Cerritos de indios as Islands of Memory: Counter-Cartographies to Rewrite the History of the Uruguay–Brazil Border Region

Abstract

This work is framed within what we call critical perspectives on landscape studies. In this context, cartography becomes a fundamental tool for unraveling preconceived narratives about the territories we inhabit and study. We focus on recognizing the materialities and agencies of groups often rendered invisibled in official narratives, such as Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. We analyze the Indigenous landscape of the cerritos de indios as a form of counter-cartography that reflects territorialities constructed over the past 5,000 years and allows for rewriting history at the Uruguay–Brazil border. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we examine the relationship between materiality, cartographic records, and oral memory. We study the cerritos and their toponyms, as well as historical documents, accounts from local inhabitants, and archaeological data generated by our team. Guided by the mound biographies that evoke “other histories,” the study reveals the evolution of human occupations, interethnic interactions, and historical influences that shaped this singular landscape. In sum, it provides an opportunity to offer a historically grounded reading, with temporal depth, of territories that are underestimated and underrepresented in official cartographies, highlighting that these were lived, created, and transformed lands over millennia.