Sedentary farmers

Our project is the focus of an article published in this month’s Pesquisa FAPESP, the official magazine of the São Paulo Research Foundation. The article explores the changing image of the Southern Proto-Jê groups thanks to new data gathered by our team. Our archaeobotanical analyses, excavations at a variety of sites and intensive radiocarbon dating are helping to change the idea that the Southern Proto-Jê were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Instead, we are demonstrating long, stable occupations at permanent domestic sites, coupled with a mixed economy relying on several cultigens. Furthermore, the article emphasises the interdisciplinary aspect of our project and how new pollen data will help to uncover the relationship between humans and the expansion of the Araucaria forests in the past. Read it here!