Anna Curtenius Roosevelt

Paleoindian Cave Dwellers in the Amazon: The Peopling of the Americas

A Paleoindian campsite has been uncovered in stratified prehistoric deposits in Caverna da Pedra Pintada at Monte Alegre in the Brazilian Amazon. Fifty-six radiocarbon dates on carbonized plant remains and 13 luminescence dates on lithics and sediment indicate a late Pleistocene age contemporary with North American Paleoindians. Paintings, triangular bifacial spear points, and other tools in the cave document a culture distinct from North American cultures. Carbonized tree fruits and wood and faunal remains reveal a broad-spectrum economy of humid tropical forest and riverine foraging. The existence of this and related cultures east of the Andes changes understanding of the migrations and ecological adaptations of early foragers.

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

The earliest pottery yet found in the Western Hemisphere has been excavated from a prehistoric shell midden near Santar�m in the lower Amazon, Brazil. Calibrated accelerator radiocarbon dates on charcoal, shell, and pottery and a thermoluminescence date on pottery from the site fall from about 8000 to 7000 years before the present. The early fishing village is part of a long prehistoric trajectory that contradicts theories that resource poverty limited cultural evolution in the tropics.

The demise of the Alaka Initial Ceramic Phase has been greatly exaggerated : Response to D. Williams

Denis Williams writes to comment on my article on Archaic shell mound pottery in eastern South America (Roosevelt 1995). He states that he will correct my article by putting on record new facts. Rather than correct my article, Williamss comment misstates both the content of my article and that of earlier literature on Guyanese archaeology, and it merely repeats the data included in my article. In addition, Williamss comment presents some interesting but internally contradictory elaborations of his earlier interpretations of Guyanese archaeology but still without supplying the basic data on which his interpretations are based. In essence, contrary to my article, Williams states that there is no such thing as a Guyanese Archaic shell mound pottery occupation, known in earlier literature as the Alaka Incipient Ceramic phase (Evans and Meggers 1960:25-64). Williams presents this conclusion as fact, but it contradicts the existing data from stratigraphy, pottery distribution, and radiocarbon dates in the shell mounds, and he furnishes no other specific data that support it. In my comment on his comment, I will document these various aspects of his comment and define the type of data that he needs to present to allow empirical evaluation of his assertions.

Luminescence dates for the Paleoindian site of Pedra Pintada, Brazil

Abstract Dates are presented for the Paleoindian levels of Pedra Pintada cave in Brazil, based on the thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) study of ten specimens of heated siliceous stones and three of sand, respectively. Also discussed are the details of preliminary mineralogical, radiographic, and analytical work done on the lithic specimens in France and the OSL work done on the sediments in the US. The luminescence dates are in agreement with radiocarbon dates for the same strata.

A historical memoir of archaeological research in Brazil (1981-2007)

This memoir gives a history of my archaeological research in Brazil and especially the theoretical issues, empirical interests, collaborations, and events that motivated it. I begin with my early course and field experiences as a student, my work as a museum curator and university professor, my research in literature, archives, and collections, and my early collaborations and interactions with other students and with scholars. Then I trace the relationship of my Venezuelan Orinoco dissertation work to my interest in the Amazon, and explain how that led subsequently to my field research in Brazil. I then summarize the work at the four regional foci of the project in the Lower Amazon of Brazil and point to what might be the theoretical implications of the results in light of the results of work by other scholars. I conclude with an explanation of how the Brazilian research relates to my preliminary research in Central Africa and conclude with the implications of the South American and African research for changing concepts of human evolution, human ecology, and culture history.