Archaeometric Study of Clay Deposits from the Indigenous Land of the Asurini do Xingu

Abstract

The Asurini do Xingu occupy a village located along the banks of the Xingu river, in the state of Pará, Brazil. It is based on an indigenous Tupi group, speaking a language stemming from the linguistic Tupi‐Guarani family. They are potters, who show a sufficiently diversified artifactual ceramic group and, already, were the object of various studies. This work shows the results of the archaeometric study done with the ceramic and clays derived from two deposits exploited by this indigenous population for the manufacture of it is vessels. The chemical and mineral composition was determined by means of instrumental neutron activation analysis and scanning electron microscopy in order to obtain information on the technology employed by the Asurini in their ceramics production. The results were interpreted by a discriminant analysis procedure that made evident the differentiation between the deposits.

Keywords:

• Neutron activation analysis
• Archaeometry
• Asurini
• Ceramics
• Clay
• Discriminant analysis

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank FAPESP for financial support.