Ciclo de vida no contexto sambaquieiro – um estudo de caso feminista e queer

Abstract

This work aims to make an exercise whose attempt is the deconstruction of normative precepts, through theory and methodology, applied to archeology. Protected by queer theory and by the feminist critique of science, I sought to find other possibilities of perceiving the past. For this, I resorted to the sambaqui of Cabeçuda (Santa Catarina), for understanding that, from the various data that we have about it and its fluidity in the mortuary context, it could serve as a test base for the exercise that I intend to propose. Thus, this research arises from a bibliographic review, so data already published about this sambaqui and the bodies buried in them could serve as a basis for the analyzes and hypotheses that were suggested here. The proposed interpretations were guided by indigenous logics, which I had access to through a survey of ethnographic literature. Furthermore, the efforts made served to, in some way, expose that modern Western science has been creating narratives that are often mistaken about the past. This work was intended to ask more questions and answer less, and, in this exercise, I was able to observe some interesting questions about the phases of the life cycle and how they could have been represented through funeral treatments. I raised the possibility that what we currently understand as childhood would not be the same for the population of Cabeçuda – at least not in terms of the age we predict –, since it was possible to perceive that people aged 8 years or older received similar treatment to older people (who would be considered, by modernity, adults). Furthermore, it is questioned what the search for sexual differentiation has actually built up in archaeological studies on populations that are not guided by modern and western precepts.