An introduction in English

Our wonderful host, Odila Braga, with her stone handaxe collection 

We first visited the upper course of the Tapajós river last year, 2010. The area we went to is known as  Mangabal. Its inhabitants, who call themselves beiradeiros ("riverside dwellers"), are descendants of northeastern rubber-tappers and indigenous women, who generally were forced into marriage, over a century ago. As a result, today's beiradeiros have inherited knowledge, such as that of the environment, its plant and animal resources, from their indigenous forebears, as well as northeastern Brazilian traditions in terms of house-building, cooking, and Christian beliefs, to name a few.

During our first, short visit, we came across 24 archaeological sites, which were mostly shown to us by the beiradeiros of Mangabal. Knowledge of their territory includes archaeological sites, which they recognise because of the rich black earth to be found on many of them. As such, they provide a link to the distant past in an area where history has been transmitted orally, from generation to generation, since its first inhabitants, thousands of years ago, up to the present day.