ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Brazil and its archaeology and produces several examples of the challenges archaeologists face. Capitalism regulated by heritage legislation has produced new opportunities to the archaeological work, but ethical issues are particularly important in this new context. The Americans Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers were able to set up a National Program of Archaeological Research, known by its acronym PRONAPA. Archaeological resources have been the subject of several government bills, the first comprehensive one in 1936, prepared by the leading intellectual, Mrio de Andrade. In Brazil, as well as in many different countries, archaeology remained for a long time restricted to academic research and/or to high school teaching, leaving to a team of non-archaeologists the mission of distorting archaeological features and interpretations. The Peixe-Angical Dam Archaeological Rescue Program, located at the middle valley of the Tocantins River, on the southern border of the Amazonian basin with the Brazilian Central Plateau.
