Throughout its 200 years, the Museu Nacional (National Museum) in Rio de Janeiro has been the principal museum of natural history in Brazil. It certainly has been among the most important research institutions in the Americas. Many of the greatest national and international scholars worked in or visited its collections, exhibitions, and laboratories. Botanists, zoologists, ecologists, geologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and so many other scientists frequented the research facilities of the São Cristóvão Palace, its hallways, internal gardens, associated buildings, and park. They established friendships, scientific partnerships, and antagonisms, engaging in intense and productive exchanges that advanced science in each discipline yet with a multidisciplinary spirit. This thriving space, which we all always referred to as “our home,” was utterly destroyed by the tragedy of September 2018, when we watched in astonishment as the fire consumed our lives.

What kind of times are these when a talk about trees is almost a crime? Among other things, they are times of forgetfulness. Forgetting does not mean that reminiscences just vanish as time goes by. It is, on the contrary, a major cultural force grounded in a politics of anti-memory. One needs to forget in order to keep repeating oneself. In this article, I argue that the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro did not burn to the ground merely because of the lack of resources, but because being burned to the ground has always been a virtual feature of the existence of the museum since it was created in 1818. It burned as part of a long-term politics of anti-memory in Brazilian history.

In this article, I take a close look at the objects collected over the last 200 years from the indigenous people of the Upper Rio Negro, northwest of the Brazilian Amazon, that were part of the ethnographic collection of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro. Examination of these objects allows us to explore the main characteristics of the ethnographic archive of the museum, as the Upper Rio Negro collections were connected to different topics associated with indigenous societies and histories in Brazil, including enslavement, forced displacement, religious conversion, and indigenous territorial, artifactual, and cultural knowledge. This article also highlights the professional commitment of Brazilian anthropology to amplifying indigenous voices over the course of the history of the discipline, and by doing so, it pays homage to the women and men whose work built the National Museum collections.

The Santa Elina rock shelter (Central Brazil) was recurrently occupied from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene. We compare sets of previously published anthracological analyses with new data to reconstruct the landscape, vegetation, and climate over the several thousand years of occupation, providing information on firewood management from about 27,000 to about 1500 cal BP. Laboratory analyses followed standard anthracological procedures. We identified 34 botanical families and 84 genera in a sample of almost 5,000 charcoal pieces. The Leguminosae family dominates the assemblage, followed by Anacardiaceae, Bignoniaceae, Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Sapotaceae. The area surrounding the shelter was forested throughout the studied period. The local landscape was formed, as it is today, by a mosaic of vegetation types that include forest formations and open cerrado. Some regional vegetation changes may have occurred over time. Our data corroborate the practice of opportunistic firewood gathering in all periods of site occupation, despite a possible cultural preference for some taxa. The very long occupation of Santa Elina may be due not only to its attractiveness as a rock shelter but also to the continuously forested vegetation around it. It was a good place to live.

Dentre as inúmeras informações possíveis de se obter a partir da análise de artefatos ósseos, uma delas é a identificação das espécies e partes anatômicas utilizadas para a confecção desses artefatos. No território brasileiro, quatro espécies de cervídeos são comumente encontradas nas regiões sul e sudeste: Mazama americana, Mazama gouazoubira, Ozotoceros bezoarticus e Blastocerus dichotomus. Ao longo do Holoceno, ossos e galhadas dessas espécies de cervídeos foram utilizados no lascamento lítico, na produção de pontas ósseas e espátulas, entre outros artefatos. Estudos preliminares dos artefatos ósseos recuperados de três sítios arqueológicos de grupos caçadores-coletores do sudeste e sul do Brasil - sítio Lapa do Santo (MG), sítio Tunas (PR), e sítio Garivaldino (RS) - demonstram uma preferência por ossos de cervídeos para a confecção desses artefatos.

In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, the term cerrito was traditionally used to designate archaeological phenomena that emerge in the form of mounds in different landscapes. Except for recent research developed in the southwestern region of the Patos Lagoon, few advances have occurred since the 1980s in the study of cerritos in Brazil. This article presents an analysis of the lithic industries of sites with mounds in the southwestern region of the Patos Lagoon and in the central region in the current territory of Rio Grande do Sul. The results, along with other data from the sites, suggest that coastal sites were occupied by sedentary fisher-hunter-gatherers, who also possibly domesticated certain plants. Lithic material was scarce there and was mainly produced from pebbles and quartz cobbles using the anvil technique. In contrast, central region formations presented mounds on outcrops, using land, pebbles, and boulders; the area was occupied by a hunter-gatherer group that had projectile points and other instruments carved mainly by façonnage and débitage.

The anthracological analyses of domestic and ceremonial contexts of proto-Jê archaeological sites in southern Brazil and Argentina have yielded data regarding landscape, fire technology, fuel economy, wood selection, and wood use from about 1200 to 250 years BP. The inhabitants of these sites built up the landscape that they occupied, actively constructing and experiencing their domestic and ceremonial places and possibly engaging in vegetation management practices. They gathered timber and firewood in the Araucaria Forest and in intensely modified areas covered by secondary vegetation. These practices likely included logging and gathering fallen deadwood. Our data indicate cultural selection of particular species. Inga sp., Jacaranda sp., and Araucaria angustifolia were probably selected because of the meaning of these woods in the cosmological dual system of proto-Jê societies. Bamboos and palm stems may have been used as kindling and for fire making. These results are an important contribution to our understanding of the proto-Jê occupation and the relationships that these groups maintained with their plant environment.

Este artigo faz uma análise das práticas portuárias empregadas no comércio de africanos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro durante as duas primeiras décadas do século dezenove. A partir da diferenciação conceitual entre desembarque e descarga final das arqueações de cativos, novos dados obtidos em fontes primárias inéditas foram confrontados com relatos de cronistas e com fontes documentais tradicionalmente conhecidas. Sob essa perspectiva, o texto apresenta um panorama sólido e plausível sobre o processo de importação de escravizados, resgatando a importância do papel da alfândega do Rio de Janeiro como primeiro local de desembarque, e deslocando para o litoral da Saúde, no antigo bairro do Valongo, o local de descarga final das arqueações de africanos. Trata-se, portanto, de um cenário divergente da teoria corrente, segundo a qual o Cais do Valongo, localizado na enseada do Valonguinho, teria sido a porta de entrada dos milhares de cativos africanos que chegaram ao Rio de Janeiro.

Hacia 1820, luego de una expedición dirigida por Louis Claude de Sauces de Freycinet, el dibujante del equipo científico, Jacques Arago (1790-1855), negoció un conjunto de objetos de curiosidad con el recién fundado Museo Real, en Rio de Janeiro, entonces capital del Imperio luso-brasilero. Entre los ítems negociados, se encontraban dos cabezas embalsamadas de reyes neozelandeses. Éstas, en particular, accionaron un intrincado conjunto de actores, posiciones y proyectos que ponen de manifiesto la organización sociocultural de ese período, principalmente la relación entre Ciencia, Museos e Imperio-Nación. El artículo propone una primera lectura desde las condiciones de obtención de los dos restos, enfatizando los múltiples regímenes de objetivación por los que han pasado; desde el intercambio de armas en el contexto de las guerras coloniales; su negociación como artículos de colección científica; y finalmente, los recientes debates sobre la humanización de la Antropología y la repatriación de antepasados desaparecidos.

Los camélidos sudamericanos han sido uno de los recursos de mayor importancia desde la llegada de los primeros humanos al continente, registrándose su domesticación para los Andes centro-sur alrededor de 4400-3000 aP. Las investigaciones realizadas en la región Chaco-Santiagueña para la etapa Agroalfarera (350 dC hasta la conquista española en el siglo dieciséis) en su mayoría han interpretado la presencia o ausencia de la especie doméstica de camélidos Lama glama a partir de fuentes etnohistóricas o por consideraciones eto-ecológicas. Sin embargo, con el avance de los estudios zooarqueológicos en la región, asignamos por técnicas osteométricas y análisis estadísticos multivariados especímenes al taxón L. glama para un sitio Agroalfarero tardío (ca. 1200-1500 dC). En este trabajo se incorporan sitios de toda la secuencia Agroalfarera y de distintas zonas geográficas de la región Chaco-Santiagueña con el fin de diferenciar especies de camélidos. A partir de los resultados se interpreta el posible uso de camélidos silvestres y domesticados en la región desde los primeros grupos sedentarios. El uso de llamas podría haber sido una herramienta importante para el establecimiento de redes de interacción social a grandes distancias.

This article reviews the most relevant data regarding evidence of stress and disease in native populations from Southern Patagonia and proposes future directions for paleopathological research. It focuses on the disease patterns in hunter-gatherer societies and the changes produced by contact and colonization. Studies of oral pathologies show a high frequency of dental attrition and low frequency of caries and antemortem tooth loss. Individuals with terrestrial dietary patterns show evidence of higher mechanical stress in the spine than those who participated in marine economies, based on the prevalence of Schmorl's nodes and vertebral osteophytosis. Porotic hyperostosis is more prevalent in individuals who had a marine diet and is probably related to nutritional impairment and parasitic infections. A higher frequency of metabolic stress was identified in individuals who lived in missions, perhaps because of declining quality in diet, hygiene, and living conditions. Paleoparasitological studies identified several species of parasites associated with human skeletons and terrestrial fauna. Moreover, recent studies suggested that treponematosis and tuberculosis were present in Patagonia since at least 1000 years BP. Future paleopathological research should increase the size and quality of studied samples and apply new methods and interpretive criteria. Detailed research into infections, degenerative joint diseases, and trauma (including violence episodes) has rarely been conducted.

Se presentan los resultados del análisis de restos óseos y dentarios de micromamíferos (≤1 kg) recuperados en Vaquería Gruta 2 (VQG2), un sitio arqueológico localizado en el piedemonte alto de la precordillera de Mendoza (Argentina) con dataciones correspondientes al Holoceno tardío. Estos resultados se comparan con aquellos reportados para conjuntos óseos de micromamíferos cordilleranos del Centro-Occidente Argentino. Se realizó un análisis tafonómico para aproximarse a los posibles agentes acumuladores del conjunto óseo, sobre la base de abundancias relativas, patrones de fractura y digestión. Se analizaron variables orientadas a evaluar la actividad antrópica, tales como huellas de corte y termoalteraciones. Los resultados también se compararon con valores reportados en estudios tafonómicos actualísticos regionales para distintos depredadores. El análisis tafonómico permitió determinar que fueron aves rapaces los agentes responsables de la acumulación ósea recuperada en VQG2. Esta misma fue producto, probablemente, de una acumulación mixta. Asimismo, se realizó un análisis de la composición taxonómica de VQG2. Tanto la presencia de especies extirpadas en el registro arqueológico (Reithrodon auritus) como la mayor diversidad y equitatividad en dicho registro, en comparación con los ensambles actuales de micromamíferos, permiten pensar en un escenario de mayor heterogeneidad ambiental durante el Holoceno tardío, con mayor disponibilidad de parches de recursos que en el presente.