New evidence for late first-millennium AD stilt-house settlements in Eastern Amazonia

Abstract

Archaeological evidence for stilt-house settlements, or pile dwellings, has been recorded in diverse wet environments around the world. The first-millennium AD stilt-house villages in the Brazilian state of Maranhão, however, are poorly known. Difficulties in conducting archaeological investigations in seasonally flooded areas have restricted our ability to understand the societies that lived in these unique settlements. The results of recent fieldwork using non-invasive techniques to map, date and characterise these sites point towards a number of similarities and differences in their spatial organisation, material culture and social structure.