In Amazonian archeology, the Formative period (4000-2000 BP) is defined by sedentary settlements of people whose subsistence rely on agriculture, complemented by game, fish, and gathering. when agriculture became the generalized form of food production and societies became more sedentary. This period is important, among other things, because it precedes the development of regional societies around the beginning of the Christian Era. However, it is little known, either because of the small amount of recorded sites or by the lack of research. This dissertation presents the results on an investigation of the Formative contexts at the site Port of Santarem, in the lower Amazon, a region where the long sequence of occupation dates back to the Paleoindian Period. The investigation was design to observe such occupation at the Port site, seeking to understand its role in the dynamics of regional long-term occupation. The excavations reveled evidence of human occupation in the late pre-Columbian period (cal. AD 1020 to 1160) known as the Santarém phase of the Incised and Punctate Tradition, as well as an early occupation, at the base of the cultural layer, which corresponds to the Formative period (cal. 3160 a 3090 AP).
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