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Landscape and Plants Use in Brazilian Shell Mounds

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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State of Knowledge and Current Debates

Brazilian shell mounds, locally named sambaquis, were first recognized back in the nineteenth century. They remain to this day among the best studied sites in the country. Issues, such as diet/subsistence, environment/landscape, and, nowadays, ceremonial activities, have always been central to most research agendas. However, the importance of plant use and consumption remained, until recently, largely underestimated.

To a great extent, this is due to differential preservation, since animal remains tend to be overestimated compared to plant remains. Archaeological preservation of botanical remains is uncertain and depends on aleatory events and conditions that vary for each plant and plant organ. However, plants were extremely important for most past populations. They were certainly used in many ways in the daily life of sambaquipeople, both in domestic and in ceremonial activities, for food, fuel, medicine, dyes, soap, tools, raw materials,...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Arqueologia, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Rita Scheel-Ybert

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  1. Rita Scheel-Ybert
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Correspondence to Rita Scheel-Ybert .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Claire Smith

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  1. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK

    Manuel Arroyo-Kalin

  2. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK

    Dorian Q. Fuller

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Scheel-Ybert, R. (2020). Landscape and Plants Use in Brazilian Shell Mounds. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_3038

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