The scholarly study of historical sites in Brazil has been particularly seminal in the two areas of African material culture and Jesuit missions. Carlos Magno Guimarães has been studying Maroon (fugitive slave) settlements in Minas Gerais for more than a decade, and he has examined written documents and archaeological material. Other scholarly archaeological research on runaway slaves started in 1992 at the Palmares quilombo, the largest maroon settlement, which blossomed during almost all of the seventeenth century (Funari 1991a; Orser 1992a). The study of African material culture is important both scientifically and socially, as these scholarly enterprises can address the problem of the struggle for freedom by ordinary people. The archaeological study of the Jesuit missions in the south of Brazil has been going on for years and is now the best example of what scholarly historical archaeology has achieved in Brazil. Arno Alvarez Kern (1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991a, 1991b) has been directing fieldwork at different Jesuit mission towns. He established a field school for students and has trained many undergraduate and graduate pupils, typically using written documents and material culture. In addition, papers and books on the mission sites have been regularly published, which is unusual and worthy of particular praise.

In Brazilian archaeology in general during this period, no handbook was produced, and the overwhelming majority of papers were excavation or survey reports, often in the form of master’s theses or Ph.D. dissertations. These works usually dealt with a single site or even a single fieldwork season, as the titles of two dissertations—“Archaeological Excavations at Corondo Site, 1978 Season” (E. Carvalho 1984) and “Rescue Archaeology at Tucurui Region” (Costa 1983).

Current Trends (1985 Onward)

“I know enough history to realize that great crises move slowly, and such poor little chaps as ourselves can only take pride in our resignation.” Marc Bloch’s words (in Fink 1991, 54) describe the feelings of Brazilian intellectuals who survived the long ordeal of military rule. By the late 1970s Brazilian humanities scholars and social scientists were able to reintroduce free and uncensored discussion to academia, and as a result Brazilian scholarship in history, anthropology, and sociology became both scientifically structured inside the country and more widely recognized abroad through different interpretive schools and trends. This has been a much tougher task for archaeology for many reasons, not least of all because the archaeological establishment, impervious to change, continued to control funds for fieldwork. Walter A. Neves (1988, 205) emphasized that “no law, no political determination, no governmental aims or potential competence can stand up to the academic corporativism.” Even foreign researchers such as Anna Roosevelt (1991, 106–107) had problems publishing evidence and interpretations contradicting established truths. Others, among them Denis Vialou and Vilhena Vialou, were the targets of different attacks by local patrons, despite the fact that they authored many papers on Brazilian prehistory that were published abroad.

Brazilians continue to be victims of human rights abuses, massacres by security forces (Margolis 1992), and death squad activities. However, the restoration of civilian rule in 1985 has meant that freedom of expression, if nothing else, is once again viable. It has become possible to develop some unconventional approaches, and the publication of an issue of Les dossiers d’archéologie on Brazil (March 1992) bears witness to the renewed blooming of Brazilian archaeology. The first interpretive handbook on archaeology written by a Brazilian came out in the late 1980s (Funari 1988). In addition, Prous (1992) has published a 605-page description of archaeological activities in Brazil, and summarizing papers have also been published (e.g., Prous 1987).

The History of Archaeological Theory in Brazil

Brazilian archaeology’s theoretical trends have depended directly on the overall, changing political background. The early historical and humanist approach of the years between 1950 and 1964, under direct European influence (cf. the case of the other social sciences, as described in Pereira de Queiroz [1989]), was overturned by