Moundbuilders of the Amazon is a stimulating, thought-provoking review of the archaeology of Marajo Island, located in the mouth of the Amazon River. The book is based on extensive study of museum collections and excavations at the Marajoara Site of Teso do Bichos carried out in 1983-1985. It is also a polemical call for greater consideration of Amazonian cultures in reconstructing the culture history of the New World and a strident and sometimes vitriolic criticism of previous archaeological research in the region, especially the reigning deans of Amazonian archaeology, Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans. The book is of interest to geoarchaeologista because the field research systematically incorporated geophysical prospecting techniques to guide excavation and aid in the interpretation of the site. This is a wide-ranging and major work, but after briefly setting the cultural and archaeological context, this review will focus predominantly on the geophysical survey and its results.
Marajo, an island of about 50,000 km2 (about the size of Switzerland), is dotted with mounds ranging from 3 to 20 m in height covering 1-3 h. There are over 400 mounds