O tempo e a arqueologia: uma narrativa científica sobre o passado indígena na Amazônia por meio das coisas arqueológicas ao final do século XIX

Abstract

The article deals with the discussion about the definition of “prehistoric” time in the debates that legitimated this concept in the history of Archaeology. Also, it demonstrates how naturalist and zoologist Emílio Goeldi (1859-1917), director of the Natural History and Ethnography Museum of Pará State (Brazil), during the last decade of the 19th century, got involved with such a conceptual definition through expeditions to Brazilian Guiana, today known as Amapá State, in Northern Brazil. I intend to emphasize and discuss the development of Archaeology as a scientific field, by defending that at that moment ideas about materially perceived pasts and notions about Indigenous cultures that inhabited the Amazon were activated based on the scientific discourse of the 19th century.