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Ñande reko: the fundamentals of Guaraní traditional environmental

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Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-021-00848-9

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Ñande reko: the fundamentals of Guaraní traditional environmental

knowledge in southern Brazil
Francisco Silva Noelli1   · Giovana Cadorin Votre2   · Marcos César Pereira Santos3   · Diego Dias Pavei4   ·
Juliano Bitencourt Campos5 

Received: 16 February 2020 / Accepted: 26 March 2021

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
This article presents some major aspects of environmental resource management by the Guaraní indigenous people in south-
ern Brazil and the Río de La Plata basin. Drawing upon a broad interdisciplinary database from various authors since the
16th century AD, we suggest that the Guaraní passed down a system of knowledge about their particular way of life through
many generations, which had begun in the Amazon region where they originated. This system was based on the form and
function of their material culture, as well as their knowledge of their surroundings including the plants and animals there,
and their practices. Their subsistence was based upon the long-term cultivation and management of a wide range of plants
for food, medicine and raw materials. These resources were brought with them into newly colonized areas, and new plants
were continually adopted for use, enabling the Guaraní to create settlements and manage the plants and animals within some
very different ecosystems. These practices provided them with food security and eventually led to the modification of the
vegetation in these landscapes by their activities.

Keywords  Archaeology · Ethnobotany · Language · Traditional ecological knowledge · Food security · Guaraní

Communicated by L.A. Newsom.
* Francisco Silva Noelli
francisconoelli@edu.ulisboa.pt
1
Centro de Arqueologia (UNIARQ), Universidade de Lisboa,
Alameda da Universidade, 1600‑214 Lisboa, Portugal
2
Laboratório de Arqueobotânica e Paisagem, Programa
de Pós‑Graduação em Arqueologia, Museu Nacional,
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Quinta da Boa Vista,
São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20940‑040, Brazil
3
Núcleo de Pesquisas Paleoambientais ‑ NEPA/UNIOESTE,
Universidade Estaduel do Oeste do Paraná, R. Universitária,
1619 ‑ Universitário, Cascavel, PR 85819‑110, Brazil
4
Laboratório de Arqueologia Pedro Ignácio Schmitz
(LAPIS), Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense
(UNESC/Criciúma/SC), Av. Universitária,
1105 ‑ Bairro Universitário C.P. 3167, Criciúma,
Santa Catarina 88806‑000, Brazil
5 linguistic, archaeological, anthropological, historical and bio-
Laboratório de Arqueologia Pedro Ignácio Schmitz (LAPIS)
Professor, Programa de Pós‑Graduação em Ciências
Ambientais (PPGCA), Universidade do Extremo Sul
Catarinense (UNESC/Criciúma/SC), Av. Universitária,
1105 ‑ Bairro Universitário C.P. 3167, Criciúma,
Santa Catarina 88806‑000, Brazil
Introduction
“Guaraní agriculture responds to a cyclical logic that
has nothing to do with a growing optimization of prof-
its or with the notion of perpetual economic progress”.
Héctor Keller (2012, p. 28)
Human language, culture and environment are intertwined
and interdependent, all three having evolved together over
many millennia as people adapted to specific ecosystems.
This process left broad and deep traces upon material culture
and knowledge of local plants, animals and the landscape
in which they lived, as people learned “how to adapt their
cultural practices to fit their ecological niches” (Maffi 2001,
p. 4).
The historical ecology of Tupí indigenous peoples in
South America offers the opportunity to demonstrate the
meaning of Luisa Maffi’s words. It is a long history, with
logical data that shed light on a process which was started
around 5,000 years ago by speakers of Proto-Tupí, a group
of 70 historically known languages (Rodrigues and Cabral
2012). The linguistic and historical data agree with the last

13
Vol.:(0123456789)

20 years of advances within the field of Amazonian archaeol-
ogy, showing the need for a unified interdisciplinary study
which also includes simulations and computer modelling
(Riris 2018; Gregorio de Souza et al. 2020; Gregorio de
Souza and Riris 2021). Archaeological research at the Teo-
tonio waterfall site, within the region where Proto-Tupí devel-
oped, reveals clear evidence of forest management and the
cultivation of useful plants, with the consumption of Manihot
esculenta Crantz (cassava, manioc), Cucurbita L. (squash,
pumpkin), Phaseolus L. (beans), together with various fruits,
seeds, tubers and roots around 6,000 bp (Watling et al. 2018,
2020). The oldest Tupí ceramics in the Proto-Tupí area date
to 4,200 bp, associated with dark earths from human activities
at the Encontro site, near the Rio Ji-Paraná (Zimpel 2018).
This interdisciplinary perspective helps to explain the
continuity of Tupí environmental knowledge structures. We
will apply a “reverse archaeology” model, which has similar
principals to reverse engineering (Corrêa 2014), using pre-
dictive, non-random markers located in time and space to
project data from the present into the past (Anthony 2010),
within an interdisciplinary study using linguistics, history,
archaeology and ethnography of material culture. We do not
consider persistence as the passage of time, but rather in
terms of enduring relationships which link the memories
and knowledge of the present with those from the past (Sal-
lum and Noelli 2020, 2021). Persistence is understood as the
“intentional rearticulation of certain practices and related
identities in light of new economic, political and social
realities… effectively linking past and present in a dynamic
but unbroken trajectory” (Panich et al. 2018, pp. 11–12). In
order to pursue persistence, all data can be used to study tra-
ditional environmental knowledge, and the same value can
be placed on the intangible aspects of a culture, especially
linguistic records. Things and plants with more intensive
and continuous uses in some Tupi languages “have greater
similarities in their names between languages”, suggest-
ing that cultural factors combine linguistic properties with
management and plant naming in “diachronic processes to
produce similarity and variation in plant vocabulary” (Balée
and Moore 1991).
In this article, we examine the case of one of these peo-
ples, the Guaraní, showing the intentional and systematic
practices of their resource management, which were based
on a vast knowledge base that provided the people with food
security throughout the year. We will call this system Guar-
aní territorial management (GTM) and present a model of
its general structural aspects, with the aim to revise, update
and broaden the research which was done between 1988 and
1993 by one of the authors of this article (Noelli 1993). We
also present specifically: 1. Guaraní concepts of vegetation
types, defined at the beginning of the 17th century in the dic-
tionaries of Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (2002, 2011); and 2.
aspects of Guaraní forest management and plant cultivation.
13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
The Guaraní forest management for cultivation areas was
done with the Amazonian method using the language, con-
cepts and systematic foundations of traditional knowledge
structures common to the 70 indigenous groups speaking the
Tupí family of languages. We start from the presupposition
that GTM had developed before the Guaraní migrated out of
southern Amazonia ca. 2,500 years ago to colonize parts of
the La Plata basin in what are now Paraguay, Bolivia, Bra-
zil, Argentina and Uruguay (Bonomo et al. 2015) (Fig. 1),
an immense geographical area that includes diverse biomes
(Werneck 2011): Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) and areas
of transition in the cerrado, (tropical savanna with varying
amounts of woodland), chaqueño (open woodlands charac-
teristic of the Chaco region) and pampa (lowland grassy
plains). Interdisciplinary data show that the gradual occu-
pation and management of new areas was accompanied by
demographic growth, so that part of the population remained
in their original land while the other part took the plants
they were used to growing to new adjacent areas. These
new settlements formed tekohá, territorial units, each with
a defined, autonomous and self-sustaining village. These
were arranged as in networks of different sized villages that
maintained permanent contact and a continuous exchange
of information, people and things. There were subtle dif-
ferences in political and social organization between these
villages and their people spoke different dialects, but they
all shared a common knowledge of the plant and animal life
in their surroundings, as well as the necessary techniques
for their material culture which worked in the same way
and used the same words throughout, but the raw materi-
als varied according to local and regional conditions. All
these practices enabled food security and strategic access to
raw materials. It appears that the ancestors of the Guaraní
organised themselves in this way outside Amazonia, and this
article is a synthesis of the most relevant aspects of this way
of life.
The idea of GTM takes its inspiration from the concept
of “traditional ethnobiological knowledge” (Balée 2000)
which includes time, so that tradition implies antiquity. A
tradition is the result of the accumulation of experience
and knowledge passed down through generations which
also includes certain amounts of change and innovation.
Balée (2013, p. 123) offers some principles to recognize
processes of change in the knowledge of their environ-
ment by people living in Amazonia. 1. knowledge of
the diversity of plants and animals by people living in a
given region is implied by their use of words for them; 2.
knowledge of the environment is normally restricted to
local contexts; 3. cultures and languages codify an enor-
mous quantity of verifiable data about the environment; 4.
these landscapes have been altered by the redistribution of
plants and animals throughout regions since pre-colonial
times, enriching local and regional floras and faunas. The
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Fig. 1  Guaraní archaeological
records in the Río de la Plata
basin
Guaraní settled in their areas according to these four prin-
ciples but, in their case, there is evidence of greater envi-
ronmental knowledge than suggested by Balée’s second
principle, since their networks of villages formed much
larger groupings of people over a wider region than those
ethnographically studied today.
The main material evidence for GTM is the archaeolog-
ical sites themselves and finds from them such as pottery
and fragments, stone artefacts and remains of plants and
animals. These can be identified in linguistic, historic and
ethnographic records, since the Guaraní language provides
names for the artefacts, faunal and plants remains recov-
ered from archaeological contexts. By comparing these
materials, we can understand their distribution in the area
of study.
GTM as “our way of being”
A systematic comparison of archaeological, historical, eth-
nological, linguistic and botanical data shows that Guaraní
material culture is the result of doing things according to,
in their words ñande reko, translated as “our way of being”
(Melià et al. 2008), the idea that defines Guaraní practices. It
defines identity and the strategy of connecting local groups
in regional networks of political, social and economic rela-
tions. It is also a system of knowledge transmission and
education passed from one generation to another, and from
person to person, within the household and local commu-
nity and beyond the original territory in Amazonia. It main-
tains the continuity and regularity of practices, such as the
vocabulary, arrangement and production of material culture
13

(Wendrich 2012). Ñande reko is visible in the archaeologi-
cal finds, for example in the repetition of functional classes
within archaeological pottery assemblages and the high tech-
nological and morphological standardization evident in the
1,846 Guaraní pots which have been found in Brazil, Para-
guay, Argentina and Uruguay (Noelli and Corrêa in press).
We suggest that the Guaraní had a cyclic strategy for
GTM whose common rule was to follow the ñande reko. It
is fundamental to consider that reliable and regular produc-
tion of foodstuffs was vital for food security but was also
much more than the result of mere necessity. The Guaraní
made forest clearings and grew useful plants there, in ways
that were adapted to the particular conditions of each ecosys-
tem where they lived, using a similar range of artefacts. The
diversity of environments and landscapes that they occupied
suggests a way of life that both adapted, and was adapt-
able, to the contexts in which they lived. The villages were
located close to water sources and within forest clearings, on
a variety of soils between sea level and > 950 m a.s.l. (Noelli
1999–2000; Corrêa 2014; Bonomo et al. 2015). They even
occupied gallery forests (mata galeria, beside rivers in dry
areas) and large patches of forest within open areas, probably
contributing to the expansion of these types of vegetation
when local conditions allowed.
GTM: transporting plants and forming a tekohá
The basis of Guarani territorial management was a tekohá, a
unit of land use, consisting of a village, cultivated and fallow
areas, forest paths, areas of woodland management and areas
for gathering, hunting, fishing and seasonal camps. Clearly
the objective of GTM was to ensure the sustainability of the
local group through suitable management of their landscape
for useful plants and obtaining organic and inorganic raw
materials from it. GTM was based upon a deep knowledge
and understanding of the land and its climate, soils, plants
and animals, as well as celestial events in the sky above.
This knowledge directed the choice of which features of the
area were used for their various natural resources, and which
plants were brought with them. We should mention that they
also adopted and cultivated local plants that were useful to
them. Hector A. Keller (pers. comm., February 2019) sug-
gests that besides establishing a tekohá in a new area with
their usual crops, the Guaraní also looked for other useful
plants, which led to an increased diversity of plant resources
over time and space. It also involved the adaptation of previ-
ous knowledge, for example in the management of different
species of Enterolobium Mart. for fish poisons in Amazonia
and the La Plata basin. The same occurred in the colonial
period with the adoption of new plants introduced by the
Europeans, such as Ricinus communis L. (castor bean) (Kel-
ler et al. 2018).
13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
The GTM system maintained systems of social organiza-
tion and alliances with other villages, feeding communities
and supporting the varying demands of population growth.
The Guaraní evidently affected the ecosystems where they
settled, but thousands of archaeological sites and historical
sources suggest that GTM created managed forests with the
potential to increase the biodiversity of the tekohás with
useful plants, creating zones of diversified and dominant
taxa, such as occurred in Amazonia (ter Steege et al. 2013).
Clearings made in the forest by slash and burn techniques
were used for growing useful plants as well as for gathering,
for which the conclusions of Lévi-Strauss (1950, pp. 465,
468) certainly apply, 1. “It is not always easy to distinguish
between wild and cultivated plants in South America, and
there are many intermediate stages between the utilization
of plants in their wild state and their true cultivation”; and 2.
“that farming always accompanies, and is never a substitute
for, the exploitation of wild resources”. Guaraní use of the
landscape is a balance between 1. the regular growing of cul-
tivated plants according to an annual pattern and 2. the sea-
sonal gathering of wild plants throughout the year, in several
areas. Following Rindos (1980) and Rival (1998), we distin-
guish cultivation from domestication. Cultivation is a human
activity that encourages the growth of a plant, while domes-
tication implies morphological and genetic modification. We
do not know whether the Guaraní domesticated any of the
plants they used, but it is clear that they cultivated them in
various vegetation zones which they themselves created. A
general model of human impact and the formation of vegeta-
tion zones and landscapes under human influence, starting
with natural forest and passing through various stages of
clearance and management until its final abandonment is
shown in Fig. 2 (Noelli 1993). It is important to consider
that the rich Guaraní archaeological record indicates that
they lived in the same territories for hundreds of years and
in some cases more than 1,000 years (Bonomo et al. 2015).
This long occupation may have influenced the biodiversity
or the plant communities of the vegetation zones that they
occupied.
The first stage making a new cultivation plot is to open a
clearing in the woodland using the slash and burn technique
and then to grow a range of plants for food and other uses.
This process is described in more detail below, in a docu-
ment from 1620 (Lorenzana 1951). In successive growing
seasons the soil fertility diminishes and the cultivated areas
are used for growing other useful plants, and finally they
are left fallow until the vegetation and soil are replenished.
Plants with annual and perennial life cycles are cultivated in
this fallow land, within which places to attract animals are
made, providing prime hunting areas. The last stage is the
final abandonment of the managed area whose vegetation
composition is now changed, increasing biodiversity in some
areas. This process is most notable in the La Plata basin,
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Fig. 2  a General model of the impact of the Guaraní people on vegetation zones; b model of Guaraní vegetation zones
where very dominant taxa now include Araucaria angusti-
folia (Bertol.) Kuntze (Paraná pine), Ilex paraguariensis A.
St.-Hil. (yerba mate), fruit trees, various palms and bamboos
(Guadua Kunth, Chusquea Kunth and Merostachys Spreng).
The opening of clearings by slash and burn to establish
areas for cultivation was an annual activity, with plots of
varying sizes for each family unit. The plants grown in the
new plots were supplemented by those from the older ones
and other gathering areas. The total annual biomass from a
tekohá was the sum of all the production by each nuclear
family, grouped by relationships and political ties into house-
holds living in large communal houses called og. Depending
on soil fertility and the availability of space, the annual total
production varied in each settlement. Plant foodstuffs could
be stored, as well as medicinal plants and raw materials, to
create a planned and sustainable supply throughout the year.
The plants which were grown are divided into two main
groups (Pereira et al. 2016), 1, those which were originally
brought from Amazonia, such as Manihot esculenta Crantz
(manioc, a staple part of the diet), Zea mays L. (maize),
Dioscorea Plum ex L. (yam), Phaseolus L. (beans), Arachis
hypogaea L. (peanut), Ananas bracteatus (Lindl.) Schult.
& Schult. (pineapple), Passiflora L. (passion fruit), Genipa
americana L. (genip, genipapo) and 2, plants taken into cul-
tivation and brought to successively occupied areas as the
Guaraní migrated south. However, we did not consider Ama-
zonian taxa that were lost through human or natural causes,
such as being too far outside their natural distribution areas,
such as Anacardium occidentale L. (cashew), Cucurbita
moschata Duchesne (squash), Bertholletia excelsa Bonpl.
(Brazil nut) and Euterpe oleracea Mart. (açaí palm).
The other factor that guaranteed the success of GTM was
the organization of settlements into networks of politically
interlinked villages. The map of known Guaraní archaeologi-
cal sites in Fig. 1 shows that isolated villages did not exist.
Some appear isolated probably due to a lack of archaeologi-
cal survey (Bonomo et al. 2015), however both communica-
tion and the exchange of peoples and materials would have
been consistent and permanent. It was in this way that the
ñande reko way of life acted as a central theme that directed
social, economic and political events according to an astro-
nomical calendar and by the passing of the seasons and by
the life cycles of various plants and animals, including some
insects.
GTM and potirõ (co‑operation)
The establishment and operation of a tekohá settlement area
was done with the communal labour of the potirõ, a concept
that defined co-operation and regard. The social organization
based on households living in the same settlement demanded
cooperation and, according to Melià (1989, pp. 318–319),
“for the Guaraní, certain activities are almost unthinkable
if they do not involve communal collaboration”. Without
this, it was impossible to live from woodland management,
which involved doing slash and burn clearing at suitable
times of the year, planting and taking care of cultivation
plots, harvesting plants at the right times, keeping the vil-
lage, paths and other activity areas clear of vegetation and
building canoes and pari (fish traps, according to Noelli
2019), among other activities. Other examples of potirõ
also involved communal tasks for men or women. A person
invited to take part in one of these tasks knew that, at the
end of it, they would be provided with food and cauim (a
fermented alcoholic drink), and eventually a party (Noelli
and Brochado 1998). The person also knew, when it became
13

their turn to call a potirõ, that there would be reciprocity
among those with whom they had already collaborated.
The village was composed of one or more houses, with
useful plants in their courtyards and gardens, and set in a
single o clearing or clearing group. This arrangement can
be verified in archaeological sites, many of which were long
lived and include the presence of occupation deposits of
soils (Schmidt 2013). The tekohás (villages and their land)
were connected by pathways which stretched for hundreds
of kilometres into the forest. The paths required continual
work to cut back and clear the vegetation from them, an
example of a potirõ that would end in a party by virtue of
its being useful to the community. An example of this use
of space was described by Posey (1987) who estimated that
there were nearly 310 miles of paths emanating from one
village at Gorotire.
The Guaraní languages have specific concepts for describ-
ing types of vegetation depending on their general charac-
teristics, such as field, swamp or forest. In the following text
to save space, the citations of Montoya are abbreviated, so
T:378 represents Montoya (2011) (1639), p 378 and B:87 is
Montoya (2002) (1640), p 87.
Areas of cultivated land or grassland are defined by the
word ñu and were dominated by grasses, herbs and low
bushes (B:87, 328), and they were used for hunting, collect-
ing and cultivation, but never for building villages. The veg-
etation of plains was called ñururi (shallow, uninterrupted
area, T:378) and ñururi puku (flat, extended area. T:505).
There are definitions for ecotones where the open areas and
forests meet, such as ñukáa vapy (start or end of neighbour-
ing opening or forest, T:73), as well as geomorphological
elements like ñu roguamby (open land on a hillside, T:499).
On the herbaceous cover of the open areas, we have kapíi
poñỹ (grass, grassland, T:238, B:209). Depending on the
density of grasses, it could be a kapíi týva (area of many
herbs, pajonal T:238, B:304; a term for a type of grass-
land in Spanish and traditional Brazilian, Argentinian and
Uruguayan gaucho dialects), or kapíi tyvaíva (area thick
with grasses, B:304). Grasses of the genus Andropogon L.,
especially aguara ruguái (Gatti 1985, p. 11), were used for
roofing houses and other structures, but the Guaraní were
particularly interested in the relationship between the open
area and the capão de mata, very likely an indigenous term
that was borrowed from Portuguese for káa páũ or a “patch
of forest or group of trees in an open area” (T:230, 398,
B:240). The available historical information shows that the
Guaraní managed the capão in a similar way that the people
at Gorotire managed the apêtê forest patches (Posey 1987),
making them into true resource islands by adding and pro-
moting useful plants there, a very common practice in the
Amazonian model. Open areas within forest were called káa
sãndo sãndog (extensive forest with open patches T:507).
It is possible that, in extreme cases, patches of forest and
13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
gallery forests were expanded through management prac-
tices, permitting settlements there.
Swamp forest was defined as yapo (swamp, T:631, 634).
The soils within areas that were subject to flooding or were
constantly covered by shallow water were called yvy nunu
(swampy soil, T:354). Such places around lakes and river
floodplains were used for fishing and hunting, as well for
collecting molluscs and aquatic plants, and for cultivated
areas within them.
In the Guaraní language, the words for forest represent
various kinds, from undisturbed natural forest to woods
greatly modified by human action. These concepts, and
probably the words for them, were established by speakers of
Proto-Tupí around 5,000 years ago, according to reconstruc-
tions of this historic language group based on 70 variants of
ten Tupí language families (Rodrigues and Cabral 2012).
Archaeological data and hundreds of absolute dates from
archaeological sites (Corrêa 2017) support the antiquity of
Proto-Tupí culture. Linguists from various theoretical back-
grounds accept that all Tupí languages, especially the Tupí-
Guaraní family, “are different manifestations of what was,
in the past, the same language, and the shared properties [of
these languages] are a preserved common heritage without
differentiation, or much” (Rodrigues 1984–1985, p. 34).
Phonetic reconstruction of the Portuguese word roça
** ŋko (Rodrigues 2007) (clearing) shows part of the
knowledge structure that was defined when the speakers of
Proto-Tupí established the most elementary practices of for-
est management and cultivation. Our survey of Tupí names
for types of vegetation is based on linguistic, historic and
ethnographic sources from 39 languages (Table 1), and it
shows that these words were maintained until the present in
all ten language families. We also verified that a new clear-
ing was the minimum unit of cultivation which was opened
annually by a nuclear family, and it was the standard way
for all Tupí peoples (Noelli 1993). The sum of minimum
clearings grouped with neighbouring ones which were made
by each household was the total area used for cultivation
each year. If evidence was studied in the form of phytoliths,
pollen grains and macrobotanical remains, which can be
identified in material from archaeological contexts, it could
confirm the historic and ethnographic data and offer another
method for studying the Tupí forest formation practices over
50 centuries.
The Guaraní had terms equivalent to undisturbed natu-
ral forest, where there was no indication of human occupa-
tion or management of the vegetation by people, such as
káa marãnéỹ (forest where wood was not taken, was not
enclosed T:298); yvy marãnéỹ (“intact soil that has not been
cultivated” T:298) (T:648, yvy = “earth, soil, Orbe”; T:298,
marãnéỹ = “good, entire, undamaged”). Many different
activities took place in this environment, such as hunting,
fishing, collecting and leisure, which formed a considerable
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany

Table 1  Words in various Tupí languages for particular types of vegetation

Language Dense forest New clearing Old clearing (2–40 years) Fallow (40 ± 100 years) Source
ŋ
Proto-Tupí ** ko Rodrigues (2007)
Proto-Tupí-Guaraní *ŋKaʔa *ko Rodrigues (2007)
Tupí-Guaraní family
 Guaraní Kaá eté Kog Kokuéra Kokuere ryma Montoya (2011)
 Chiriguano Kaaguasu Ko Giannecchini (1916)
 Sirionó Éko Eko imã Eko ke Schermair (1957)
 Kaapor Káa-te Kupiša Taperer Taper Balée (2013)
 Tapieté Káawasu González (2005)
 Guajá Káa-ate Balée (2013)
 Tupínambá Káa etẽ Ko Kôpuera Rodrigues (1966)
 Tenetehára Ko Silva (2010)
 Zóé Éko Kopiaou Ekokuere\Taper.et Cabral (1996) and Sousa (2013)
 Asurini do Xingu Káa-ete Ka Kafera Balée (2013)
 Araweté Káã-hete Ka Viveiros de Castro (1986) and Balée
(2013)
 Asurini do Trocará Káa Kopisa Nicholson (1978, 1982)
 Tembé Káa-ete Ko Rice (1934) and Balée (1994)
 Wirafed Ko Nimuendajú (1955)
 Kaiabi Káa reté Ko Kofet rymaman Kofet rarete Schmidt (2001)
 Parintintin Ko Kopyahu Komyan Betts (1981)
 Parakanã Ka Fausto (2001)
 Emérillon Eka Grenand and Haxaire (1977)
 Wayampí Káa ete Koo Kokue Grenand and Haxaire (1977) and Jensen
(1989)
 Ava Canoeiro Ko Borges (2006)
 Tapirapé Ka Borges (2006)
 Kamayurá Kohet Kamayurá (2012)
Awetí family
 Aweti Káa Ko Koput Rodrigues (2007) and Kamayurá (2012)
Mawé family
 Mawé Ko ~ ŋo Rodrigues (2007)
Jurúna family
 Jurúna Káa Kúá Fargetti (2001)
Munduruku family
 Munduruku Kǝ Rodrigues (2007)
 Xipáya Ku-a Rodrigues (2007)
 Kuruáya Kɨ Rodrigues (2007)
Arikém family
 Arikém Ŋga Rodrigues (2007)
 Karitiána Ŋa Rodrigues (2007)
Tuparí family
 Makuráp Ŋge Rodrigues (2007)
 Kepkiriwát Go Rodrigues (2007)
 Wayoro `Ŋgɛ Nogueira (2011)
Mondé family
 Mondé Ga Rodrigues (1966)
 Gavião Ka Rodrigues (2007)
 Paitér\Zoró Ŋa Rodrigues (2007)
 Cinta Larga Káa Ka Rodrigues (1966, 2007)
Ramaráma family
 Káro Na-čéj, Na-čo Rodrigues (2007)
Puruborá family
 Puruborá Gaté Tá Koch-Grünberg (1932)

13

portion of the area covered by the tekohá. These undisturbed
forests served as a strategic reserve for future clearance
activities, obtaining raw materials and establishing perma-
nent or temporary settlements, as well as forming buffer
zones between neighbouring settlements. There is a term
káa iñanãỹváe (B:280) (sparse forest) for not very dense
forest, perhaps meaning a secondary woodland in some stage
of regeneration after having been cleared. For areas of man-
aged forest, there are the terms káa katu and káa katuova
(B:99) (clear forest, in the sense of good or proper forest to
open up for cultivated plots and pathways, which represent
places with reduced natural tree density or previously culti-
vated patches growing back to woodland again. Such areas
could be more easily cleared again for cultivation or for sit-
ing camps and living areas.
Cultivated areas are defined as temytỹma (T:378), or
places where the temyty grow (Garcia 1985, p. 73), mean-
ing the managed plants brought to the new settlements from
Amazonia, as well as the newly adopted ones from more
recently colonized regions. The location of the cleared area
is defined as the kog rupáva (T:254). The word kog (T:254;
B:126) means a (recently) cleared area. A new clearing is
called kog pyahu (T:254), while the old clearings in various
stages of disuse are called kokuéra (T:254) (old, already
abandoned clearings) and kokuere ryma (T:254) (very old,
already abandoned clearings). When these opened areas
were left without management, they would return to the káa
ete (T:230) stage, true forest with thick wood. These were
mature forests with some signs of human action and repre-
sented the final succession stage of secondary vegetation, as
distinct from the káa marãnéỹ (natural forest). A description
from the beginning of the 17th century illustrates the Guar-
aní system of forest clearance to form new cultivation plots:
“This nation is very extensive and has a unique lan-
guage; they are a cultivator people who plant in the
forests and move their fields at least every three years.
The way they prepare the land is first they pull down
and cut the small trees, then the big trees, and, close to
planting time, as the small trees are dry (even though
the big ones are not), they set a fire and burn every-
thing down, and as the fire is so big, even the roots end
up being burned. The clean ground is fertilized with
ash, and, with the first rainfall, it is planted with maize,
manioc and many other roots and legumes that they
produce very well” Lorenzana 1951 [1620], p. 166).
The opening of new clearings and the fertility of the soil
around the settlements is a theme to be investigated in the
future. Lorenzana (above) mentions the opening of new
areas every three years and describes cultivation on the
most fertile soils at the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. Where
the soils were less fertile, new clearings would have been
needed every year, but it is important to highlight that at
13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
the same previously cleared areas were maintained to grow
plants such as manioc, yams and beans, as well as fruit trees,
medicinal and other useful plants. In less fertile areas, they
probably used the same strategy as the Munduruku people
(Frikel 1959, p. 7), clearing a larger area there than on bet-
ter soils.
The Guaraní cultivated areas are divided among
smaller plots, with minimum units for each nuclear family
(ogpeguára B:195). The household, téýi (T:578) (kinship
and affinity) was formed by the grouping of nuclear families
with their friends and relatives into large communal houses,
today divided into groups of neighbouring houses (Melià
2016, pp. 65–69). Cultivation areas were divided into family
plots and their borders were called kog yvyja (T:254) (the
edge of the plot; what is planted on the edge that serves as
a fence). The account of the Jesuit Luís de la Roca in the
1714 (Garavaglia 1987, p. 155) summarizes the potirõ col-
laborative work to open up new clearings and how this was
planned:
“So that people do not disperse during the time of year
in which clearings are made, the people get together
with each chief and everyone helps in making one per-
son’s clearing for a day or more, until they are finished;
and afterwards, everyone moves on to make someone
else’s clearing, and so on for all the subjects of the
chief”.
The minimum area of the cultivated plot is proportional
to the size of the nuclear family or group using it and this
can be estimated from some historic examples recorded by
various authors (Table 2).
The amount grown in such a plot is supplemented by the
produce from the older plots and collecting areas used by
each nuclear family. In order to estimate the total annual
production of a tekohá, the minimum and maximum sizes
of all the family plots need to be considered. One must also
consider that the productivity of the older ones would dimin-
ish due to the reduction in soil fertility there, although they
would still supply other useful plant products, such as fruit.
In areas with less fertile soils, one might estimate that in
ten years of open a new plot annually, one nuclear family
would possess a minimum of ten distinct areas producing
their food, medicines and raw materials at the same time.
In areas with more fertile soils, where new plots would be
opened every two or three years, as in the account by Loren-
zana (above), the total cultivated area would be smaller. It is
probable that total productivity was similar between areas of
different soil types and if not, the Guarani would open fields
annually in areas of fertile soils. The real difference would
be that fewer hours were spent on clearing forest in areas
with fertile soils, although more hours were probably neces-
sary for the maintenance of the cultivated plots to combat
unwanted invasive plants.
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Table 2  Average areas newly People Population
cleared by the Guaraní
Guaraní 46 people
Kaiová Nuclear family
Guaraní Nuclear family
Chiripá Average 6 people
Paî-Tavyterã Nuclear family
A theme still completely open to investigation concerns
the human population and its local variables, especially con-
sidering the existence of polygamic families and the produc-
tion of a surplus for the many potirõ, parties and rituals,
factors that made larger areas of cultivation necessary. The
numbers we offer here are maximum and minimum values
as starting points for investigating the forest openings and
the range of plants that were selected for their functions as
food, medicines and raw materials. People also grew fruit
trees and medicinal plants around their houses (Reed 1999,
p. 132). The amount of this produce in relation to that from
the open cultivated area has not yet been estimated. Path-
ways also possess great potential for cultivation along their
edges, but for the Guaraní this remains an unpublished
theme. However, Posey (1987, p. 177) quantified the man-
aged plants along a 3 km long and 2 m wide path used by the
Kayapó people, and recorded 185 fruit trees, 1,500 medici-
nal plants and 5,000 edible tubers there. Path edges were
used to keep useful plants found in the interior of the forest
during hunting or other trips, and which could afterwards be
transplanted into the cultivated plots. The act of transplant-
ing was important to the Guaraní, defined as ejýi and ayvyra
ejýi (T:118, 653), a practice based on the knowledge that
guaranteed the propagation of useful plants brought from
both natural habitats and other villages.
The kog péiháva (T:254) (fallow areas) could still be cul-
tivated until they reached the stage of having one dominant
plant, and thus becoming areas of more intensive collecting
activities. For example, the attachment of the suffix tyva to
a plant name means a concentration or abundance of it, as in
yváytýva (T:645 group of fruit trees), such as Plinia cauli-
flora (Mart.) Kausel (jaboticaba, Brazilian grapetree), palms
or other cultivated trees of the missionary period such as
canela (Cinnamomum Schaeff, cinnamon), ocotea (Ocotea
Aubl.) and Ilex paraguarensis (erva mate). There were the
kuríy týva of Araucaria angustifolia (Paraná pine) (T:281,
kuríy = Paraná pine) and the pindo týva of Syagrus roman-
zoffiana (Cham.) Glassman (pindo palm), T:417), which was
used for its fruit, the leaves for house building material and
the wood for making bows, arrowheads etc. After being cut
down or having fallen down naturally, rotting palm trunks
provided high quality, protein rich food (Vera and Brand
2012) from the beetles and weevils in them, such as Rhi-
nostomus barbirostris F. and Rhynchophorus palmarum L.
Field area, ­m2 Source
ca. 20,000 Rengger (2010, p. 125)
5,000 to 20,000 Watson (1952, p. 67)
5,000 Susnik (1982, p. 73)
ca. 4,462 Reed (1999, p. 151)
5,000 to 20,000 Melià et al. (2008, p. 110)
that can produce up to 5 kg of larvae in a 1 m section of the
trunk (Miraglia 1975), with other taxa sometimes number-
ing 300 larvae per trunk (Strelnikov 1928, p. 346). Concen-
trations of various species of bamboos, Guadua, Chusquea
and Merostachys, takua týva (T:525) (“taquarais” = bam-
boo plots) were also important and probably managed, since
besides providing useful material, they were also a source of
larvae of several butterflies of the Phaloenidae family (Strel-
nikov 1928, p. 346). Figure 2b shows the Guaraní vegetation
zones, using the site distribution data in Fig. 1.
GTM, plants managed by the Guaraní
The managed plants can be divided into two groups, those
known and those used. Evidently all these plants had some
recognisable features because they were known and defined
by a name, but not all known plants were used. We con-
sider here only those plants known and used by the Guaraní
which, at times, are a wider range of useful taxa than those
traditionally recognized by botanists.
Our data so far are restricted to botanical surveys
available in ethnographic and historical accounts made
by researchers in the 20th century (Fiebrig-Gertz 1932;
Cadogan 1955; Martínez-Crovetto 1968a, b, c; Arenas and
Moreno-Azorero 1976; Perasso and Vera 1988; Noelli 1993,
1994, 1998a, b; Noelli and Landa 1993; Muller 1997; Kel-
ler 2003, 2008, 2009a, b, 2010a, b, c, 2011a, b, 2012, 2013;
Bueno et al. 2015; Keller and Prance 2008, 2012; Balée and
Cebolla-Badie 2009; Oliveira 2009; Dujak and Marchi 2010;
Keller et al. 2010, 2011, 2015, 2018; Pirondo and Keller
2014; Keller and Crockett 2015). The majority deposited
botanical material in herbaria, but it was not examined for
this study. The preliminary objective is to build up a biblio-
graphic database that lists known or used taxa, confirming
previous evidence of their management by the Guaraní, to
serve as a basis for future research in herbaria and in the field
with the Guaraní themselves. Data verification, correction
and updating was done by comparing the taxonomies of the
plants in the Guaraní bibliography with up-to-date bibliog-
raphies and databases such as GBIF (2019) and REFLORA
(2020). So far, we have records for 1,207 species in 140
families (Fig. 3). These families consist of 117 angiosperms
(Angiosperm Phylogeny Group—APG IV 2016), 19 ferns
and lycophytes (Smith et al. 2006), three gymnosperms
13

(BFG 2015) and one bryophyte (Crandall-Stotler et  al.
2009). Of these, 22 families were identified as being exotic,
having been adopted after the arrival of European coloniz-
ers. Due to gaps in the sources of information, 73 taxa were
not identified with a Guaraní name, despite indications that
they were known and/or used.
The majority (54%) of the 140 families include between
4 and 131 species of useful plants, which make up 45.5% of
the total (Fig. 4). Families with more than 20 useful species
include Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Myrtaceae, Poaceae, Rubi-
aceae, Solanaceae, Malvaceae, Bignoniaceae, Lauraceae,
Sapindaceae and Apiaceae.
The plants had various uses, which are divided into ten
categories (Fig. 5), which were further divided into pre-
colonial (Noelli 1993) and post-colonial uses (Oliveira
2009), and present-day commercial uses. The largest group
is medicinal plants, with 371 taxa. Edible plants are also
numerous, with 359. Seven categories can be considered as
representing useful materials used for making things, which
together total 528 taxa. Some of the 247 ritual plants could
be added to the useful material count, changing that result.
The five bio-indicators are a theme to investigate further,
since the Guaraní also consider many taxa as the “plant of
such an animal”, for example a plant eaten by a particular
animal. We did not find uses for 195 taxa, even though 192
of them have Guaraní names and were therefore probably
used for something.
Our investigation also identified the parts of the plants
that were used (Fig. 6), revealing some aspects of traditional
Fig. 3  The 140 plant families used by the Guaraní according to
botanical grouping
13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
knowledge in terms of foods, medicine and the production
of objects. However, as the useful parts of 441 plants are not
known, there is a knowledge gap in this respect.
The analysis shows that traditional knowledge resulted in
the use of various parts of the plants within each botanical
family. Of the 140 families, we selected six to show their
types of uses based on traditional knowledge passed down
from generation to generation (Fig. 7), a theme which will be
developed with comparative studies between Tupí-Guaraní
language groups and later, between the other nine families
of the Tupí language family. A future objective will be to see
how the extent of traditional botanical knowledge surpasses
the local level, as suggested by Balée (2013).
Plant uses by family
Fabaceae. Fabaceae are mainly used for making things such
as objects and material culture, making up 59% of the total
(artefacts 23%; construction 9%; ritual 18%; toxins 8% and
hygiene 1%). Edible plants are 11% and 14% have medicinal
uses, while 15% have unknown uses.
Asteraceae. Within the Asteraceae, medicinal uses
account for 39% and 7% as food, while 11% are without data.
Material culture uses dominate, totalling 43% (artefacts 8%;
construction 1%; ritual 27%; toxins 5% and hygiene 2%).
Considering that the quantity of ritual and medicinal uses
totals 66%, the Asteraceae appear to have great importance
for the Guaraní, and thus deserve further investigation.
Myrtaceae. The applications of members of the Myrta-
ceae for food corresponds to 69% of their total use, while
material culture totals 18% and medicines 9%. It is a well-
documented family, with only 4% having no known use.
Poaceae. The production of artefacts is noteworthy
among the Poaceae, with 58% of the taxa being used in
building (24%), artefacts (27%), hygiene (4%) and ritual
(4%). Medicinal uses account for 15%, and nutrition and
bio-indicators 7% and 1%, respectively. Plants without
known uses total 17%. While this family is especially used
for useful materials, Zea mays L. (maize) is one of the most
important crops for the Guaraní.
Rubiaceae. Symbolic and material culture uses predomi-
nate among the Rubiaceae, with 35% of its taxa being used
for rituals, and 31% for raw materials. Medicinal uses total
15% and nutritional uses only 4%, while 15% are without
data regarding their use.
Arecaceae. Palms are very useful for the production of
material culture items, with 63% used in either artefacts
(28%), construction (19%), ritual (4%) or hygiene (2%).
Food accounts for 25% and medicinal uses 11%, with a fur-
ther 11% having unknown use.
Table 3 shows the most common food plants grown or
managed by the Guaraní (Noelli 1993, 1994). The majority
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany

probably have an Amazonian origin, while others, includ-

ing substitutes, may have been included later, during the
expansion by the Guaraní into southern Brazil and parts of
Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. Plant exchanges
that occurred between these regions during this process may
help explain the presence of some taxa outside their normal
range.

Edible fungi

Fungi (urupe) were commonly and constantly eaten as a

source of protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre, and they
need to be investigated in the future. In the northern sur-
roundings of the Guaraní archaeological sites of Arroio do
Conde, located to the north of Guaíba, a lake in the state
of Rio Grande do Sul, at least 49 edible taxa are known,
whose growing seasons are distributed throughout the year,
but concentrated in hotter months (Table 4, after Pereira,
1984, 1988, 1990).

Conclusions

This article presents the general aspects of the traditional

Fig. 4  List of plant families with between 1 and 131 taxa used by the
Guaraní
environmental knowledge of the Guaraní people. If it were
possible to summarize, we could say that the people learnt
to manage their environment and worked out the basic rules
of Guaraní territorial management (GTM), providing them
with the knowledge and experience to live in the interior
of the forest and use and manage its resources sustainably
according to local and regional annual natural cycles. The
Guaraní territories had access to water, were either totally or
partially covered by trees and had cultivable soils of varying
fertility. Historical sources and the distribution of archaeo-
logical sites show that variables such as uneven topography
and damp cold climates were not barriers to the Guaraní, but
rather encouraged development of their social and economic
practices to overcome such difficulties.
Another important aspect of GTM and this way of man-
agement of forest and clearings, which was also shared by
the Tupí people, is that it functions through minimum units
based on the nuclear family. These units have a certain flex-
ibility and depend upon kinship and politics, being both
autonomous and self-determined while maintaining their
cohesion to the extent that interest or population size permits
and linked by interpersonal networks that form the commu-
nal house, the village or the network of villages. These social
units, in the same way as their cleared cultivation plots in
which each one basically repeats the same quantity of useful
plants, can repeat a pattern but vary in size in proportion to
the population. Every tekohá (village and its land) produced
practically the same types of plant foods, varying in the case

13

Fig. 5  Numbers of plants with particular uses
Fig. 6  Plant parts used by the Guaraní
of settlements in extreme environments or according to dif-
ferences in tree cover, moisture availability and soil fertility,
such as floodplains and gallery forests. Even in areas with
hyperdominant taxa, such as Araucaria angustifolia stands
and palm forests, specialized monoculture did not exist.
Instead, the Guaraní grew or managed a wide selection of
13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
plants in their forest clearings. Finally, the opening up and
maintenance of new cultivated plots was crucial to provide
crops each year and thus food security. These activities were
thus closely integrated into the annual cycle, and continually
renewed.
Inter-generational transmission of knowledge is the key
to the long duration of the Amazonian way of life, which
determined settlement patterns, environmental management
and the maintenance and propagation of useful plants. This
knowledge favoured the recognition and adoption of new
plants for food, medicine and useful materials, to the extent
that the Guaraní were able to leave the Amazon forest and
live in the very different habitats of the La Plata basin; a
shared, systematic knowledge which can be seen today in
the diverse tekohás distributed throughout a vast array of
ecosystems and socioenvironmental situations. Neverthe-
less, there is still a lack of local, collaborative environmental
research being done with the Guaraní themselves to formu-
late food security strategies that reach all of the tekohás.
It is important that the most well structured communities
in terms of ecological knowledge support those which are
less structured during the initial process of settlement in
degraded areas and help them to attain a quality of life that is
self-sustainable within their traditional ways, a factor which
the Guaraní say is important to maintain their ñande reko
(our way of being).
The model we have presented is general, considering the
most common and deep-rooted aspects of knowledge and
practice. However, it is important to begin investigating
more of the details to better understand the local strategies
and traditional knowledge of each settlement. Ideally, this
information could be used to determine where more col-
laborative action is needed for the exchange of plants and
knowledge. It is necessary to build upon existing traditional
knowledge of plants and the environment, especially in com-
munities with a younger population, to provide food security
and the continuation of traditions.
The 1,207 plant taxa surveyed in the publications from
the 20th and 21st centuries reveal a vast knowledge of plants
by the Guaraní, but this survey is still not finished, since the
next step will involve the meticulous study of sources writ-
ten between the 16th and the 19th centuries. These surveyed
taxa should serve as a reference to identify at least some of
the potentially useful plants in the environments of the La
Plata basin basin where the Guaraní settled, as well as their
ancient systems of land management. It is possible that the
Guaraní increased biodiversity in the areas in which they
lived, just as they do at present, and that this left its mark on
the plant geography of these regions, just as their archaeo-
logical sites reveal the material evidence of their long set-
tlement there.
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany

Fig. 7  Examples of plant uses in

six families, groups as in Fig. 5.
Me medicinal, Nu nutritional
(food), Ar artefacts, for mak-
ing things, Ri ritual uses, Co
for construction, building, To
toxins, Ph personal hygiene, Ta
tanning, Bi bio indicators, Wi
without indication

13
 Vegetation History and Archaeobotany

Table 3  List of the main food plants grown by the Guaraní

Scientific name Other names Guaraní name N° of Guar-
aní cultivars

Tubers
 Manihot esculenta Crantz Cassava, manioc, yuca Mandío 24
 Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. Sweet potato, batata Jety 21
 Solanum tuberosum L. Potato Maky 1
 Dioscorea spp. Yam Kara 9
 Pachyrrhizus erosus (L.) Urb. Jicama, yam bean Mbakuku 3
 Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott Arrowleaf, taioba, malanga Tajao 2
 Maranta arundinacea L. Maranta, arrowroot Akuti 1
 Oxalis sp. Oca Makyxi 4
Grains and pulses
 Canna glauca L. Canna Mbery sáyu 1
 Zea mays L. Maize Avati 13
 Phaseolus spp. Beans Kumanda 16
 Vigna spp. Beans Kumanda ete ?
 Amaranthus hybridus L. Amaranth Káaruru 4
 Chenopodium ambrosioides Bert. Quinoa Káare ?
 Arachis hypogaea L. Peanut Manduvi 7
 Lupinus gibertianus C.P. Sm. Lupin Manduvirá ?
 Cajanus cajan (L.) Huth Pigeon pea; wild bean Kumanda Yvyrái ?
 Strophostyles sp. Kumanda chái ?
 Canavalia ensiformis (L.) DC. Jack bean Kumanda usu ?
 Gleditsia amorphoides (Griseb.) Taub. Honey locust Yvope 1
 Bixa orellana L. Annatto Uruku 1
Cucurbitaceae
 Cucurbita moschata (Duchesne) Duchesne ex Poir. Squash, pumpkin Andai 4
 Sicana odorifera (Vell.) Naudin Cassabanana Kurugua 1
Fruits
 Ananas bracteatus (Lindl.) Schult. & Schult. Pineapple Nanã ?
 Psidium guajava L. Guava Arasa 7
 Passiflora spp. Passion fruit Mburukuja 11
 Genipa americana L. Jenipapo, genip Ñandipáva 1
 Eugenia uniflora L. Surinam cherry, pitanga Yva pytã 1
 Eugenia sp. Eugenias, grumichama Yvahái 7
 Plinia trunciflora (O. Berg) Kausel Jabuticaba, Brazilian grapetree Yvaporu 2
 Campomanesia xanthocarpa O. Berg Guabiroba Guavira 3
 Annona cacans Warm. Guanabana, soursop Aratiku 3
 Chrysophyllum gonocarpum (Mart. & Eichler ex Miq.) Engl. Aguái 4
 Pouteria gardneriana Radlk. Pouteria Aguái
 Inga spp. Inga Inga 5
 Cecropia pachystachya Trécul Yarumo Ambáy 1
 Vitex megapotamica (Spreng.) Moldenke Taruma Tarumã 1
 Monstera deliciosa Liebm. Ceriman, monstereo Guembepy 1
 Jacaratia spinosa (Aubl.) A. DC. Jacaratia Jakaratia 1
 Acrocomia aculeata (Jacq.) Lodd. ex Mart. Grugru palm, mucuja Mbokaja 1
 Attalea dubia Burret Indaia Pindo andaí 1
 Bactris setosa Mart. Tucum Karandáy 1
 Butia eriospatha (Mart. ex Drude) Becc Butia Jatái 4
 Euterpe edulis Mart. Jussara Jujy 1
 Geonoma gamiova Barb. Rodr. Guaricanga Pindo´í 1
 Spathicarpa hastifolia Hook Taytetu káa 1
 Syagrus romanzofiana (Cham.) Glassman Giriba palm, Queen palm Pindo 1

13
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Table 4  Monthly availability of fungi to the tekohá (village based unit of territory) of Arroio do Conde
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May
No. species 15 16 40 36 31
Acknowledgements  This project was partially funded by Conselho
Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (Bra-
zilian National Research Council) for F. Noelli and G. Votre. Thanks
for the readings and good suggestions by Amílcar D. de Mello, Mari-
anne Sallum, Noélia Bortolloto, Andres Gascue, Silvana Zuse, Caroline
Caromano, Leandro Cascon and Eduardo Bespalez. Special thanks to
Lúcio Ferreira, Danielle Gomes Samia, Mariano Bonomo and Héctor
Keller. To Jenny Watling for her English translation and revision. To
the VHAA reviewers and editors for the careful revision and sugges-
tions. The article is a modified version of a paper published in Portu-
guese in Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica, vol 11, issue
1. https://​doi.​org/​10.​26512/​rbla.​v11i1.​23636. It contains complemen-
tary explanations published by F. Noelli about the archaeology of the
Guaraní (Bonomo et al. 2015, https://d​ oi.o​ rg/1​ 0.1​ 016/j.q​ uaint.2​ 014.1​ 0.​
050) and the archaeology and linguistics of the Tupí (Silva and Noelli
2017, https://​doi.​org/​10.​14393/​RCS-​v7n1-​2017-​39256).
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