South Africa Today, News source, provides breaking news on South Africa, world, Africa, sport, travel and more.
Public health graduates: How they can alleviate the burden on SA…A professor at the University of Florida, Michael Heckenberger has been visiting and studying Indigenous peoples at the Upper Xingu River for decades and says the Amazon is already facing its tipping point: “It’s a tipping event.”
The Kuikuro used to live in clusters of settlements, protected by palisades and ditches, surrounded by canals, bridges and ponds, connected by an impressive network of roads. While only a few thousand Kuikuro remain today, these “garden cities” of the Upper Xingu were once home to more than 50,000 people and maybe twice that many in 1492.
Researchers Michael Heckenberger and Helena Pinto Lima, from the Goeldi Museum and director of the Kuikuro Ethnoarchaeological Project of the Upper Xingu. Image courtesy of Estevão da Silva/AIKAX Portal.Several reasons. One of them being social. During the COVID pandemic it was very difficult to visit the Kuikuro, with whom I’ve lived with many times over the last 30 years. So, one reason was to see my Kuikuro family.
Mongabay: The Kuikuro live in the Xingu Indigenous Park in the northeastern corner of Mato Grosso state, which in those days must have been widely surrounded by rainforest. How is the situation today?The Upper Xingu, referring to the headwaters of the Xingu River, was remote from colonial settlers, a somewhat forgotten region. The town nearest to the park was only created in the late 1970s. There was a push to open up the region in the 1980s.
Helena Lima, Bruno Moraes, and Nilson Ramos of the Museu Goeldi conducting initial equipment training with Kuikuro Indigenous people in the Ipatse village. Image courtesy of Estevão da Silva/AIKAX Portal.As an archaeologist, I focus on the past. The direct ancestors of the Kuikuro and other Indigenous peoples supported large populations in the past, not by workingthe environment.
But archaeology is not just about the past and present. It is also about the future, what I call ‘an archaeology of hope.’ The way people dealt with the environment in the past can be an inspiration for the future, while at the same time, proactive responses to changing conditions by local communities, finding alternative local solutions, and valorizing past cultural heritage.
The Upper Xingu is an incredible millennial landscape where people still live in the same houses, around the same plazas, with the same feasts, the same dances, as their ancestors. Their ancestors only did so on a much bigger scale. Before the European conquest, there were tens of thousands of people, at least 50,000 and perhaps many more, in these clusters of settlements, surrounded by moats and palisades, interconnected by a network of roads.
There are 16 groups living in the park, totaling some 7,000 people. Roughly half of both the villages and the people in the park are Xinguano peoples, like the Kuikuro, who are the direct linear descendants of the cultural tradition we archaeologists have traced back thousands of years.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Africa Fact of the Day: South Africa wins big at the 2023 World Travel AwardsAfrica Fact of the Day features the most wonderful and weird facts about the history and culture of the African Continent.
Read more »
South Africa: The Lottery - a South African Good News StoryWill there also be a good news story about Metrorail?
Read more »
Engen Boosts Mason Lincoln Special School’s Hospitality UnitSouth Africa Today, News source, provides breaking news on South Africa, world, Africa, sport, travel and more.
Read more »
Mall hands over play gym to creche as extension of birthday festivitiesSouth Africa Today, News source, provides breaking news on South Africa, world, Africa, sport, travel and more.
Read more »
IDF to come across unseen horror during ground operation in GazaSouth Africa Today, News source, provides breaking news on South Africa, world, Africa, sport, travel and more.
Read more »
US, Allies Use Civilian Infrastructure in Outer Space for Military PurposesSouth Africa Today, News source, provides breaking news on South Africa, world, Africa, sport, travel and more.
Read more »