This work provides robust oral pathology and stable isotope evidence on Bayesian mixing model for an unexpectedly high consumption of carbohydrates by a Middle Holocene coastal population of the Atlantic Forest of South America, an area traditionally viewed as peripheral to early centres of food production on the continent. A diversified economy with substantial consumption of plant resources was in place at the shellmound (or sambaqui) of Morro do Ouro, in Babitonga Bay, and supported a dense population at ca 4500 cal BP. This dietary composition is unique when compared with that of other contemporary and later groups in the region, including peoples who used ceramics and domesticated crops. The results corroborate independent dietary evidence, such as stone tool artefacts for plant processing and plant microremains in dental calculus of the same individuals, and suggest plant cultivation possibly took place in this region at the same time as the development of early agriculture in Amazonia and the La Plata Basin. Our study situates the Atlantic Forest coast of Brazil on the map of early plant management in the Neotropics.

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Small‐scale fisheries provide food and livelihoods for thousands of people along the Brazilian coastline. However, considerable uncertainties still surround the extent to which artisanal and subsistence fisheries contribute to the total of national landings and their historical ecological significance. Fisheries monitoring is deficient in Brazil, and historical records are limited to irregular accounts spanning the last few decades, while this coastline has supported human populations for at least 6,000 years. Here, we estimate pre‐Columbian subsistence catches for a large subtropical estuary in southern Brazil. Our results suggest that prehistoric populations may have extracted volumes of fish biomass higher than or comparable with historical subsistence fisheries in the region, and that the latter is likely underestimated. If a long‐term perspective is required to evaluate the current economic value and status of fisheries in subtropical and tropical South America, this should go beyond the historical time interval and integrate the contribution of pre‐Columbian archaeology.

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O presente artigo apresenta o resultado do projeto Culturas e Meio Ambiente Pré-coloniais da Baía da Babitonga: I Etapa: O Conjunto de Sambaquis da Foz do Rio Cubatão, Joinville realizado pelo Museu Arqueológico de Sambaqui de Joinville/MASJ com financiamento do CNPq e Fundação Cultural de Joinville. A partir do estudo do perfil que aflora devido à erosão da porção nordeste do Sambaqui Cubatão I, analisa-se sua estratigrafia, sua composição e busca-se contribuir para o entendimento do processo de formação do sítio arqueológico.

The emergence of plant-based economies have dominated evolutionary models of Middle and Late Holocene pre-Columbian societies in South America. Comparatively, the use of aquatic resources and the circumstances for intensifying their exploitation have received little attention. Here we reviewed the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of 390 human individuals from Middle and Late Holocene coastal sambaquis, a long-lasting shell mound culture that flourished for nearly 7000 years along the Atlantic Forest coast of Brazil. Using a newly generated faunal isotopic baseline and Bayesian Isotope Mixing Models we quantified the relative contribution of marine resources to the diet of some of these groups. Through the analysis of more than 400 radiocarbon dates we show that fishing sustained large and resilient populations during most of the Late Holocene. A sharp decline was observed in the frequency of sambaqui sites and radiocarbon dates from ca. 2200 years ago, possibly reflecting the dissolution of several nucleated groups into smaller social units, coinciding with substantial changes in coastal environments. The spread of ceramics from ca. 1200 years ago is marked by innovation and intensification of fishing practices, in a context of increasing social and ecological instability in the Late Holocene.

Trabalhos com testemunhos biológicos têm se tornado uma grande ferramenta para o entendimento do modo de vida de populações pretéritas. O presente estudo objetiva identificar taxonomicamente as espécies vegetais utilizadas preteritamente e classificadas como artefatos de origem fibrosa. Os artefatos foram coletados em perfil exposto do sítio, salvaguardados no acervo do Museu Arqueológico de Sambaqui de Joinville (MASJ), analisados por métodos padrões de anatomia vegetal e identificados por comparação com coleção de referência da flora atual do entorno do sítio arqueológico. As fibras foram identificadas como pertencentes a plantas do gênero Philodendron (Araceae), as quais são conhecidas popularmente por cipós e podem ter tido diversos usos. A ocorrência desses vegetais no sítio arqueológico sugere a presença de florestas circundantes e condições paleoecológicas similares às atuais.

Anthropogenic impacts on tropical and subtropical coastal environments are increasing at an alarming rate, compromising ecosystem functions, structures and services. Understanding the scale of marine population decline and diversity loss requires a long-term perspective that incorporates information from a range of sources. The Southern Atlantic Ocean represents a major gap in our understanding of pre-industrial marine species composition. Here we begin to fill this gap by performing an extensive review of the published data on Middle and Late Holocene marine fish remains along the southern coast of Brazil. This region preserves archaeological sites that are unique archives of past socio-ecological systems and pre-European biological diversity. We assessed snapshots of species compositions and relative abundances spanning the last 9500 years, and modelled differences in species’ functional traits between archaeological and modern fisheries. We found evidence for both generalist and specialist fishing practices in pre-European times, with large body size and body mass caught regularly over hundreds of years. Comparison with modern catches revealed a significant decline in these functional traits, possibly associated with overfishing and escalating human impacts in recent times.