Middens are archaeological sites dating between 8,000 and 1,000 years before present and are commonly found on the Brazilian coast. Data were collected from 68 middens allowing an inventory of 142 fish species, most of them recorded in no more than five sites. Conversely, Micropogonias furnieri and Pogonias cromis had the highest frequencies of occurrence. The biogeographic, ecological and economic data showed that most of the identified fish are widely distributed in the Western Atlantic (59.72%) and inhabit estuarine environments (53.99%), while most species have a demersal habit (35.92%) and exhibit oceanic migratory behaviour (28.87%). Lastly, the surveyed fish are predominantly carnivorous (72.54%) with some commercial value (96.48%). Chi-squared tests comparing midden inventory and current ichthyofauna checklists failed to show significant differences between them (p > 0.99). Thus, the results indicate that zoo-archaeological fish remains are key evidence of Holocene biodiversity and may help the establishment of more complete baselines. Biodiversidade de peixes marinhos do Holoceno da costa Sudeste brasileiraResumo: Sambaquis são sítios arqueológicos, datando entre 8,000 e 1,000 anos antes do presente, encontrados na costa brasileira. Neste trabalho, dados ictiológicos referentes a 68 sambaquis da costa Sudeste do Brasil foram compilados e construído um inventário de referência no qual constam 142 espécies, a maioria das quais com registro em não mais que cinco sítios. Por outro lado, as espécies Micropogonias furnieri e Pogonias cromis apresentaram alta frequência de ocorrência nos sambaquis. Os dados biogeográficos, ecológicos e econômicos mostraram que a maioria das espécies registradas nos sambaquis são de ampla distribuição no Atlântico Ocidental (59.72%), habitam ambientes estuarinos (53.99%), tem um hábito demersal (35.92%) e comportamento oceânico migratório (28.87%). A maioria dos registros diz respeito a peixes carnívoros (72.54%) e com algum valor comercial (96.48%). A comparação da lista de ictiofauna registrada para os sambaquis com uma lista construída com base em inventários atuais de peixes para mesma região não mostrou diferenças significativas (teste de qui-quadrado, p> 0.99). Dessa forma, os resultados apresentados indicam que os vestígios de ictiofauna encontrados em sambaquis constituem uma amostra relevante da biodiversidade do Holoceno podendo ser muito úteis na construção de inventários de referências mais completos da fauna ictiológica da costa brasileira.
Ilha Grande Bay region comprises a large biological biodiversity distributed in different ecological compartments and also is surrounded by shellmounds dating between 8.000 and 2.000 years B.P. A check list of Fish fauna from 11 of these shellmounds was done and compared with nowadays fish inventory for the region. Most of the species recorded for the shellmounds belongs to the class Chondrichthyes (53.5%), which is represented in the check list by 9 families and 38 species, being Carcharhinus Blainville, 1816, the genus with the highest number of species. Regarding the Osteichthyes, 16 families and 33 species were recorded. Micropogonias furnieri (Desmarest, 1823) was recorded for all sites. Most of the fish identified has a wide distribution in the western Atlantic (35.2%), pelagic behavior (35.2%) and inhabits estuarine environments (36.6%). Almost all the records are composed of noble fish representing top chain carnivorous which can reach large sizes, especially the Chondrichthyes. Comparisons done with current ichthyofauna data for the area (Ministry of Environment-Brazil) have shown high similarity between past and present pattern of biodiversity, although some discrepancies were found for comparisons sorting species by their ecological compartments. The results show that shellmounds are valuable repositories of information concerning species composition in the past and, therefore, to the study of evolution of biodiversity patterns over time. Data on this nature are important for conservation and management strategies.
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