Wright 1992); the North Amazon region (Farage and Santilli 1992; Menéndez 1992; Amoroso 1992); the South Amazon area (Perrone-Moisés 1992; Franchetto 1992; Lopes da Silva 1992); the northeast (Paraíso 1992; Dantas, Sampaio, and Carvalho 1992); the southwest (S. Carvalho 1992); the south (Monteiro 1992; Kern 1982); and the entire country (Fausto 1992). Evidence provided by these documents include written descriptions as well as drawings and paintings that are very useful in the analysis of material remains; Hans Staden’s drawings are perhaps the best example of this kind of early evidence. But the use of all this early evidence necessitates an awareness of the bias of the early authors. U. Fleischmann and M.R. Assunção (1991) studied the documents, emphasizing that the authors were not describing but interpreting native customs according to both their own ideologies and their own interests. This means that colonial sources, iconography, and written documents alike, although very useful, must be interpreted within their social context. They are overwhelmingly biased against Native Americans, Africans, and even poor Europeans, and thus they must be studied carefully by archaeologists.

The Brazilian Empire (1822–1889)

Peter Wilhelm Lund, born in Copenhagen in 1801, is considered to be the first scholar to describe Brazilian prehistory. He went to Brazil as early as 1825, staying for three years and returning in 1833. Lund established a paleontological laboratory in the village of Lagoa Santa, in Minas Gerais Province, where he found human and animal fossils. The Brazilian emperor Peter II, under the influence of classical German education, went in person to Lagoa Santa to visit the Danish scholar. Between 1834 and 1844 Lund surveyed some 800 caves and found fossils thousands of years old. He collected a great deal of material and studied a variety of extinct fauna. At Sumidouro Lake he found human bones associated with extinct animals. Paleontologists who followed Georges Cuvier, such as his pupil Lund, believed there had been a universal biblical deluge and that the association of human remains with extinct animals meant that men had lived in the New World before the deluge. Although Lund was not sure that Cuvier’s universal deluge theory was useful for the Americas, he was a Christian, and he did not choose to challenge current ideas, preferring instead to isolate himself and avoid controversial attitudes. Lund was a leading pioneer in his field, and his position illustrated the tensions arising from undertaking scientific archaeological work in Brazil. Dogma and supposedly established truths, when challenged by evidence, tended to prevail and force people to comply.

At the same time, the National Museum, thanks to Charles Wiener (1876), pioneered the studies of lithic material, and the Canadian Charles Friedrich Hartt (1871, 1872, 1874, 1876, 1885) explored the Amazon basin, a region also studied by D.S. Ferreira Penna (1876) and J. Barbosa Rodrigues (1876, 1892). Karl Rath (1871) studied shellmounds, and the German scholar Fritz Mueller was employed by the National Museum as natural and human material collector. The activities of all these researchers were an outgrowth of the enlightened character of the Brazilian royal court. During the second half of the nineteenth century, thanks to Emperor Peter II and his European outlook, there was official sponsorship of fields such as paleontology and ethnology. Ladislau Neto (1876, 1885a, 1885b), as director of the National Museum, was perhaps the first Brazilian to explicitly study and write about archaeology as such. Neto sought out Native Americans and was very much in touch with international academic standards. His exchange of letters with the French scholar Ernst Renan is a prime example of the good communications existing between these early Brazilian and European scientists. It is clear that, from its inception, archaeology in Brazil was linked to both foreign influence and state patronage.

The Early Republic (1889–1920s)

Archaeology during the early republican period continued to be dominated by people attached to museums. With the growing importance of the State of São Paulo within the federation of Brazilian states and as a result of its economic