Taperinha Amazonian pottery
Cerámica amazónica de Taperinha
- Date
- c. 5500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Taperinha, Santarém, Pará, Brazil
- Credited to
- Fishers and foragers of the lower Amazon
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Vessels tempered with sand and shell found in a river shell midden, the oldest pottery in the Americas. It shows that pottery-making arose here among sedentary fishers, not among farmers.
Dates published by Roosevelt (1991); some authors place the most reliable ones around 5000 BCE. An independent invention from the pottery traditions of East Asia and Africa.
What it led to
- pottery traditions of the Caribbean and northern South America (San Jacinto, Puerto Hormiga)
- the storage and cooking of aquatic foods
- a revision of the idea of a 'pristine' Amazonia without complex societies