Mobility and Territorial Occupation of the Asurini do Xingu, Pará, Brazil: An Archaeology of the Recent Past in the Amazon

Abstract

In recent decades, archaeology has provided evidence of the diverse nature of colonialism as well as of the specific local histories associated with this globalizing process. Archaelogists have also investigated the strategies of interaction and resistance adopted by indigenous peoples when faced with attempts at economic, political, and social domination. This article presents data about the dynamics of mobility and territorial occupation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries of the Asurini do Xingu, an indigenous group living on the middle Xingu River in the Amazon rainforest, in the southern portion of the Brazilian state of Pará. We show that these dynamics represent a conscious and strategic choice by the Asurini to preserve their way of life in the face of colonialism and the expansion of capitalism.