Shell middens are mounds built with shells thousands of years ago. By excavating these structures, it is possible to find various evidence of the activities of the people who inhabited Brazilian territory in the past. They are found on almost the entire coast of the country, but are found in greater quantities in the South and Southeast regions. Some of these monuments mark the flat landscape with real mountains.
Born in Tubarão (SC), Jéssica Mendes Cardoso grew up knowing sambaquis on the coast of Santa Catarina without knowing what they were. It was only at the Biological Sciences faculty that she understood the scale of these archaeological sites. This interest led her to work with heritage education, teaching the population about the importance of preserving middens. Today she is a researcher at the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology (MAE) at USP and the University of Toulouse, in France.
The focus of Jéssica’s studies has been the archaeological site Galheta IV, in the municipality of Laguna (SC). This sambaqui is especially rich for archaeologists because evidence was found there of both the sambaquieira culture, which dominated the coast for thousands of years, and the proto-Jê groups, from the interior. Some of these proto-Jê groups occupied the plateau and slopes of Santa Catarina, where today the municipality of Urubici (SC) is located, very close to where Galheta IV is located.
The formation of middens would have started at least 8 thousand years ago. However, mysteriously, about a thousand years ago they stopped being built. These communities generally survived by fishing and collecting marine resources. Although they had very similar habits across the coast, the midden population was also very diverse.
A first change occurred 1,500 years ago, when the mounds stopped being built predominantly with shells. In some places, ceramics also began to appear, a material that was not previously used by the coastal population, but by the proto-Jê population, from the interior.
Archaeologists in action at the Galheta IV archaeological site, where evidence was found of both the sambaquieira culture, which dominated the coast for thousands of years, and the proto-Jê groups, from the interior – Photo: Paulo DeBlasis
Team carries out excavations in the Galheta IV sambaqui, in Laguna (SC). Although the material culture at this location seems to have more similarities with the Jê population, the fossils found are more closely related to the ancient sambaqui people – Photo: Paulo DeBlasis
When Europeans arrived in the Laguna region, they found Kaingang and Laklãnõ-Xokleng societies, descendants of the proto-Jê, and Guaranis, who were even more recent arrivals to the coast.
unpacked the archaeological site’s mobility, material culture, diet and genetic evidence, with the collaboration of researchers from MAE and the Toulouse Environmental Geosciences Laboratory.
This migration of the Jê people from the interior has been investigated since the 1960s, as it would have affected all the societies that lived on the coast of the southern region. However, the idea that the sambaquis came into contact directly with the plateau populations began to be questioned in recent decades.
Researcher analyzes animal fossils found at the Galheta IV site. The interest created since childhood by the coast of Santa Catarina led Jéssica to work with heritage education, teaching what sambaquis are and the importance of preserving these sites – Photo: Jéssica M. Cardoso
View of the archaeological site of Galheta IV, on the coast of Santa Catarina. In some areas of Brazil’s coast, Tupinambá expansion along the coast pushed the population that previously lived there to other places. In Santa Catarina, there was interaction for hundreds of years with proto-Jê populations – Photo: Jéssica M. Cardoso
“The Galheta IV site is very important for us to be able to answer how this transformation occurred in the material evidence in the landscape”, says Jéssica. According to the researchers who spoke to Jornal da USP , the disappearance of the sambaquieiro way of life on the eve of European colonization is due to increasing interaction with other populations, probably from the coast itself.
In some areas of Brazil’s coast, Tupinambá expansion along the coast pushed the population that previously lived there to other places. In Santa Catarina, this did not happen. “We have no evidence of a population exchange”, ponders Verônica Wesolowski, archaeologist and professor at MAE. The replacement would be the disappearance of a biological unity from the cultural forms associated with it.
The population of Galheta IV is closely related to the ancient sambaqui people, but the material culture seems to have more similarities with the Jê population. One of the possible explanations is that there was contact lasting a few hundred years with other people from the interior who began to live on the slopes and then on the coast.
The middens found in Laguna began a process of cultural transformation 2,000 years ago. “It is a slow change marked by the change in the construction material of the sites”, details Fabiana Terhaag Merencio, researcher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), the institution responsible for storing the material from Galheta IV. Among the new features is the replacement of shells with fish bones in the construction of the mounds.
From the same period onwards, sea levels began to drop significantly, which may have contributed to the abandonment of shells and burial rituals. However, the research showed that there were no significant changes in the diet of this population and in funeral practices. Analysis of teeth from eight burials showed that they consumed fish and other marine resources, with no evidence of other foods, and the remains found have no signs of cremation, as is customary in the Gê culture.
Person who lived thousands of years ago and was buried in the midden of Laguna (SC). The remains found do not have signs of cremation, as is customary in the Gê culture – Photo: Paulo DeBlasis
Skull of an inhabitant of the Santa Catarina coast belonging to the sambaquieira population. Ancient DNA studies show that the sambaqui population did not fall apart, although customs were modified with the acquisition of technologies from other peoples – Photo: Paulo DeBlasis
Burial found in Galheta IV. The recently published article points out that there were no significant changes in the diet of this population and in their funerary practices for thousands of years – Photo: Paulo DeBlasis
Furthermore, the pottery found in Galheta IV has more similarities with that produced by coastal proto-Jê populations, whose remains are found in the southern region of Brazil, and not with the proto-Jê of the plateau.
Ancient DNA studies, a novelty in archaeology, also show that the sambaqui population did not fall apart, as the change in customs might indicate. “The DNA suggests that they are much more similar to sambaquieiros than to Jê”, reinforces the MAE professor. In other words, there was probably a long-term coexistence with other people.
The professor, who is a visiting researcher in Coimbra, has been publicizing this and other more recent works on sambaquis in classes and conferences outside Brazil. What is most impressive, according to her, is the resistance of these populations over thousands of years.
“If we take the cultural material from the founding of São Paulo looking at the material culture — the ceramics, the crockery and everything else — and compare it with the way we live today, we could ask ourselves ‘where did those people who lived here go?’ ‘. It didn’t go anywhere. That place has transformed”, compares Verônica.
Recent studies have also found a descendant of sambaquieiros with proto-Jê, in addition to pointing out that the sambaqui population from at least 1,300 years ago, on the coast that today belongs to Santa Catarina, had a small ancestry originating from the Jê people.