Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia
The Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia appeared in 1991, replacing three extinct titles due to the merger of research institutions in the areas of Archaeology and Ethnology: Revista Dédalo, Revista de Pré-História e Revista do Museu Paulista. The Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia is an academic journal for the publication of works on Archaeology, Ethnology and Museology, and in 2016, the Revista de Arqueologia e Etnologia became on-line only, semiannual and all previous printed numbers were digitized and made available in open access through Portal de Revistas USP Site.
Universidade de São Paulo. Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia
Interview with Professor Petya Ilieva Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology, Faculty Member
The interview presents Petya Ilieva’s academic trajectory and her research on the North Aegean, highlighting the re-evaluation of materials from earlier excavations and the study of cultural dynamics in Aegean Thrace. It emphasises the importance of documenting, publishing, and interpreting existing archaeological heritage, as well as critical approaches to Greek colonisation, cultural coexistence, and the role of local populations in shaping Mediterranean dynamics.
Copyright (c) 2026 Petya Ilieva, Juliana Figueira da Hora; Guilherme Diogo Rodrigues https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Contacts and networks in the Mediterranean: the northern Aegean from a local, regional, and global perspective.
This dossier brings together a set of contributions dedicated to the analysis of dynamics of contact, connectivity, and cultural transformation in the ancient Mediterranean, with particular emphasis on the Northern Aegean region. Drawing on different approaches and types of evidence, the studies presented here explore the complexity of interactions between Greek populations and local communities, highlighting processes of negotiation, hybridity, and identity formation over time. The choice of the Northern Aegean as the central axis of this dossier stems from its historical relevance as a zone of intense circulation of people, objects, and practices, visible in the material record, including ceramics, coins, inscriptions, cult spaces, and settlement contexts, which attest to multifaceted interactions since the Bronze Age. Far from representing unilateral configurations, these contexts reveal a dense web of interactions in which local agents played an active role in the appropriation, reinterpretation, and transformation of cultural elements. Inspired by recent debates in Mediterranean archaeology, the dossier engages with theoretical and methodological perspectives that emphasize the analysis of materiality in context, the agency of objects, and the articulation of different scales of observation. In this sense, concepts such as connectivity, networks, localism, and glocalization provide tools to rethink the relationship between the local and the global, moving beyond explanatory models based on fixed hierarchies or exclusively diffusionist interpretations. By foregrounding postcolonial approaches and the centrality of local dynamics, the contributions in this volume participate in the revision of traditional interpretations that have long privileged a Hellenocentric perspective. In its place, a more plural and situated reading is proposed, attentive to regional specificities and to the multiple forms of cultural interaction in the ancient Mediterranean. Organized within the framework of research developed at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo (MAE-USP), this dossier is directly connected to the project “Studies on the Global and Local in the Northern Aegean: Interconnections, Hybridization, Materialities and Transformation in a Religious Context (8th–5th centuries BCE),” funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), process no. 2024/15679-3, under the Young Investigator grant scheme. Linked to the activities of the Laboratory for Studies on the Ancient City (Labeca-MAE/USP), the project proposes the development of an innovative research agenda on the Northern Aegean, combining contemporary theoretical approaches, such as glocalism, connectivity, and postcolonial perspectives, with the systematic analysis of material culture, epigraphy, and archaeological data. In this context, the present dossier brings together national and international specialists, reflecting the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of the initiative and consolidating a field of research still underexplored in Brazilian scholarship on the ancient Mediterranean. By articulating different perspectives, scales, and bodies of evidence, this volume proposes to reflect on the Mediterranean as a space of networks and connections, in which local experiences not only participate in, but also actively transform broader processes of circulation and interaction.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Beatriz Borba Florenzano, Guilherme Diogo Rodrigues, Juliana Figueira da Hora https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Dionysian axis: death, initiation and ritual performance at the western gates of Thasos.
This article analyzes the monumental gates on the western portion of the ancient wall of Thasos, arguing that they are not isolated defensive structures but components of a coherent ‘sacred axis’. Based on an approach that integrates iconographic and epigraphic analysis with topographical contextualization, the study focuses on the Gate of Heracles and Dionysus and the Gate of the Silenus. It is demonstrated that the arrangement of these gates, adjacent to the main necropolis, materializes a spatial narrative that manages the symbolic transition between the world of the living and the dead. While the iconography of Heracles assumes an apotropaic function, facing outwards, the figures of the Dionysian entourage (Dionysus, maenads, and the Silenus) are depicted in processions entering the city, symbolizing the triumph of life, ecstasy, and the soteriological promise over death. The article concludes that this axis is founded on a ‘mystical brotherhood’ between Heracles and Dionysus, both initiates with experience in katabasis (the descent into the underworld), qualifying them as guardians of the passage. Thus, lived religion functioned as an ‘urbanizing’ force, actively shaping the built environment to support a complex system of beliefs about initiation and salvation.
Copyright (c) 2026 Guilherme Rodrigues https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Contribution of epigraphy to the study of borders in the Ancient World: Thasos in the Archaic and Classical periods.
In the light of the most recent discussions of the concept of frontier in Antiquity, this article presents an original translation and interpretation in Portuguese of three epigraphic documents, the Stele from the Harbour, the Stele from Aliki and the Laws concerning Wine and Vinegar, dated around the 5th century BC, and through them, the functions performed by the control of land paths – streets and roads – and the sea in the polis of Thasos in archaic and classical periods. Although dealing individually with different subjects, the intersections of the documents are highlighted in its various aspects, pointing out to the importance of the sea, the ways borders were established through paths and streets and how those also helped regulate daily life and space, with the mingles of the public and private spheres and its legal complexity, especially concerning private property and public health. Enriching even more the scene of an important Mediterranean polis, it is unveiled how the control imposed by this society on paths acted in the social organization and its materialization, establishing an integration, articulation and fluidity of borders between the different polis’ spaces: public, private and sacred, from labour world to that of fruition, capable of providing contact between Greeks and non-Greeks, the inhabitants of the urban area and the countryside, men and women, citizens, free men and slaves.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniela Bessa Puccini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Roman Public Baths: a brief architectural and social overview
Bathing practices in Roman public establishments comprised a long period of time during which they were transformed, incorporating new dimensions and activities, diversifying their clientele, and going far beyond mere hygiene. The apex of this process was the great imperial baths of the third century, but their success did not entail the disappearance of the small baths that we can call “neighbourhood baths”, which continued to attract huge numbers in the hundreds of establishments recorded by the written sources. These multiple experiences are materialised in the buildings that housed them, whose traces have come down to us in varying states of preservation, and in some cases, not even that. Understanding the variety of possibilities offered to bathers in Rome in the first centuries of our era implies going beyond examining the grandiose ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. The systematic study of thermal architecture is fundamental to the comprehension of the process of implantation and transformation of this typically Roman practice, and for many decades it was practically the only approach scholars adopted. However, the mere description of the sequence of rooms, and of the technical advances that made their remarkable evolution possible, does not manage to cover the diverse possibilities of this daily experience. It is necessary to resort to the written sources, and epigraphy, for the missing elements in order to reach what lay at its centre: the bather. To do so implies taking risks, certainly, because each category has limitations of imprecision, contradiction, and incompleteness. But it is in this confrontation that our best chance of approaching the most complete experience lies.
Copyright (c) 2026 Claudia Gradim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Tracing north Aegean amphora workshops: the case of Akanthos
This article explores the potential of studies on amphora workshops in northern Aegean. Indeed, amphorae have always been studied as carriers of information about trade routes, the organization and internal structures of societies, and also the participants in these routes. In this article, the author seeks to demonstrate how the analysis of material evidence recovered during excavations at amphora workshops can shed new light on local economies and their interactions with more distant markets. In addition to a general introduction to the topic, he explores the case of the amphorae of Akanthos in detail.
Akanthos; Economy and society in the northern Aegean
Copyright (c) 2026 Kostas Filis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Colonies, caves and worship in North Aegean
The intensification of archaeological fieldwork and research in northern Greece since the late 20th century has yielded significant new data to the region’s archaeological record, sparking renewed scholarly debates about the North Aegean’s archaeological landscape and particularly the Greek colonisation process. While the significance of religion and sanctuary establishment has been discussed in the context of colonies in Italy and Sicily, this paper examines two northern Aegean case studies: the Drakotrypa Cave on Thasos island and the Cave of the Nymphs at Nea Herakleitsa on the opposite mainland coast. Recent excavations at these cult caves provide compelling evidence that both extra-urban sanctuaries were established within the first generations of their respective colonial settlements. This chronological correlation suggests these sacred sites played an integral role in the early phase of territorial organization, potentially serving as markers of colonial authority and spatial control structures in newly acquired territories.
Copyright (c) 2026 Fotis Georgiadis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Religion in Upper Macedonia during the Antiquity. Contacts and Reaction
The region of Upper Macedonia (Macedonia’s north-western extremity, which was frequently referred to in ancient sources) became a field of controversy, fusions and syncretism over the course of its history due to its distinct geographical location and the diversity of its population. The region consisted of a mainly rural population despite having some urban centers. This population maintained its tribal and cultural characteristics until Late Antiquity. Sanctuary locations follow the general geographical distribution of cities and settlements. According to the present excavation data, these sanctuaries do not display monumentality, which is a characteristic of the Macedonian region. Upper Macedonia, secluded and mountainous, occupied a distinct geographical location, which to some extent justifies its population diversity. For these reasons it became a field of cultural controversy, fusion, and syncretism over the course of its history. The research and presentation of the cults of the extreme northwestern part of Macedonia, an area with indigenous population and foreign elements, complements the picture of the religious beliefs of the inhabitants of the northern part of Greece, as they were formed during the Hellenistic and, mainly, the Roman period.
Copyright (c) 2026 Kalliopi Chatzinikolaou https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Dakar, a hub of the African art market? Senegalese art dealers at the crossroads of worlds
This article examines the place of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, in the history of the so-called traditional African art market. Based on ethnographic and historical data, it describes the role played by Senegalese antiquaries in establishing transnational networks, at both intracontinental and intercontinental scales. Furthermore, it questions the specificities of the Senegalese market, particularly its pan-African perspectives, the essentialist or ethnicist biases it conveys, and the antiquaries relationship with Islam.
Copyright (c) 2025 Julien Bondaz; Denise Dias Barros, Rosa Cavalcanti Ribas Vieira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Among Dialogues, Trajectories, and Artistic Reinventions from Dakar
The dossier discusses Senegalese artistic expressions that emerged from the city of Dakar or in dialogue with it, highlighting connections, contradictions, disputes, movements, and interregional reinventions. It brings together contributions from the 1st International Seminar Affluences dans les arts depuis Dakar, with a focus on the integration of local and external legacies, exchanges between African artists and institutions, and the influence of Senegalese creative production in Brazil, France, and beyond. It analyzes the role of cultural dynamics, collections, festivals, exhibitions, and curatorial practices in shaping art and museums, as well as the relevance of the 2023 and 2025 São Paulo Biennials for contemporary African presence, with particular emphasis on Senegalese participation. The dossier also discusses the centrality of Dakar as a hub of artistic production and circulation, highlighting the role of Léopold Sédar Senghor in consolidating debates on Negritude, Pan-Africanism, and the independence of former French colonies. It further addresses the impact of journals and festivals, such as the World Festival of Black Arts and the Pan-African Festival of Algiers. The processes of collecting, circulation, and commodification of African art are examined, as well as the creation of the Agit’art collective, which opposed official cultural policy. The text also highlights contemporary forms of resistance and critique, such as the RBS Crew collective, and the innovative role of artists (Dior Thiam, Alioune Diagne), curators (Koyo Kouoh), and choreographers (Germaine Acogny) in Senegalese and African arts. Finally, it underscores the vitality of the Senegalese presence at the São Paulo Biennials and the displacement of centers of production, circulation, and critique of African art, pointing to current epistemic challenges and transformations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rosa Cavalcanti Ribas Vieira, Denise Dias Barros https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Lapidis fata ignoramus: A re-examination of the Palmyrene funerary relief of the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)
The Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia of the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) possesses a Palmyrene funerary relief, which is one of the two pieces of its kind preserved in Latin America. This paper re-examines the relief through an iconographic, epigraphic, and prosopographical analysis. First, we offer data on the acquisition history of the piece, as well as an interpretation of its main iconographic elements. Secondly, the Palmyrene Aramaic epitaph of the relief (PAT 0650) is examined through its transliteration, translation, paleographic notes, and an onomastic analysis of each of the anthroponyms mentioned. Finally, a prosopographical commentary is offered based on the genealogical links of the epitaph with two other inscribed reliefs (PAT 0651 and PAT 0652).
Copyright (c) 2025 Ernesto Caveda de la Guardia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
To watch and heal: an analysis of the corinthian asklepieion’s location (5th-4th Centuries BC)
The article explores the juxtaposition between health, politics and the organization of space in classical Corinth through the study of the urban asklepieion’s location in the city landscape. It argues that the sanctuary was configured as both a place for health maintenance and political education, being part of a complex of buildings that provided opportunity for the care of the self to the visitors and the reinforcement of political values dear to the Corinthian elites.
Copyright (c) 2026 Mariana Figueiredo Virgolino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Representations of Hera in Argolis and Delos: between myth, cult and landscape
This text discusses Greek religion from two points of view. The first is the question of the relationship between myth and cult in the characterization of Greek religion – considering the bibliographical debates on the specificities and interface between these domains – and, in addition, the element of the sacred landscape between mythical formulations and cultic practices. The second, based on the debate on Greek religion between myth, cult and landscape, is the observation of cults and mythopoetic representations of Hera in two situations: in Argolid, especially in Argos, where the goddess was the tutelary divinity; and in Delos, where the cult of Hera was less important, but quite ancient. Based on these two sections, we will see how the relationship between myth and cult can help us understand certain landscape problems (between the local and regional perspective) and the need for specific approaches depending on the context studied.
Copyright (c) 2026 Gilberto da Silva Francisco https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Presentation of the dossier “Visions of Geoarchaeology in Latin America: papers presented at the 10th DIG-GEGAL
Copyright (c) 2025 Ximena Suárez Villagrán, Kelly Brandão, Mayara Mariano, Nicolás Batalla, Rosicler Theodoro da Silva, Júlio Cezar Rubin de Rubin, Michelle Mayumi Tizuka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The cultural biography of objects with inscriptions: a methodology for the study of social and cultural aspects of epigraphic practice
This paper proposes a discussion on specificities of epigraphic sources and the formation of Epigraphy as a scientific field. The aim is to propose a methodology for analysing Greek and Latin inscriptions which incorporates not only their texts, but also archaeological data relating to their material supports and information on their insertion on physical space. The argument is based on a critique of documentary forms, categories and biases formed by Epigraphy as a scientific field, from first descriptions made by Antiquarian research between the 16th and the 18th centuries to the formation of epigraphic corpora in the 19th century, as well as the expansion of the field in the 20th and 21st centuries. One of the documentary biases identified is the frequent tendency in dissociating the text of inscriptions from their material support. Alternatively, this paper proposes a methodology that involves both a model for organising and documenting information from objects with inscriptions and the investigation focused on five historical processes which characterise epigraphic practice (Conception, Elaboration, Construction, Placement and Resignification). This argues in favour of historicising inscriptions according to their particularities as textual and material sources as well as it indicates towards the investigation of social and cultural aspects of epigraphic practice.
Copyright (c) 2026 Felipe Perissato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Hip-hop graffiti and sociopolitical commitment in Senegal. Analysis of twomajor works by the urban artists’ collective RBS Crew
This article takes as its starting point the socio-political and contextual frameworks that give meaning to the content of two hip-hop graffiti murals produced by the RBS Crew artists' collective between 2018 and 2021. These two collectively produced works have a certain continuity and intertextuality with each other, critically questioning the neo-colonial relationships that the political elites, essentially, in power in Senegal have with their Western counterparts, while at the same time showing themselves to be violent towards their fellow citizens, whom they are supposed to be protecting. By taking on the role of voice-bearer for the people of Senegal, and indeed Africa and the oppressed in general, the artists are defining a conception of artistic practice based above all on socio-political commitment. The modus operandi used, which draws on a variety of registers (the worlds of cinema, literature, rap music, caricatures, etc.), is indicative of the artists' desire to draw on common but diverse references, some of which are simplified, in order to make their messages easier to decode and understand. In so doing, this ‘useful art’, which attempts to make messages more accessible and is opposed to a conception of ‘art for art's sake’ or, in other words, to a conception of an art-mystery, deeply and distinctively irrigates these graffiti worlds in Senegal. Such a conception about the arts leads us to rethink the modularity of hip-hop graffiti in the light of the type of objectives pursued by the artists according to the constraints of their production environments, as well as a hierarchization of the stakes underlying the creative process.
Copyright (c) 2025 Abdoulaye Niang https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Contemporary Insurgencies in Visual Poetics in the Art of Alioune Diagne and Dior Thiam
This article analyzes two contemporary artworks by Senegalese artists with significant international presence: Particles (2023), by Dior Thiam, presented at the 15th Dakar Biennale, and Bokk – Bounds (2024), by Alioune Diagne, exhibited at the Senegal Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale. The study investigates how both artists mobilize visual and symbolic resources to critique colonial legacies, historical violence, and exclusionary dynamics, each from distinct perspectives. Thiam, from a transnational and diasporic standpoint, articulates multiple African geographies. Diagne grounds his work in Senegalese everyday life. The research combines a comparative and transdisciplinary approach to aesthetic and documentary analysis, political contextualization, and curatorial interpretation, arguing that these works establish singular modes of visual resistance and memory reconfiguration. In doing so, it contributes to reflections on the intersections between art, history, and politics in contemporary Africa.
Copyright (c) 2025 Flavio da Silva Nogueira, Denise Dias Barros https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
From the Dakar world festival (1966) to the Pan-African Festival in Algiers (1969): tensions and invisibilisation of cultural worlds in political arenas.
This article reflects on the Dakar (1966) and Algiers (1969) festivals. There is a large body of literature on the impact of the two festivals, discussions between art, Blackness, Pan-Africanism, countless archives, newspaper materials, films, articles and books. Our proposal is to complement this, to read between the lines and consider the festivals as political arenas in a delimited space-time, almost total social facts. Our focus is on the nuances and criticisms written, highlighting, for example, voices from the diaspora, delving into internal tensions and raising questions that are not so recurrent, confronting the intentions of the Festivals with the demands of the populations of the two countries. Our attention focused on internal and external criticisms of the Dakar festival. We then questioned the Pan-African Festival in Algiers, which silenced identities present at the birth of the Algerian nation and kept alive its Saharan festival traditions. This is not a comparison between the festivals, but a study of their specificities in performances that have resulted in the invalidation of different cultures in the course of these world spectacles. The author and author seek to look at the historical processes of the two festivals, problematizing the political aspects of these arenas, showcases of African cultures on the move.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mahfouz Ag Adnane, Marina Berthet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Cotopaxi volcano and the first settlers of the inter-Andean Valleys of Pichincha, Ecuador: Changes in the landscape and geomorphology during the Middle Holocene
The Preceramic occupations in the northern Andes of Ecuador, in towns near the city of Quito, have been the result of intense debates regarding their chronology and conservation. The available evidence comes from the “El Inga” site and refers to lithic tools in obsidian, dated to 14 C and a stratigraphy disturbed by erosive processes. This led to the early occupations of this area having a questionable chronology due to the absence of geoarchaeological studies that evaluate the matrix of the archaeological record and the formation process of these sites. However, in the town of Sangolquí, early sites (13,500 – 4,500 BP) could be recorded and excavated, which had a stratigraphy better preserved by ash and lahar deposits from the Cotopaxi volcano. From these data plus a series of analyzes of volcanic ashes, radiocarbon dating and reconstructions of the Early Holocene geomorphology of this area, it has been possible to establish the changes that Cotopaxi volcano generated in the landscape of these sites, going from a relief of small hills to elongated hills that were modeled by lahar deposits around 4.500 BP.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carlo Sthefano Serrano Ayala https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Literary sources and archaeology in the construction of Germanic otherness in the Late Iron Age
This article analyzes the construction of Germanic otherness in Roman literature, focusing on Julius Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum and Tacitus’ Germania. Based on these sources, it discusses how the Greco-Roman ethnographic tradition employed reductionist categories and moral metaphors to represent the peoples located beyond the Roman limes, especially the Germanic tribes. It is argued that these descriptions, despite their apparent neutrality, were intrinsically tied to political, military, and identity-related interests, legitimizing territorial expansion and the construction of a Roman identity. The study also incorporates a discussion of the ethnonyms employed by ancient sources – such as Keltoi, Galli, and Germani – understood as exogenous discursive categories that express the symbolic strategies of differentiation and cultural domination devised by Greeks and Romans. It further examines the rhetorical and moralizing character of these representations, in which notions such as “primitivism” and “tribalism” function as political and moral metaphors. The article seeks to confront these literary narratives with archaeological data from the Late Iron Age, the period immediately preceding the consolidation of Roman presence in the region, which reveal a reality far more diverse and complex than that suggested by textual sources. Archaeological research points to multifaceted social structures, regional settlement patterns, sophisticated exchange networks, and local identity expressions, challenging the stereotypes disseminated by Roman ethnography. By privileging the study of Germania in the Late Iron Age, the article demonstrates how archaeology allows for a critical reassessment of ancient representations and for the repositioning of the peoples of Western and Central-Western Europe as historical agents. In doing so, it proposes a reflection on the epistemological limits of classical literary sources and on the role of discourse in the historical construction of otherness in Antiquity.
Copyright (c) 2026 Matheus Morais Cruz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Bapera: The Bororo Encyclopedia and the Encounter between Salesian Missionaries and Boe Indigenous People
This article is part of my master's ethnographic research that analyzes the Bororo Encyclopedia as an ethnographic artifact that materializes the encounter between Christian and Amerindian cosmologies, investigating how Salesian imagery production reveals the dynamics of symbolic reconfiguration of intercultural contact. The research is based on the hypothesis that the Encyclopedia should not be understood merely as an ethnographic record produced by missionaries about the Boe, but as a hybrid communication system resulting from a collaborative process involving agencies and negotiations between different cosmologies. Initially, I contextualize the Boe in their territorial, organizational and historical aspects, exploring the establishment of the Salesian mission and the dynamics of intercultural encounter, including mythological perspectives of contact and resulting cultural transformations. Subsequently, I examine the structure, production and collaboration in the Bororo Encyclopedia, highlighting the fundamental role of Tiago Marques Aipiboreu as the main indigenous interlocutor. The analysis of imagetic representations and their temporal evolution reveals transformations in the missionary perspective over the decades. The investigation of the material dimension of the Encyclopedia, through the documentary archive and museological collection of the Dom Bosco Museum of Cultures, demonstrates the close relationship between the work and the cataloging systems developed by the Salesians. I seek to highlight the Encyclopedia as a hybrid communication system and expression of Boe thought, following Marta Amoroso's perspective on the symbolic reconfiguration of intercultural contact. This research is conducted through a methodological approach that interrelates the anthropology of archives and art, understanding the Bororo Encyclopedia as an object of study and problematization that transcends simple documentation to constitute itself as a uniquely Bororo project.
Boe Bororo; Bororo Encyclopedia; Anthropology of Art; Anthropology of Archives
Copyright (c) 2025 Danilo Gonçalves Rodrigues https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Afection that weaves curatorship: Koyo Kouoh, the spider-mother of Senegal
This article aims to present the carrier of the Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh, that was educated in Switzerland and chose Dakar to live and to work. Using the archetype of the Spider-mother, weaver, spinnerit, I bring here the exhibitions Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality & The Body and When We See Us – A Century of Black Figuration in Painting and the spaces Raw Material Company, built in Dacar by Kouoh e Zeitz MOCAA, in Cape Town, where she went to work in 2019 to, in dialogue with her interviews and texts, show how Kouoh’s work, above all, intended to stablish networks with creators, artists and thinkers in the African Continent.
Copyright (c) 2025 Antonia Costa de Thuin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Léopold Sédar Senghor in the magazine era
This article revisits the general context in which the ideas shaping the thought of L. S. Senghor were developed. It outlines the contours of these ideas and the stakes that drive the Négritude movement in response to the growing aspirations for independence in the French colonies, with Paris as its main hub of activity. It was during this period that several decisive events were organized, namely the two Congresses of Black Writers and Artists in 1956 (Paris) and 1959 (Rome), as well as the First World Festival of Negro Arts in 1966. The latter contributed to building Dakar’s image as a cultural and intellectual capital. Repositioning Senghor within this period requires a dual approach. In the first part, the focus is on the fundamentally cultural aspects of Pan-Africanism, rooted in both Anglophone and Francophone intellectual spheres. Senghor moves within this world, where he meets key historical figures. The publications of the time reflect complex divergences among African intellectuals regarding their stance on colonization. This fragmentation is evident in the genealogy of subversive journals, which were often short-lived due to internal disagreements among their leaders or repression by the colonial authorities. In the second part, the journal Présence africaine is presented within a global map of periodicals and their positions on independence and liberation struggles. From the outset, this journal has served as a rich forum for debates on African arts, publishing texts by prominent experts. The various articles on classical arts go beyond ethnological analysis to explore aesthetic dimensions. Moreover, the journal accompanies scientific gatherings by publishing their proceedings. This period is marked by a vibrant intellectual and literary history, in which Senghor was both a privileged witness and a key player.
Copyright (c) 2025 El Hadji Malick Ndiaye https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Transatlantic gestures: Germaine Acogny and the critique of coloniality
Based on multidisciplinary research that intersects various fields of knowledge production—most notably dance and anthropology—this article explores the ideas of thinker and choreographer Germaine Acogny and her contributions to shaping contemporary thought on the body, autonomy, and African cosmologies from a Senegalese perspective. We develop a discursive arc beginning with the period of African independences, contextualizing public policies for the arts—particularly the significant yet ambiguous proposal by Léopold Sédar Senghor—moving through the Mudra Afrique school in Dakar and culminating in the École des Sables, the International Center for Traditional and Contemporary African Dance. The article also addresses Acogny’s time with the São Paulo City Ballet in the 1990s and the provocative dialogues that emerged from that unexpected encounter at the time. We draw on the concept of transatlanticity, forged by historian Beatriz Nascimento, as a lens through which to read the redefined Black experience from Africa to the Americas. The article offers reflections on how this reinvention requires a reconsideration of African agencies and their responses to Eurocentric paradigms. South-South collaborations enable the reconstruction of images and the emergence of new perceptions of bodies and territories.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luciane Silva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A paleosol from the Middle Holocene with traces of occupation in the middle basin of the Magdalena River, Colombia
We present the genetic evaluation of a paleosol formed during the Northgrippian period, which presents traces of human occupation evidenced by carved lithic materials. The analysis unit is located in the south of the middle basin of the Magdalena River valley in Colombia, in the municipality of La Dorada, Caldas, a place where the archaeological paleoenvironmental reconstruction program is being developed by the Geoarchaeology Research Group GIGA of the University of Caldas. Taking into account the different paleoenvironmental, paleoclimatic, geomorphological and geological phenomena, we proposed to develop hypotheses about the soil formation processes of the archaeological site, understood as an activity area, in the paleosurface in which the pedogenetic process that gave rise to the paleosol developed. Based on the results of physical and chemical analyses, such as pH values, organic matter accumulation and base concentrations of the last two soil sequences and the paleosol obtained by atomic absorption, a correlative table of the study area has been developed. This table was used to make a spatial projection that showcases the specific pedogenetic processes that formed the pedostratigraphic sequences, whether or not associated with human occupation. The results indicate that the environmental stability conditions of the sedimentary deposits of the valley floor were complex but suitable for both pedogenesis and human occupation and had a similar impact on the pedogenic processes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mario Alonso Bermúdez Restrepo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Archaeological possibilities for the analysis of Food Insecurity in the Early Middle Ages: and a case study in Northern Gaul (8th–10th centuries)
This article investigates the conceptual and methodological challenges for analyzing possible episodes of famine and food shortages in the Early Middle Ages, based on the articulation between Archaeology and History. Between the 8th and 10th centuries, there was an increase in mentions of famine in written sources and, simultaneously, in agricultural production and in the volume of food storage structures, as evidenced in the region of Northern Gaul. From an interdisciplinary approach, we propose a cautious reading of osteological remains and storage structures, with an emphasis on the relationship between social inequality and access to food. The article defends the use of analytical categories more compatible with the limits of archaeological evidence (such as the contemporary concept of Food Insecurity) and analyzes, as a case study, the site “Le Chemin aux Errants”. It is concluded that records of food crises should not be interpreted only as a reflection of productive scarcity, but also as material expressions of profound social asymmetries, which cause disparities in both the distribution and access to such foodstuffs.
Copyright (c) 2024 Milena Faboci Spadafora https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Geoarchaeology: a debt in the disciplinary training of Latin American archaeologists
When archaeologists have to deal with the stratigraphy of sites, we excavate “layers” that we generally cannot define genetically and characterize them by color and texture, hoping that a geoscientist will help us interpret them. But shouldn’t an archaeologist be a good interpreter of archaeological stratigraphy whose origins are both natural and cultural? Shouldn’t we have methodological and conceptual tools to assess how a site was formed, how it was buried, and how it reached the present day? These are the basic questions we ask when we think of geoarchaeology as archaeology, a perspective that is due to us in our disciplinary training. Geoarchaeology is not geoscience, it is archaeology. It deals with questions that interest us as archaeologists, about our problems and object of study, about our scales and inferences. This does not prevent us from resorting to different professional geologists, geographers or soil scientists in search of specific analyses or studies, but as archaeologists we must deal with basic aspects of the geoenvironmental context of the site in the same way as we deal with those related to the lithic, bone or ceramic materials present in the archaeological record. Geoarchaeology provides the context for interpretation, dealing with such important issues as the primary or secondary character of a site, the meaning of the association between the materials it contains, the resolution and contemporaneity of archaeological deposits, their preservation, the possible gaps between layers, as well as the natural or cultural origin of some excavated elements and structures. Addressing such basic interpretative aspects of the discipline means that geoarchaeological studies cannot be ignored in any archaeological investigation and should be an inevitable part of the undergraduate curriculum of every professional archaeologist.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cristian Mario Favier Dubois https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Cultural use of wood in a historical building in Southern Brazil
Wood is a biological resource that has been widely used by mankind and represents a large part of the Brazilian cultural heritage. Our goal was to identify the wood used in an old historic building in southern Brazil. The wood samples were taken from the constructive elements of the building. Anatomical features of the sampled woods were used for taxonomic identification by comparisons with anatomical descriptions of wood samples from xylarium, the literature, and databases. Nine species were identified from a total of 30 samples, the genus being Ocotea (Lauraceae) and Araucaria (Araucariaceae), representing more than 90% of the samples. The use of these woods attests to the carpenters' knowledge of trees in southern Brazil and their identification in architectural monuments helps us understand how this resource was used in the past. The record of historical knowledge about the use of wood allows us to understand the relationship between human societies and the forest, as well as to safeguard ancient heritage, know-how, and memories embedded in wooden cultural assets.
Copyright (c) 2025 João Carlos Ferreira de Melo Jr., William Jorge Pscheidt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Aspects of Numidian Identity in Light of the Artefacts Preserved at the Cirta Museum
The Cirta Museum is one of the largest national museums. It was created in the 19th century to preserve and present artifacts directly linked to the history of the city, since prehistoric times. Its rich and highly interesting collections are composed of elements unearthed during archaeological excavations or discovered by chance. Among these objects, one can admire, among other things, funerary furniture from the royal mausoleum of El Khroub, votive steles, some of which are dedicated to Massinissa, and a veritable monetary treasure. The iconography and inscriptions presented on these artifacts are often valuable sources of information on the history of kings, the economy and trade, the army and its heroes, and religion. This contribution aims, based on this historical heritage, to outline the study of Numidian identity characteristics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ouiza Ait Amara https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Presentation of the Dossier Memory and Oblivion in the Ancient World
Copyright (c) 2024 Maria Aparecida de Oliveira Silva, Juliana Figueira da Hora, Maria Cristina Nicolau Kormikiari, Vagner Carvalheiro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0