Inhabitation and environment in the Guianas between 10.000 and 1.000 BP

Aad H. Versteeg

This text can be used, if properly cited. The correct citation is: Versteeg, A.H., 1998. Inhabitation and environment in the Guianas between 10.000 and 1.000 BP. Paper presented at the Seminaire Atelier Peuplements anciens et actuels des Forêts tropicales, 16 octobre 1998. Laboratoire Ermes/Orstom, Orléans, France

Inhabitation and environment in the Guianas between 10.000 and 1.000 BP

Aad H. Versteeg

The hunters (paleo-indians)

The first inhabitants of the northern part of South America were megafauna hunters in West Venezuela, to the west of the Guiana Shield (Figure 1). The belonged to the El Jobo Culture, dated between ca 14.000 and 12.000 BP. Two other, similar Paleo-indian Cultures exist in this part of the world: the Canaima Culture in the Upper Caroni in East Venezuela , and the Sipaliwini Culture in the south of Surinam (Boomert, 1980). These three Cultures share the use of bifacial projectile points with a length of 7 - 10 cm.

In the Guianas,the artefacts left by the Canaima and Sipaliwini hunters have mainly been found in open, deforested, environments, that is, in savannas. Several data suggest that, about 10.000 years ago, a relatively dry climatic phase developed. This phase is characterized by a more or less uninterrupted belt of savannas between the coastal region of East Venezuela and the South of Guiana, Suriname and French Guiana. These paleo-indian sites have not been found in the tropical forest.

Two phases can be distinguished in the Sipaliwini Culture: a older phase of hunters of Late- Pleistocene game (such as mammoths, mastodons, and megatheriums), and a more recent phase of hunters of smaller animals like deer. The traces consist of chipped stone tools (especially stemmed projectile points [Figure 2], or concave ones [Figure 3] and knives [Figure 4] , and waste fragments. The sites are workshops where the tools were made (Figure 5) .

By consequence, one finds there waste fragments of the chipping process and rejected tools. These sites are interesting, but limited in information. The situation is different in the savannas of East Venezuela, for instance in the Canaima site Tupuken. Charcoal has been dated that originates from the level where also bones of megafauna and stone tools were met. The Tupuken material serves as a reference for the classification of similar toolkits from other sites (Versteeg & Bubberman, 1992).

The tools suggest that the open savannas were the most important activity zones of the hunters. It is certain that they expanded the savanna area by the use of fire. The collection of fruits, nuts, and other vegetal resources probably was concentrated in forest areas not far from the savannas. The Canaima and Sipaliwini Cultures are dated from the 11th and 10th millennium BP on.

The gatherers (meso-indians)

The first meso-indian (or archaic) gatherers of the Alaka culture appear in the coastal area of Northwest Guiana for the first time around the ninth millennium BP (Figure 6) . The Alaka sites are shell-mounds (sambaquis), that manifest themselves as hills in the flat, coastal landscape. Most of them are a few meters high; the living floors were raised in several steps as the surface of the mound were raised (Evans & Meggers, 1960).

The inhabitants exploited the shell-fish reserves present west of the Essequibo River. The coastal waters between the Essequibo and the Amazon with too much clay suspension (and perhaps also too much fresh water) to offer a favourable habitat for large quantities of edible shellfish. Also, this part of the coast is poor in shellfish (Versteeg & Bubberman, 1992).

Thirty Alaka mounds exist in the fresh-water and brackish coastal swamps of the North West and Pomeroon Districts of Guiana). Small-scale excavations have been done in some of these sites. Nerita shells (Puperita pupa) and crabs were important components of the diet around 6000 BP in the Barabina Hill site. Hunting, fishing, and the consumption of products derived from the Mauritia palm (Mauritia flexuosa) complemented this diet. This site was inhabited during several centuries (Williams, 1985).

According to the collected evidence, these sites were the first permanently inhabited villages in the Guianas. Evidently, the shellfish, in combination with fish and crab, supplied enough protein for permanent residence. In addition, the coastal habitat is rich in other subsistence means, such as plants and fruits. Several ecological zones could be exploited together. Near to each other fresh water, brackish and saltwater biotopes occur here, and each biotope harbours its own flora and fauna.

The Alaka Culture people lived for thousands of years in the coastal area of Guiana up to ca 3000 BP. This latter date was obtained at the Hosororo Creek site, where non-decorated pottery was found. There is no evidence for agriculture, and shellfish still was the most important food item (Williams, 1988). Recently, some investigators have proposed to revise these datings. The coarse Alaka pottery resembles that of the ceramic Taperinha Culture of the Lower Amazon, dated between 6000 and 7000 BP. In spite of the fact that such early dating have not been obtained for the Guiana sites, some consider the age of the pottery of Alaka et Taparinha as more or less similar (Roosevelt, 1991; Boomert, manuscrit, 1991).

The farmers (Neo-indians)

The first cultures of farmers/pottery makers in the Guianas originate from and have their roots in the area of the Middle and Upper Orinoco. Four Cultures (or Traditions) are distinguished: Proto-Saladoid, Saladoid, Barrancoid and Arauquinoid. I use as examples sites from Suriname because I know these from studies I did in that country in the Seventies.

The oldest site is Kaurikreek, in East Suriname (Figure 7) . The pottery has some Saladoid aspects (the adornos, (Figure 8) , but its style is essentially Proto-Saladoid (Figure 9) . This style has parallels in early sites of the Upper and Middle Orinoco. The Kaurikreek site is situated in the middle of the forest, on the banks of a small creek, exactly at the border of the coastal plain and Pleistocene sands. The site is dated ca 3000 years BP (Versteeg, 1985). One cannot decide whether the Kaurikreek inhabitants were good navigators, that means as well Indians of the forest as of the river. One can reach the Corantijn River within some hours by canoe or by walking.

This is a totally different situation as that of the Saladoid site at Wonotobo. Located on the east bank of the Corantijn River, this site has an ideal location for the exploitation of the resources of the large river and of the forest. The most important means of transport of these Indians certainly was the canoe (Figure 10) . The Saladoid villages probably consisted of large malocas (Figure 11) built around a ceremonial plaza. The Wonotobo site yielded Saladoid pottery (Figure 12) . It was inhabited during the first centuries of our era (a radiocarbon dating suggests ca 1900 BP).

The later Barrancoid and Arauquinoid sites have the same size as the Saladoid ones. These villages were built up in the coastal swamps of Suriname and Guiana. They were inhabited from ca 300 AD on (Barrancoid), the Arauquinoid ones from ca 600 AD on. The latter sites probably were inhabited until the colonial era. These sites were situated on cheniers (ancient sand ridges) or they were - in the areas without cheniers - arteficial clay mounds (Figure 13) in the fresh-water coastal swamps (Versteeg, 1992). The canoe was also important for these swamp-inhabitants. The diameter of the mounds, and of the villages, varies between 100 and 200 m, and their height between 1 m and 2.50 m. Cassava or maize agriculture was practised on arteficially raised field, in the swamps near the mounds.

This type of well-drained, raised field permits permanent agriculture (Figure 14). The same adaptation is found in Guiana and in French Guyana, but all raised field in Suriname and French Guiana occurring east of the Coppename River are associated with chenier-sites, not with arteficial mounds Arauquinoid sites are found in the coastal area of the Guianas between the Orinoco and Cayenne. In contrast, the oldest Proto-Saladoid sites, the Saladoid and Barrancoid sites are found only in East Venezuela, in Guiana and in East Suriname.

The most important is that the population of the Guianas during the Paleo-indian and Meso-indian periods seem to limit themselves to the exploitation of one main landscape zone In the later Neo-indian period, villages were built in different landscapes and environments: in the coastal areas, on the banks of the large rivers, but also in the middle of the forest. In the same period marginal villages existed in or near the savanna areas. It is evident that, after the early, formative Neo-indian period, the cassava farmers of the Guianas were able to live nearly everywhere in this part of northern South America.

For the aknowledgements and references cited, see the french version of this paper.

Last update July 2000