Archaeology to live in the future

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3100718
AutoresMarcia Bezerra (0000-0002-0975-0479, Universidade Federal do Pará, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen38
Número112
Páginas195-200
Fecha de publicación2024-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEstudos Avançados (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0103-4014 • E-ISSN: 1806-9592
EditorialFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/s0103-4014.202438112.011-en
OpenAlexW4404852175
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas8

ith my eyes closed I see a river with water running in both directions, and it occurs to me that this archaeology you speak of does not tell stories about the past, but about the future" (Carelli, 2021, p.122, original in Portuguese).This is how Ana -the teenage daughter of an archaeologist working on a terra preta site in the Xingu region-perceives this way of seeing the world that is archaeology.The thoughts of Ana, a character in Rita Carelli's novel, connect and merge with the kind of archaeology practiced in Amazonia today.The discipline occupies a relevant place in the daily lives of people living in the region and has generated a kind of knowledge capable of contributing to saving not only the past, but also the future; of Amazonia, and of the planet.In the words of Indigenous archaeologist Jaime Xamen Wai Wai (Rodrigues; Kater; Xamen Wai Wai, 2020, p.117, original in Portuguese): "archaeology is everything".The association of Amazonian archaeology with contemporary challenges -necropolitics, the Covid-19 pandemic, the demarcation of traditional territories, environmental licensing, greenwashing, biodiversity, the Anthropocene, the time frame tied to Indigenous lands, among others -is attested in academic production, in debate forums, and even through media communication tools that increase its visibility.Decades ago, the search for the term "Amazonian archaeology" would have resulted in a few articles about scientific research in the region, but they would be joined by a significant volume of fanciful elaborations generally drawing from discourses mixing evolutionary ideas of the nineteenth century with the imagination that surrounds the discipline outside academia.This bricolage, appropriated in recent times by science deniers and supporters of conspiracy theories, acts in a perverse way against the people who live in the forest, intensifying hatred and inciting violence from external agents in Indigenous and traditional territories. 2As a counterpoint to this type of dissemination, the first results of digital searches for information about Amazonian archaeology today offer reports on archaeological studies in the region, mostly interviews, filming, photographs

Archaeology · Geography · Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies