Prehistoric occupation and palaeoenvironmental changes along Santa Catarina's Coastal Plain, Brazil: An integrated approach based on palynological data

• Autor(a) principal: Val-Peón, Cristina
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Cancelli, Rodrigo R., Santos, Luis, Soares, André L.R.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/37516
• topic: archaeology; palaeopalynology; holocene; palaeoenvironmental evolution; prehistoric settlements

Climate change and sea level variation during the Quaternary shaped the southernmost Santa Catarina's Coastal Plain and its landscape, promoting vegetation changes and different geomorphological features that resulted in the formation of sand barriers, relocation of fluvial channels, lagoons and rivers. In this context, prehistoric occupation of the territory took place through different migratory events over the Holocene. This study presents a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the last 8000 years BP, based on pollen analysis from the core collected in Campo Mãe Luzia natural deposit (Araranguá municipality, SC, Brazil). The palynological, sedimentary, chronological and altimetric records were integrated with a revision of the archaeological data, allowing for the contextualization of the different groups within each environmental phase. Three distinct palaeoenvironmental phases are suggested for the last 8000 years BP: Phase I, characterized as an estuarine-lagoon environment, with no reports of human occupation; Phase II, a transition between the lagoon environment and the gradual formation of a coastal swamp, followed by an expansion of the sandy coastal barrier; Phase III, characterized by Atlantic rain forest development and their colonization. Human occupation was registered in the last two phases, with settlements of hunter-gatherer groups, sambaquis builders, and Meridional Jê and Guarani groups.