with the outside world. Some uncontacted tribes are tragically down to their very last members. Here are some of the most threatened. It is believed that a lone man is the last survivor of his people, who were probably massacred by cattle ranchers occupying the region of Tanaru in Rondônia state. He lives on his own and is constantly on the run. We do not know his name, what tribe he belongs to, or what language he speaks. He is sometimes known only as ‘the Man of the Hole’ because of the big holes he digs either to trap animals or to hide in. He totally rejects any type of contact. FUNAI has set aside a small patch of rainforest for his protection. This is entirely surrounded by cattle ranchers. In late 2009, the man was viciously targeted by gunmen. In the past, many ranchers have used gunmen to kill uncontacted Indians in Rondônia.” ref
“We do not know what these people call themselves, but their neighbors, the Gavião Indians, call them the Piripkura, or the ‘butterfly people,’ describing the way that they constantly move through the forests. They speak Tupi-Kawahib, a language family shared by several tribes in Brazil. The Piripkura numbered around 20 people when FUNAI first contacted them in the late 1980s. After contact, they returned to the forest. Since then, contact has been re-established with three members of the tribe. In 1998, two Piripkura men, Mande-í and Tucan, walked out of the forest of their own accord.” ref
“One of them was ill and was hospitalized. During the short time he spent in the hospital, he talked about how, in the recent past, his people were more numerous and described how they had been massacred by white people and how he and his sole companion moved through the forest hunting, fishing, and gathering. We do not know whether there are any other Piripkura survivors. But Mande-í and Tucan are in great danger as their land is constantly invaded by illegal loggers who are blocking their forest trails to prevent them from hunting. FUNAI has signed a temporary order forbidding anyone to enter the Piripkura’s land without permission and banning all economic activities there. But unless the government takes urgent action to map out and sign their land into law now, the last known Piripkura survivors may disappear forever.” ref
“Uncontacted peoples are groups of indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Groups who decide to remain uncontacted are referred to as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. Legal protections make estimating the total number of uncontacted peoples challenging, but estimates from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the UN and the non-profit group Survival International point to between 100 and 200 uncontacted tribes numbering up to 10,000 individuals total. A majority of uncontacted peoples live in South America, particularly northern Brazil, where the Brazilian government and National Geographic estimate between 77 and 84 tribes reside.” ref
“Until the 1970s, Brazil attempted unsuccessfully to move anyone on lands that could be commercially cultivated. In 1987, it set up the Department of Isolated Indians inside FUNAI, facilitating the work of Sydney Possuelo and José Carlos Meirelles, and declared the Vale do Javari perpetually sealed off, encompassing an area of 85,444 square kilometres (32,990 sq mi). In 2007, FUNAI reported the presence of 67 uncontacted indigenous peoples in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. As of 2021, uncontacted peoples in Brazil are threatened by illegal land grabbers, loggers, and gold miners. Additionally, the government of Jair Bolsonaro signalled its intention to develop the Amazon and reduce the size of indigenous reservations.” ref
“The Awá are people living in the eastern Amazon rainforest. There are approximately 350 members, and 100 of them have no contact with the outside world. They are considered highly endangered because of conflicts with logging interests in their territory. The Kawahiva live in the north of Mato Grosso. They are constantly on the move and have little contact with outsiders. Thus, they are known primarily from physical evidence they have left behind: arrows, baskets, hammocks, and communal houses. The Korubu live in the lower Vale do Javari in the western Amazon Basin. Other tribes may include the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, and the Himarimã. There may be uncontacted peoples in Uru-Eu-Uaw-Uaw Indigenous Territory and Kampa Indigenous Territory and Envira River Isolated Peoples.” ref
“In 2019, some isolated groups of one to two people came to the media’s attention. Two brothers of the Piripkura tribe had continued to live alone in the jungle but initiated contact with FUNAI after a fire they had kept burning for 18 years went out. They were the subsequent focus of the documentary Piripkura. Another man colloquially called the “Man of the Hole” lived alone on 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) where he dug hundreds of holes for farming and trapping. He was found dead in his hammock, in a self-made dwelling, in August 2022.” ref
Pre-Columbian Amazon Was Not So Virgin After All
Mysterious Earthen Rings Predate Amazon Rainforest
History: Pre-Colonial Brazil was nothing like you may have been told
The Amazon May Be Hiding More Than 10,000 Pre-Columbian Structures
Pre-Columbian earth-builders settled along the entire southern rim of the Amazon
My Speculations are in Comparative Mythologies?
For instance, the mytheme of an ancient belief that is seemingly shared though changed and adapted, a fundamental generic unit of narrative structure seems to be shared a common relation with mountains/ancestors/gods or sacred animals with Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids.
Indigenous Religion and Monuments of the Land: Ancient Earthworks/Rockworks; Rings and Mounds in Canada:
*Rings, such as medicine wheels
*Mounds, such as burial mounds, temple mounds, platform (like elite housing or ritual ceremonies) mounds, and effigy mounds
North America Area (with Deities/paganism and Shamanism/or “medicine people”)
- Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages
- Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit languages
- The Algic: Algonquian–Wiyot–Yurok languages
- Siouan–Catawban languages
- Uto-Aztecan languages
- Salishan languages
- Muskogean languages
Mesoamerica Aera (with Deities/paganism and Shamanism/or “medicine people”)
South America Area (with Deities/paganism and Shamanism/or “medicine people”)
My favorite “Graham Hancock” Quote?
“In what archaeologists have studied, yes, we can say there is NO Evidence of an advanced civilization.” – (Time 1:27) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble
People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice.
Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?
Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!
Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey
“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref
We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.
My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:
- (Pre-Animism Africa mainly, but also Europe, and Asia at least 300,000 years ago), (Pre-Animism – Oxford Dictionaries)
- (Animism Africa around 100,000 years ago), (Animism – Britannica.com)
- (Totemism Europe around 50,000 years ago), (Totemism – Anthropology)
- (Shamanism Siberia around 30,000 years ago), (Shamanism – Britannica.com)
- (Paganism Turkey around 12,000 years ago), (Paganism – BBC Religion)
- (Progressed Organized Religion “Institutional Religion” Egypt around 5,000 years ago), (Ancient Egyptian Religion – Britannica.com)
- (CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS after 4,000 years ago) (Origin of Major Religions – Sacred Texts)
- (Early Atheistic Doubting at least by 2,600 years ago) (History of Atheism – Wikipedia)
“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…
Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.
Understanding Religion Evolution:
- Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago)
- Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago)
- Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago)
- Shamanism (Siberia: 30,000 years ago)
- Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago)
- Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago), (Egypt, the First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)
- CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)
- Early Atheistic Doubting (at least by 2,600 years ago)
“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”
It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.
Quick Evolution of Religion?
Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago) with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).
Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.
Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.
I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.
Here are several of my blog posts on history:
- To Find Truth You Must First Look
- (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago?
- Jewish People with DNA at least 13,200 years old, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- Baltic Reindeer Hunters: Swiderian, Lyngby, Ahrensburgian, and Krasnosillya cultures 12,020 to 11,020 years ago are evidence of powerful migratory waves during the last 13,000 years and a genetic link to Saami and the Finno-Ugric peoples.
- The Rise of Inequality: patriarchy and state hierarchy inequality
- Fertile Crescent 12,500 – 9,500 Years Ago: fertility and death cult belief system?
- 12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism
- Ritualistic Bird Symbolism at Gobekli Tepe and its “Ancestor Cult”
- Male-Homosexual (female-like) / Trans-woman (female) Seated Figurine from Gobekli Tepe
- Could a 12,000-year-old Bull Geoglyph at Göbekli Tepe relate to older Bull and Female Art 25,000 years ago and Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk?
- Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago.
- Alcohol, where Agriculture and Religion Become one? Such as Gobekli Tepe’s Ritualistic use of Grain as Food and Ritual Drink
- Neolithic Ritual Sites with T-Pillars and other Cultic Pillars
- Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago
- First Patriarchy: Split of Women’s Status around 12,000 years ago & First Hierarchy: fall of Women’s Status around 5,000 years ago.
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)
- Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system
- Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism)
- Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena
- Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses
- 12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)
- 12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)
- Norse did not wear helmets with horns?
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?
- 10,400 – 10,100 Years Ago, in Turkey the Nevail Cori Religious Settlement
- 9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
- Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)
- Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”
- Special Items and Art as well as Special Elite Burials at Catal Huyuk
- New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?
- Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures
- Ainu people, Sámi people, Native Americans, the Ancient North Eurasians, and Paganistic-Shamanism with Totemism
- Ideas, Technology and People from Turkey, Europe, to China and Back again 9,000 to 5,000 years ago?
- First Pottery of Europe and the Related Cultures
- 9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
- 9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
- 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
- Neolithic Jewelry and the Spread of Farming in Europe Emerging out of West Turkey
- 8,600-year-old Tortoise Shells in Neolithic graves in central China have Early Writing and Shamanism
- Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- Around 8,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Mistress of Animals, “Ritual” Motif
- Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago
- 7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins
- Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)
- 7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine
- Roots of a changing early society 7,200-6,700 years ago Jordan and Israel
- Agriculture religion (Paganism) with farming reached Britain between about 7,000 to 6,500 or so years ago and seemingly expressed in things like Western Europe’s Long Barrows
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- “Millet” Spreading from China 7,022 years ago to Europe and related Language may have Spread with it leading to Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
- Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons
- The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology
- Elite Power Accumulation: Ancient Trade, Tokens, Writing, Wealth, Merchants, and Priest-Kings
- Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep connections?
- Between 7,000-5,000 Years ago, rise of unequal hierarchy elite, leading to a “birth of the State” or worship of power, strong new sexism, oppression of non-elites, and the fall of Women’s equal status
- Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves
- Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
- The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?
- White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?
- Around 7,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Divine Bird (Tutelary and/or Trickster spirit/deity), “Ritual” Motif
- Nekhbet an Ancient Egyptian Vulture Goddess and Tutelary Deity
- 6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples
- First proto-king in the Balkans, Varna culture around 6,500 years ago?
- 6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer
- KING OF BEASTS: Master of Animals “Ritual” Motif, around 6,000 years old or older…
- Around 6000-year-old Shared Idea of the Solid Wheel & the Spoked Wheel-Shaped Ritual Motif
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan; a Proto-Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna or Star of Venus?
- Religious/Ritual Ideas, including goddesses and gods as well as ritual mounds or pyramids from Northeastern Asia at least 6,000 years old, seemingly filtering to Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and the Americas?
- Maykop (5,720–5,020 years ago) Caucasus region Bronze Age culture-related to Copper Age farmers from the south, influenced by the Ubaid period and Leyla-Tepe culture, as well as influencing the Kura-Araxes culture
- 5-600-year-old Tomb, Mummy, and First Bearded Male Figurine in a Grave
- Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews
- Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago
- Evolution Of Science at least by 5,500 years ago
- 5,500 Years old birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status
- “Jiroft culture” 5,100 – 4,200 years ago and the History of Iran
- Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)
- Around 5,000-year-old Shared Idea of the “Tree of Life” Ritual Motif
- Complex rituals for elite, seen from China to Egypt, at least by 5,000 years ago
- Around 5,000 years ago: “Birth of the State” where Religion gets Military Power and Influence
- The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe
- Progressed organized religion starts, an approximately 5,000-year-old belief system
- China’s Civilization between 5,000-3,000 years ago, was a time of war and class struggle, violent transition from free clans to a Slave or Elite society
- Origin of Logics is Naturalistic Observation at least by around 5,000 years ago.
- Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)
- Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)
- Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
- Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?
- 4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?
- Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent
- Bronze Age “Ritual” connections of the Bell Beaker culture with the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture, which were related to the Yamnaya culture and Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions
- Low Gods (Earth/ Tutelary deity), High Gods (Sky/Supreme deity), and Moralistic Gods (Deity enforcement/divine order)
- The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide
- Koryaks: Indigenous People of the Russian Far East and Big Raven myths also found in Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Indigenous People of North America
- 42 Principles Of Maat (Egyptian Goddess of the justice) around 4,400 years ago, 2000 Years Before Ten Commandments
- “Happy Easter” Well Happy Eostre/Ishter
- 4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid
- 4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?
- 4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a grave of a woman in Scotland
- Early European Farmer ancestry, Kelif el Boroud people with the Cardial Ware culture, and the Bell Beaker culture Paganists too, spread into North Africa, then to the Canary Islands off West Africa
- Flood Accounts: Gilgamesh epic (4,100 years ago) Noah in Genesis (2,600 years ago)
- Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
- When was the beginning: TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS, which start around 4,000 years ago.
- Early Religions Thought to Express Proto-Monotheistic Systems around 4,000 years ago
- Kultepe? An archaeological site with a 4,000 years old women’s rights document.
- Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?
- Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?
- Yes, Your Male God is Ridiculous
- Mythology, a Lunar Deity is a Goddess or God of the Moon
- Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology (Paganistic Shamanism)
- Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
- Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them
- Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion
- Prototype of Ancient Analemmatic Sundials around 3,900-3,150 years ago and a Possible Solar Connection to gods?
- Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
- The Weakening of Ancient Trade and the Strengthening of Religions around 3000 years ago?
- Are you aware that there are religions that worship women gods, explain now religion tears women down?
- Animistic, Totemistic, and Paganistic Superstition Origins of bible god and the bible’s Religion.
- Myths and Folklore: “Trickster gods and goddesses”
- Jews, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- An Old Branch of Religion Still Giving Fruit: Sacred Trees
- Dating the BIBLE: naming names and telling times (written less than 3,000 years ago, provable to 2,200 years ago)
- Did a Volcano Inspire the bible god?
- Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?
- No “dinosaurs and humans didn’t exist together just because some think they are in the bible itself”
- Sacred Shit and Sacred Animals?
- Everyone Killed in the Bible Flood? “Nephilim” (giants)?
- Hey, Damien dude, I have a question for you regarding “the bible” Exodus.
- Archaeology Disproves the Bible
- Bible Battle, Just More, Bible Babble
- The Jericho Conquest lie?
- Canaanites and Israelites?
- Accurate Account on how did Christianity Began?
- Let’s talk about Christianity.
- So the 10 commandments isn’t anything to go by either right?
- Misinformed christian
- Debunking Jesus?
- Paulism vs Jesus
- Ok, you seem confused so let’s talk about Buddhism.
- Unacknowledged Buddhism: Gods, Savior, Demons, Rebirth, Heavens, Hells, and Terrorism
- His Foolishness The Dalai Lama
- Yin and Yang is sexist with an ORIGIN around 2,300 years ago?
- I Believe Archaeology, not Myths & Why Not, as the Religious Myths Already Violate Reason!
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Aquatic Ape Theory/Hypothesis? As Always, Just Pseudoscience.
- Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorists are Pseudohistorians
- The Pseudohistoric and Pseudoscientific claims about “Bakoni Ruins” of South Africa
- Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?
- Religion is an Evolved Product
- Was the Value of Ancient Women Different?
- 1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site
- Feminist atheists as far back as the 1800s?
- Promoting Religion as Real is Mentally Harmful to a Flourishing Humanity
- Screw All Religions and Their Toxic lies, they are all fraud
- Forget Religions’ Unfounded Myths, I Have Substantiated “Archaeology Facts.”
- Religion Dispersal throughout the World
- I Hate Religion Just as I Hate all Pseudoscience
- Exposing Scientology, Eckankar, Wicca and Other Nonsense?
- Main deity or religious belief systems
- Quit Trying to Invent Your God From the Scraps of Science.
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Ancient Alien Conspiracy Theorists: Misunderstanding, Rhetoric, Misinformation, Fabrications, and Lies
- Misinformation, Distortion, and Pseudoscience in Talking with a Christian Creationist
- Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin
- Challenging the Belief in God-like Aliens and Gods in General
- A Challenge to Christian use of Torture Devices?
- Yes, Hinduism is a Religion
- Trump is One of the Most Reactionary Forces of Far-right Christian Extremism
- Was the Bull Head a Symbol of God? Yes!
- Primate Death Rituals
- Christian – “God and Christianity are objectively true”
- Australopithecus afarensis Death Ritual?
- You Claim Global Warming is a Hoax?
- Doubter of Science and Defamer of Atheists?
- I think that sounds like the Bible?
- History of the Antifa (“anti-fascist”) Movements
- Indianapolis Anti-Blasphemy Laws #Free Soheil Rally
- Damien, you repeat the golden rule in so many forms then you say religion is dogmatic?
- Science is a Trustable Methodology whereas Faith is not Trustable at all!
- Was I ever a believer, before I was an atheist?
- Atheists rise in reason
- Mistrust of science?
- Open to Talking About the Definition of ‘God’? But first, we address Faith.
- ‘United Monarchy’ full of splendor and power – Saul, David, and Solomon? Most likely not.
- Is there EXODUS ARCHAEOLOGY? The short answer is “no.”
- Lacking Proof of Bigfoots, Unicorns, and Gods is Just a Lack of Research?
- Religion and Politics: Faith Beliefs vs. Rational Thinking
- Hammer of Truth that lying pig RELIGION: challenged by an archaeologist
- “The Hammer of Truth” -ontology question- What do You Mean by That?
- Navigation of a bad argument: Ad Hominem vs. Attack
- Why is it Often Claimed that Gods have a Gender?
- Why are basically all monotheistic religions ones that have a male god?
- Shifting through the Claims in support of Faith
- Dear Mr. AtHope, The 20th Century is an Indictment of Secularism and a Failed Atheist Century
- An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks
- Intoxication and Evolution? Addressing and Assessing the “Stoned Ape” or “Drunken Monkey” Theories as Catalysts in Human Evolution
- Sacred Menstrual cloth? Inanna’s knot, Isis knot, and maybe Ma’at’s feather?
- Damien, why don’t the Hebrews accept the bible stories?
- Dealing with a Troll and Arguing Over Word Meaning
- Knowledge without Belief? Justified beliefs or disbeliefs worthy of Knowledge?
- Afrocentrism and African Religions
- Crecganford @crecganford offers history & stories of the people, places, gods, & culture
- Empiricism-Denier?
I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education.
To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.
Not all “Religions” or “Religious Persuasions” have a god(s) but
All can be said to believe in some imaginary beings or imaginary things like spirits, afterlives, etc.
Paganism 12,000-4,000 years old
12,000-7,000 years old: related to (Pre-Capitalism)
7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
5,000 years old: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State)
4,000 years old: related to (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity
“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref
“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref
“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref
“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref
Tutelary deity
“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States
“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref
“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref
“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:
You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref
“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref
“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref
“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref
Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)
“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref
“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref
“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref
“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:
- Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
- Domovoy (Slavic)
- Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
- Húsvættir (Norse)” ref
“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref
“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref
“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref
“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:
The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref
“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:
It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …
In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref
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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”
I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more.
Sky Father/Sky God?
“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)
Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*
Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother
Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*
Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*
Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*
Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*
China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*
Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother
Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother
Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*
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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref
Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref
Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref
“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref
“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref
Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref
Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref
Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref
Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref
Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref
Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref
Knowledge to Ponder:
Stars/Astrology:
- Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
- The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
- Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
- Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.
“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref
Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref
Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref
Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref
Hinduism:
- 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
- 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Judaism:
- around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
- around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed
Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths
- Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
- Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
- Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
- Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
- The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
- The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
- The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
- The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
- Henotheism:
- Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”
- Polytheism:
- Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.”
- 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”
- Monotheism:
- Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.
Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:
- Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
- Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
- Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
- Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
- Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
- Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref
This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.
“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”
Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.
While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.
The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:
Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO
Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO
Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO
Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO
Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO
I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.
The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.
An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”
My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?
I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.
I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.
This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO
Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“
Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)
Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)
Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)
Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)
Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.
Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?
Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.
I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.
Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.
At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.
Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)
Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft
Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie
Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.
Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”
I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.
To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.
My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?
Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago.
To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars. Many monotheism-themed religions started in henotheism, emerging out of polytheism/paganism.
Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):
Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism
My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com