Large funeral urns found on artificial island in the Amazon

The fall of a large Amazonian tree, in a small community of riverside and indigenous people in the middle Solimões River , ended up revealing large funerary urns. The find is considered unprecedented by archaeologists who are on the front lines of rescue and research work.

The tree fell, and the urns were exposed in the community of São Lázaro do Arumandubinha, which is located in a preserved region of the Amazon . The nearest city is Fonte Boa (AM) , a place where there are no roads and can only be reached by water.

The rescue of two large urns – the largest has a 90 cm mouth and is 55 cm long – and five smaller urns was a delicate task, because the pieces were moved by the tree roots, and the opening of the urns was displaced from vertical to horizontal. Some of the pieces were fractured. The archaeologists had direct participation from members of the community.

As a scientific precaution, the team involved, which is part of the archaeology group at the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development , does not risk saying which historical period the urns belong to, or whether the pieces could be linked, for example, to the Polychrome Tradition of the Amazon.

In the Polychrome Tradition, very common in archaeological findings in the middle Solimões River, the application of colors in ceramics dates back to a period from 800 AD until the arrival and occupation of the Portuguese in the Amazon, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

There are indications that the urns may be hundreds or thousands of years old, providing further evidence of the widespread indigenous occupation of the Brazilian Amazon.

The place where the pieces were found — there were bones inside the urns, most likely human bones — is one of the 70 artificial islands identified by the archaeology group at the Mamirauá Institute. These islands may be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, according to researchers. They were built by populations in floodplain areas to consolidate dry land and settle.

According to archaeologists, the islands involve sophisticated indigenous engineering, in which material removed from other parts is mixed with ceramic fragments for support. The current traditional populations that occupy these islands, which can measure up to 400 m long and 80 m wide, call the places "terrados" or "cavados".

"Without a shadow of a doubt, this is ancient and indigenous material," says archaeologist Márcio Amaral, from the Mamirauá Institute group. "Carbon-14 dating will determine the date of these pieces," says archaeologist Geórgea Holanda Araújo, who is part of the same group. The two are on the front lines of work on the archaeological find.

The researchers claim that the urns contained elements that refer to funerary rituals – the very presence of smaller urns, accompanying the larger ones containing the bones, would be an indication in this sense. Outside the vases, charcoal, seeds and bones of fish, turtles and frogs were found.

Vases with an expanded mouth and large volume, like those found, are considered unique by archaeologists from the Mamirauá Institute who work in western Amazonia.

The pieces were taken to a laboratory at the institute in Tefé (AM), and an analysis will be carried out in search of answers about the archaeological find.

For example, the fact that the urns lack formal clay lids could indicate that the pieces are not as old as the artificial islands found in the Amazon region. But researchers believe that the lids were woven, and that the pots were contemporary with the island. The urns would have been buried under the floor of a house, a common method in the Amazon in the past.

"The region where the urns were found is a complex of archaeological sites. There are two sites nearby. This indicates that it was a highly populated area," says Márcio. "It takes a lot of people to build these islands, which have different anthropic vegetation, with fruit trees, medicinal trees and palm trees. The Amazon rainforest is an indigenous construction."

According to Geórgea, the methodology used to remove the ballot boxes was unique. "There was a protagonism of the people of the community. And two months of prior planning."

It is common for riverside dwellers and indigenous people from the middle Solimões to find archaeological pieces in the communities and surrounding areas, an indication that the forest region was densely populated before Portuguese colonization.

In the Porto Praia de Baixo indigenous land – an undemarcated territory on the banks of the Solimões River, near Tefé, which suffered from extreme drought in 2023 and 2024 – the indigenous people discovered an archaeological site when they were preparing to collect Brazil nuts. They found pots, lids, pieces of pottery and other items from a distant daily life.

At the end of 2019, the Mamirauá Institute research group analyzed four collections of 65 artifacts stored in the community's homes. In the group's report, from February 2020, the conclusion is that the discovery "is proof that this region was previously occupied by the people who produced archaeological ceramics belonging to the Tefé phase."

The aforementioned phase, according to the report, is associated with the Polychrome Tradition of the Amazon.

In 2018, seven funerary urns from the Polychrome Tradition were removed from the Tauary community, located in the Tefé National Forest. At Ufopa (Federal University of Western Pará), in Santarém (PA), there were in-depth analyses of the ceramics and human remains. The urns returned to Tefé in April of this year.

In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the northwest of Amazonas, archaeologists have found evidence of a densely populated region with an ancient and continuous presence of traditional populations – for at least 2,000 years – and which was decisive for the occupation of the rest of the Amazon. The region is located on the upper Rio Negro.

After two excavation processes in 2019 and 2022, Parinã (Intercultural Archaeological Program of the Northwest Amazon) prepared the first reports on the pieces found – mainly ceramic fragments – in the backyard of ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation) and in the diocese square.

The excavations were concentrated in two pieces of land measuring one square meter each, to a depth of 80 cm. From there, 12,127 objects were removed, mainly fragments of ceramics (9,114) and lithic material, that is, stones with some type of cutting (2,881 objects). Among the fragments are pieces associated with the Polychrome Tradition of the Amazon.

Some pieces show signs of the use of stamps to print graphic elements. The material was compared to the ceramics that continue to be produced by the indigenous people of the region. "It is very likely that part of the archaeological site can be directly associated with the Tukanos and Baniwas," states a preliminary report.