ABSTRACT

The Northern Coast of the State of Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil, was first occupied around 5000 bp by populations of preceramic shellfishers, who were partially replaced by ceramist groups around ad 1000. Most Brazilian archaeologists assume that there is a strong correlation between pottery making and plant cultivation. Therefore, these later groups are said to have introduced agriculture to the region. In this chapter we explore temporal health trends among these prehistoric populations in order to test the hypothesis that ceramist groups introduced plant cultivation into the region. We also survey the general health status of these coastal Brazilian populations, comparing them with other archaeological samples represented in the joint project. To do so, we used the following osteological markers of quality of life: incidence of dental caries, degree of tooth wear, incidence of linear enamel hypoplasias, and incidence of porotic hyperostosis in the orbits.Two of the preceramic sites showed a high incidence of dental caries, demonstrating that in specific moments of the preceramic period, some of the groups relied on plant resources at least as much as they did on animal sources. None of the osteological markers traditionally associated with the adoption of agriculture showed higher frequencies in the ceramic level compared to the preceramic level. Thus, we conclude that although pottery making was introduced on the Northern Shore of the State of Santa Catarina by ad 1000, our data do not support that the adoption of agricultural practices was associated with this introduction. We found that the populations of both prehistoric occupations attained very high indexes of health and quality of life.