ABSTRACT
After five centuries of exploration and colonization, the Amazon maintains its own legends and its particular aura of mystery. When one says “Amazon,” wild and fantastic visions come to mind, inspired by literature and other media. The dominant view of the general public regarding ancient inhabitants of the Amazon Basin differs little from that of the European conquerors in the sixteenth century, who reduced the indigenous cultures they encountered to the rank of animal. The result is a deeply flawed image of life among Amazon’s first inhabitants. One of the more extreme examples is presented in the Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon, written by ecologists at the Smithsonian Institution (Goulding et al. 2003). Although this work purports to present a panorama of the region, one detects no mention of indigenous peoples, past or present, in the tropical forest. In fact, virtually no works to date present the pre-Columbian past of the Amazon. The most recent works are a short Brazilian publication, written for a general audience, which summarizes the latest findings (Neves 2006), and a book on ecological history (Schaan 2012). Prior to that, the catalog of the “Unknown Amazon” exhibition in London provided a detailed panorama of the issue (McEwan et al. 2001). The well-illustrated “L’Archéologie de l’Amazonie,” though published more than 80 years ago, remains a classic, unsubstitutable source (Nordenskiöld 1930).
