Optical non-invasive inspection tools and methods had expensively proven, for several decades now, their invaluable importance in the preservation of cultural heritage and artwork. In this paper we will report on an optical non-invasive microtopographic characterization work on pre-historical and pre-colonial ceramics and pottery of tribes in the Paranaiba valley in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The samples object of this work were collected at the Inhazinha archeological site (19º 10'00" S / 47° 11'00" W) in the vicinity of Perdizes municipality in transition between the West mining area and the “triangle” area in the center of Brazil. It is a hilly region (850m high) traversed by a number of rivers and streams tributary of Araguari river like Quebra Anzol river and Macaúba and Olegário streams. The Inhazinha site’ excavations are part of the Project Jigsaw Hook which since 1980 aimed the establishment of a chrono-cultural framework associated with the study of the socio-cultural dynamics corresponding to successive occupations of hunter-recollector-farmer’ tribes in prehistoric and pre-colonial times in the Paranaíba valley in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Two groups of indigenous Indian occupations were found. Both of the pre-colonial period dated at 1,095 ± 186 years ago (TL-FATEC/SP for Zone 1) and of the early nineteenth century dated at 212 ± 19 years ago (EMS-CENA-USP/SP) and 190 ± 30 years ago (C14- BETA/USA) in Zone 2 seemingly occupied by southern Kayapós tribes. The pottery found is decorated with incisions with different geometric distributions and levels of complexity.

Date Published: 22 August 2014
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 9286, Second International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, 928658 (22 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2064150

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9286:
Second International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics
Manuel Filipe P. C. Martins Costa; Rogério Nunes Nogueira, Editor(s)