History of Brazil: Encyclopedia II - History of Brazil - The first Brazilians

History of Brazil - The first Brazilians

The territory of Brazil has been inhabited for at least 8,000 years. The origins of the first Brazilians, which were called "Indians" (índios) by the Portuguese, are still a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The traditional view is that they were part of the first wave of migrant hunters who came into the Americas from Siberia, across the Bering Strait. However some archeologists see signs of a much older human population, morphologically distinct from the Asian hunters and more similar to African and Australian natives, who were displaced or absorbed by the Siberian hunters.

The Andes and the mountain ranges of northern South America created a rather sharp cultural boundary between the settled agrarian civilizations of the West Coast (which gave rise to urbanized city-states and the immense Inca Empire) and the semi-nomadic tribes of the East, who never developed written records or permanent monumental architecture. For this reason, very little is known about the history of Brazil before 1500. Archaeological remains (mainly pottery) indicate a complex pattern of regional cultural developments, internal migrations, and occasional large state-like federations.

By the time the first European explorers arrived, all parts of the territory were inhabited by semi-nomadic Indian tribes, who subsisted on a combination of hunting, fishing, gathering, and agriculture. The population density was rather low, however; total numbers have been estimated at 1 million people (but recent archaeological discoveries, such as those mentioned above, seem to indicate a much higher number). Although many Brazilian Indians succumbed to massacres, diseases, and the hardships of slavery and displacement, many were absorbed into the Brazilian population. A few tribes still subsist in their pre-discovery lifestyle in remote corners of the Amazon rainforest.

Present Brazilian culture owes much to those peoples, including the development of crops like the cassava (still a major staple food in the rural regions) and the complex knowledge needed for survival in the tropical jungle.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The first Brazilians", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki