A Guarani burial deposit on the upper Uruguay River, Santa Catarina: excavation and collection of data on the biological and funerary profiles

Abstract

This work presents the results from excavating a funerary arrangement related to the Guarani archaeological unit found in sector 2 of the ACH-LP-07 multicomponent site on the right bank of the Uruguay River in Águas de Chapecó, Santa Catarina. The procedures used in the field and laboratory to excavate and conduct typological analysis of a ceramic vessel used as a funeral urn and to describe this arrangement, the human skeletal remains, and their inclusion within the regional context of the upper Uruguay River are presented for future archaeological interpretation. Carbon 14 dating of a charcoal fragment recovered from the area surrounding the funerary site revealed an age of 395 ± 40 BP, at the beginning of the colonial period, but no material evidence of contact with Europeans was found. Analysis of the burial structure contributes new information on the funerary behavior of the Guarani unit, because even though it has been thoroughly described in the literature, contexts documented from an archaeological perspective are lacking.

Keywords
Upper Uruguay River; Funerary deposit; Guarani archaeological unit