Hi hi, guys! What’s up? In today’s vídeo we are going to talk a little bit about The Umbu Tradition, one of the material cultures that stands out the most when we study Brazil’s pre-colonial history.
We have a lot of interesting content prepared for you. So let’s just start the video! To begin, we need to situate ourselves in space-time.
The Umbu Tradition is situated in the paleoindian of brazilian prehistory. We use this term to refer to the early period of the occupation of America and the survival of typical megafauna of the american Pleistocene. Dated around 12 thousand and 8 thousand years BP (before present), it is characterized by the variety of the adaptation and occupation of territory techniques, which happened in different ways and periods.
And there’s where our Tradition begins. According to Bueno e Silva, the occupation of the brazilian territory happened in 3 different waves he oldest one, between 12 thousand and 11 thousand years BP occupied the Rainforest and the Cerrado The most recent one, from 8 thousand years BP, marks the beginning of the human occupation in the coastal plain. Between them, there’s the wave that occupied the far southern part of the continent, from Bacia da Prata to northbound and the Atlantic coast.
The most moderate weather, with no severe seasonal variations, nd the ecological diversity due to the Rainforest, have contributed to the Umbu Tradition hunter-gatherers’ establishment who have developed generic strategies of resources exploitation, marking a cultural divergence with the pampeans contexts. In other words, the occupation by the Umbu Tradition started in Rio Grande do Sul and then dispersed in the rest of the region till the south part of the state of São Paulo, and there are still groups found in Uruguayan territories who have belonged to the same tradition. The oldest group of evidence of the Umbu Tradition in the south of Brazil is related to the Pampa biome and it’s represented by two outdoor sites Laranjito and Milton Almeida, with dates between 10.
800 and 10. 200 years BP They’ve been present in the most different surroundings, like shelters in caves, outdoor sites or Cerritos (landfill sites in wetlands). About the eating habits, there isn’t a lot of information.
The existent ones show us that mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and mollusks have been part of their diet. Just like coco palms from their own regions. But, this society’s key feature was definitely the lithic industry technology.
Based on the use of stones – like sandstone, basalt, chalcedony and quartz – to produce arrow and spear projectile points, this points production is predominantly characterized by the direct unipolar percussion by pressure. There are cases such as chalcedony and quartz heads that have been chipped with bipolar percussion in their entirety though. Anyways, how has this term Umbu Tradition appeared?
As many denominations in history, this characterization has only happened years after its existence. The PRONAPA [National Program of Archeological Research], created between 1965 and 1970, has had as one of its goals to organize and establish a chronological scheme of Brazil’s cultural development. The creation of the term “tradition” remits to the studies of the program to understand the diversity of the archeological artefacts.
According to the glossary used by the PRONAPA itself, “tradition” is defined by “a group of elements or techniques that distribute themselves with temporal persistence. ” Since the new discoveries of sites with bifacial points, archeologists created new traditions, such as the Umbu Tradition that we are studying about now. At first, the Umbu Tradition used to be distributed more exclusively in the south region of Brazil, although, along the years, despite the tries of naming the morphology diversity of the points, there had been an hegemony of the using term “Umbu Tradition”.
This way, regardless of the region, temporary cut or morphology, the archeological sites have been usually described as belonging to Umbu Tradition. It has made groups that don’t have, necessarily, close characteristics to the tradition as expected, categorized as the same ones, like putting all of them together. Which might result in an erasure of other cultures and traditions that might have existed and since they’re not really thoroughly studied, end up being classified as Umbu Tradition This way, there are some problems with the use of the term “Umbu Tradition” in a widespread way, as it has been done.
The long geographic distribution, temporal range and different demographic and cultural factors mean a variety of forms of the bifacial points, therefore, a greater diversity in the cultures and people in the region. It doesn’t mean the term “Umbu Tradition” needs to be put aside when we talk about these groups that are outside the curve. However, it’s necessary a more detailed study of these points' morphology to verify their variations according to their space and time.
We’ve found a concentration of lithic material or spear from the south region to Rio Claro, countryside of São Paulo. The stone projectiles located in this area have been associated with the Umbu Tradition. But different morphological characteristics have been exposed on a comparative study with more than a thousand points.
An example of this points generalization has been pointed in the archeologist Mercedes Okumura’s archeological researches while analyzing the differences between the points from São Paulo and Santa Catarina. The projectiles from Rio Claro have bigger and sharper peduncles and their outlines remind the letter “v”, with rods that on overage measure 1. 7 centimeters.
However the points that have been found in the south region of the country have smaller and bifurcated rods in their own way, like a fish tail. Its rod, which is the base for the cutting side, might measure between 0. 9 and 1.
1 centimeters. The points are similar in size of the piercing part of the projectiles, that on overage measure between 2. 5 and 3 centimeters.
Besides that, both work as hunting weapons. The different peduncles characteristics might show different groups or tribes’ cultural markers. Therefore, according to some studies, artefacts that have been found in the south region might be part of the Umbu Tradition, but the projectiles from São Paulo are not necessarily so.
The points from the countryside of São Paulo may also be classified as the Rio Claro phase, which means they might even be a different manifestation of the Umbu Tradition. The importance of more specific analysis of the points associated with this material group gets more evident. These lithic points made by the Umbus might be used in 3 different kinds of hunting weapons.
Divided by weight and size, they’re distinguished in: Spears: the biggest and heaviest points. Darts: average size points. Arrows: lighter and smaller points.
When it comes to the dispersion of the Umbu Tradition othing can be accurately mentioned. According to NOELLI (2000), the most recent dates imply that the territorial expansion process of the Kaingang, Xokleng and Guarani people has been gradually compressing and confining the Umbu Tradition people to specific territories, making pockets on the plateaus, where there are even 600 years old data. Probably, some territories got to maintain some autonomy, but it’s not possible to state that Umbu Tradition groups got to have any contact with white men around 1.
600 or were completely assimilated by these native groups. Well, and this was today’s video, guys! It was just a little bit of the huge diversity of existing materials about the Umbu Tradition studies, which stands out so much when we study the material culture of the southern region of Brazil.
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