In the Pampa of Brazil, the indigenous peoples apparently celebrated seasonal festivals long before European colonization, as archaeological analyzes of old ceramic dishes suggest. The organic remains testify to alcoholic beverages from fermented plants and greasy fish dishes. The researchers suspect that summer fishing at a lagoon has developed seasonal festivals with high cultural importance. Does today’s Brazilian carnival have indigenous roots?
Colorful costumes, loud music, greasy food, alcohol and large crowds: in Brazil, people are currently celebrating carnival for days. The custom is centuries -old and with a subsequent Lent period in which fish is eaten instead of meat. In Brazil, the carnival today, above all, combines cultural influences of the Christian conquerors from Portugal with traditions of people once brought into the country as slaves from Africa.
Carnival -like holidays could have already existed in pre -Colombic Brazil: on the huge Patos lagoon in the south of the country. On their banks there are hundreds of earth hills, so -called “Cerritos”, which the Charrúa and Minuano have been bustling up around 4,700 years ago. These indigenous indigenous people lived as a nomad in the grass landscape of the South American pampas. The increased construction of these mounds of up to seven meters probably protected people from seasonal floods at the time. The Cerritos between 30 and 60 meters wide were used for rituals, funerals, as territorial markings and monuments, but also as a place to live. They were also probably a meeting point for people from the larger surrounding area of the lagoon. Because isotope analyzes from there discovered human bones and teeth indicate that the residents eat very differently.
Fermented food remains in ceramic dishes
A team led by Marjolein Admiraal from the University of York has now followed this track. For this purpose, the researchers analyzed 54 fragments of ceramic vessels, which were discovered in Pontal da Barra on the Patos lagoon. The shards come from pottery dishes and, like the two Cerritos from which they were excavated, are between 2300 and 1200 years old. The molecular analyzes of the tone shards showed that they contain organic remains of food. Among them were vegetables, probably stronger -rich tubers such as maniok and pumpkins, corn and palm fruits, but also remnants of fish from the sea and from the lagoon. Land animals meat was obviously not among them.
“Through detailed chemical analyzes, we were able to determine which products were present in the Cerritos ceramic vessels, but also how people prepared these products: by heating, storing and possibly fermentation,” explains senior author Oliver Craig from the University of York. The molecular composition of the remains also indicates different cooking temperatures and times. Together, these traces suggest that the people of this dishes filled with alcoholic beverages from fermented vegetables and greasy fish stews, admires admiraal and their colleagues. It is unclear whether the dishes were made, stored, stored or consumed from them. The fish could also have been fermented or fishing flour and fish oil.
Parallels between pre -Colombic and modern cultures
The team suspects that the residents of the hills once met there especially in the summer months in order to exploit the fish stock, which is rich at this time. Because many migrating fish species, including catfish and the fish species Micropogonias Furnieri, return from the Atlantic to spawning in the summer. Processing the huge amounts of fish could have required a collective effort. This in turn could have led to seasonal gourmets and cultural celebrations, according to the researchers.
Modern cultures also show that there are such relationships: “We see examples of such practices all over the world that are often related to the seasonal wealth of wandering species,” says Admiraal. “These events offer an excellent opportunity for social activities such as funerals and weddings and have great cultural importance.” Of later indigenous peoples in Brazil’s lowlands, it is also known that they have fermented parts of palm plants to drinks for rituals and used ceramics.
It is unclear to what extent the indigenous practices have been incorporated into the Brazilian carnival. However, the findings confirm that the hills on the Patos Lagune are important testimonies of the indigenous cultural history of the Brazilian pampas. They give an insight into the early traditions as well as culinary and social practices of the South American indigenous people – long before the conquest by Europeans in the 16th century.
Sources: University of York, Autonomous University Barcelona (UAB); Specialist articles: Plos One, DOI: 10.1371/Journal.pone.0311192