Entre as águas do mar e das lagoas : arqueologia ambiental na planície costeira do Rio Grande do Sul durante o holoceno tardio

Abstract

The Coastal Plain of Rio Grande do Sul (PCRS) is the largest coastal plain in the brazilian territory, formed along the Quaternary. During the Late Holocene (~4.4ka), after the last transgressive event (~5ka), populations from other regions begin to occupy the territory: Sambaqui people’s, from the Atlantic coast in the north; Cerrito builders, from the Pampa’s wetlands in the south; Jê people’s from the Planalto highlands and the Guaranis, from northweast of the state. The arrival and intensification of the presence of these societies throughout the Late Holocene were concomitant with a series of transformations in vegetation, identified from the pollen record, which may be related to the management strategies and landscape construction of these groups. Although the data do not guarantee a direct relationship, the events that bring together the human presence simultaneously with the changes in the landscape occur in the same space-time, indicating a convergence between the data and signaling a possible anthropization of the landscape. In addition, the vegetation of the current restinga forests seems to maintain remnants in its composition of an environmental legacy built over millennia by the different populations that made the PCRS their territory. The research pointed out ways to deepen issues related to the interactions between humans and plants, such as the construction of landscapes, and highlighted the importance of the integration between archeology and paleocology in the advancement of these debates.