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Between the sky and the earth: towards an archaeology of multitemporal territories in the Upper Xingu

Abstract

The Wauja people and their Arawak ancestors have inhabited the Kamukuwakewene/Batovi River region for over ten centuries. This provides an opportunity to study patterns of land use, group mobility, and site (re)settlement over the long term. A wide repertoire of narratives is structured around named places (for living as well as for management, harvesting, and transit), indexing a densely occupied archaeological and anthropogenic landscape that (co)produces practices and meanings. An other co-existent landscape is also revealed, where ancestral non-human beings still inhabit their villages. The combination of linear and non-linear temporal senses (chronology, genealogy, and cosmology) defines the multitemporal, spectral quality of this territory and its condition as a source of life. A focal point in this fabric of spatiotemporal relations is the Kamukuwaká Cave, home to the primordial chief, located on private agricultural property. Its recognition as a federally protected area and subsequent defacement epitomizes the current state of neglect in indigenous riverine landscapes outside demarcated territories. This paper discusses the role of archaeology within the context of development projects and environmental licensing in the Xingu headwaters. Reductive notions of an “evidential” past are questioned while developing support for legal protection of the Kamukuwakewene via an archaeology of practice and of meaning.

Keywords
Wauja people; Kamukuwaká Cave; Kamukuwakewene/Batovi River; Xingu headwaters; Heritage management; Archaeological ethnography

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