The late-Holocene expansion of the Tupi–Guarani languages from southern Amazonia to SE South America constitutes one of the largest expansions of any linguistic family in the world, spanning ~4000 km between latitudes 0°S and 35°S at about 2.5k cal. yr BP. However, the underlying reasons for this expansion are a matter of debate. Here, we compare continental-scale palaeoecological, palaeoclimate and archaeological datasets, to examine the role of climate change in facilitating the expansion of this forest-farming culture. Because this expansion lies within the path of the South American Low-Level Jet, the key mechanism for moisture transport across lowland South America, we were able to explore the relationship between climate change, forest expansion and the Tupi–Guarani. Our data synthesis shows broad synchrony between late-Holocene increasing precipitation and southerly expansion of both tropical forest and Guarani archaeological sites – the southernmost branch of the Tupi–Guarani. We conclude that climate change likely facilitated the agricultural expansion of the Guarani forest-farming culture by increasing the area of forested landscape that they could exploit, showing a prime example of ecological opportunism.
Ab’SaberAN (1977) Espaços ocupados pela expansão dos climas secos na América do Sul, por ocasião dos períodos glaciales quaternários. Paleoclimas3: 1–19.
2.
AbsyML (1979) A Palynological Study of Holocene Sediments in the Amazon Basin. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.
3.
AlmeidaFO (2015) A arqueologia dos fermentados: A etílica história dos Tupi-Guarani. Estudos Avançados29: 87–118.
4.
AlmeidaFONevesE (2015) Evidências arqueológicas para a origem dos Tupi-Guarani no leste da Amazônia. Mana21: 499–525.
5.
AmmermanAJCavalli-SforzaLL (2014) The Neolithic Transition and the Genetics of Populations in Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
6.
AmorimCEGBisso-MachadoRRamalloV. (2013) A Bayesian approach to genome/linguistic relationships in native South Americans. PLoS ONE8: e64099.
7.
AnthonyDW (2009) The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
8.
Arroyo-KalinM (2010) The Amazonian formative: Crop domestication and anthropogenic soils. Diversity2: 473–504.
9.
BakerPASeltzerGOFritzSC. (2001) The history of South American tropical precipitation for the past 25,000 years. Science291: 640.
10.
BehlingH (2002) Carbon storage increases by major forest ecosystems in tropical South America since the Last Glacial Maximum and the early Holocene. Global and Planetary Change33: 107–116.
11.
BehlingHPillarVDP (2007) Late Quaternary vegetation, biodiversity and fire dynamics on the southern Brazilian highland and their implication for conservation and management of modern Araucaria forest and grassland ecosystems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences362: 243–251.
12.
BellwoodPRenfrewC (2002) Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
13.
BergerALoutreM-F (1991) Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years. Quaternary Science Reviews10: 297–317.
14.
BonomoMAngrizaniRCApolinaireE. (2015) A model for the Guaraní expansion in the La Plata Basin and littoral zone of southern Brazil. Quaternary International356: 54–73.
15.
BrochadoJP (1989) A expansão dos Tupi e da cerâmica da tradição policrômica amazônica. Dédalo27: 65–82.
16.
BrochadoJP (2001) Tupi. In: PeregrinePEEmberM (eds) Encyclopedia of Prehistory Volume 7. South America. New York: Springer, pp. 343–354.
17.
BüntgenUMyglanVSLjungqvistFC. (2016) Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique ‘Little Ice Age’ from 536 to around 660 AD. Nature Geoscience9: 231–236.
18.
CarsonJFWhitneyBSMayleFE. (2014) Environmental impact of geometric earthwork construction in pre-Columbian Amazonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences111: 10497–10502.
19.
ClementCRDenevanWMHeckenbergerMJ. (2015) The domestication of Amazonia before European conquest. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences282: 20150813.
20.
CruzFWBurnsSJKarmannI. (2005) Insolation-driven changes in atmospheric circulation over the past 116,000 years in subtropical Brazil. Nature434: 63–66.
21.
DiamondJBellwoodP (2003) Farmers and their languages: The first expansions. Science300: 597–603.
22.
EriksenLGalucioAV (2014) The Tupian expansion. In: O’ConnorLMuyskenP (eds) The Native Languages of South America: Origins, Development, Typology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177–199.
23.
FaustoC (2012) Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
24.
FiedelSJAnthonyDW (2003) Deerslayers, pathfinders, and icemen: Origins of the European Neolithic as seen from the frontier. In: RockmanMSteeleJ (eds) The Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: The Archaeology of Adaptation. London: Routledge, pp. 144–168.
25.
FieldJSLapePV (2010) Paleoclimates and the emergence of fortifications in the tropical Pacific islands. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology29: 113–124.
26.
FlantuaSHooghiemstraHVuillleM. (2015) Climate variability and human impact on the environment in South America during the last 2000 years: Synthesis and perspectives. Climate of the past Discussions11: 3475–3565.
27.
GrollemundRBranfordSBostoenK. (2015) Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences112: 13296–13301.
28.
HafferJ (1974) Avian Speciation in Tropical South America. Cambridge, MA: Nuttall Ornithological Club Publications.
29.
HeckenbergerMJ (2002) Rethinking the Arawakan diaspora: Hierarchy, regionality, and the Amazonian formative. In: HillJDSantos-GraneroF (eds) Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 99–122.
30.
HeckenbergerMJNevesEG (2009) Amazonian archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology38: 251–266.
31.
HeckenbergerMJNevesEGPetersenJB (1998) De onde surgem os modelos? As origens e expansões Tupi na Amazônia Central. Revista de Antropologia41: 69–96.
32.
HornborgAGassnRHeckenbergerM. (2005) Ethnogenesis, regional integration, and ecology in prehistoric Amazonia: Toward a system perspective 1. Current Anthropology46: 589–620.
33.
HubbeMOkumuraMBernardoDV. (2014) Cranial morphological diversity of early, middle, and late-Holocene Brazilian groups: Implications for human dispersion in Brazil. American Journal of Physical Anthropology155: 546–558.
34.
IriondoMHGarciaNO (1993) Climatic variations in the Argentine plains during the last 18,000 years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology101: 209–220.
35.
KirchPV (2000) On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
36.
KuperRKröpelinS (2006) Climate-controlled Holocene occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa’s evolution. Science313: 803–807.
37.
LedruM-P (1993) Late Quaternary environmental and climatic changes in central Brazil. Quaternary Research39: 90–98.
38.
MacarioKBuarqueAScheel-YbertR. (2009) The long-term Tupiguarani occupation in southeastern Brazil. Radiocarbon51: 937–946.
39.
MarchantRHooghiemstraH (2004) Rapid environmental change in African and South American tropics around 4000 years before present: A review. Earth-Science Reviews66: 217–260.
40.
MarreroARSilva-JuniorWABraviCM. (2007) Demographic and evolutionary trajectories of the Guarani and Kaingang natives of Brazil. American Journal of Physical Anthropology132: 301–310.
MeggersBJ (1982) Archaeological and ethnographic evidence compatible with the model of forest fragmentation. In: PranceGT (ed.) Biological Diversification in the Tropics: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Association for Tropical Biology. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 483–496.
43.
MigliazzaE (1982) Linguistic prehistory and the refuge model in Amazonia. In: PranceGT (ed.) Biological Diversification in the Tropics: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Association for Tropical Biology. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 497–519.
44.
MilheiraRGDeBlasisP (2014) Tupi-Guarani archaeology in Brazil. In: SmithC (ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. New York: Springer, pp. 7384–7389.
45.
MillerET (2009) A Cultura Cerâmica do Tronco Tupí no alto Ji-Paraná, Rondônia, Brasil: Algumas Reflexões Teóricas, Hipotéticas e Conclusivas. Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica1: 35–136.
46.
NevesEG (2011) Archaeological cultures and past identities in the pre-Colonial Central Amazon. In: HornborgAHillJD (eds) Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia: Reconstructing past Identities from Archaeology, Linguistics, and Ethnohistory. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, pp. 31–56.
47.
NevesEG (2013) Was agriculture a key productive activity in pre-colonial Amazonia? The stable productive basis for social equality in the Central Amazon. In: BrondizioESMoranEF (eds) Human-Environment Interactions. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 371–388.
48.
NevesWABernardoDVOkumuraM. (2011) Origin and dispersion of the Tupiguarani: What does cranial morphology say?Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas6: 95–122.
49.
NoelliF (1993) Sem Tekohá não há Tekó. (Em Busca de um Modelo Etnoarqueológico da Aldeia e da Subsistência Guarani e sua Aplicação a uma Área de Domínio no Delta do Rio Jacuí – RS). Porto Alegre: Department of History, PUCRS.
50.
NoelliF (1998) The Tupi: Explaining origin and expansions in terms of archaeology and of historical linguistics. Antiquity277: 648–663.
51.
NoelliFS (2005) Rethinking stereotypes and the history of research on Jê populations in South Brazil: An interdisciplinary point of view. In: FunariPZarankinAStovelE (eds) Global Archaeological Theory: Contextual Voices and Contemporary Thoughts. New York: Springer, pp. 167–190.
52.
Oliveira-FilhoATRatterJ (1995) A study of the origin of central Brazilian forests by the analysis of plant species distribution patterns. Edinburgh Journal of Botany52: 141–194.
53.
OlsonDMDinersteinEWikramanayakeED. (2001) Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: A new map of life on earth – A new global map of terrestrial ecoregions provides an innovative tool for conserving biodiversity. BioScience51: 933–938.
54.
OslislyRWhiteLBentalebI. (2013) Climatic and cultural changes in the west Congo Basin forests over the past 5000 years. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences368: 20120304.
55.
PedersonNHesslAEBaatarbilegN. (2014) Pluvials, droughts, the Mongol Empire, and modern Mongolia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences111: 4375–4379.
56.
PranceG (1982) Biological Diversification in the Tropics: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Association for Tropical Biology. New York: Columbian University Press.
57.
RodriguesAD (2010) Linguistic reconstruction of elements of prehistoric Tupí culture. In: CarlinEBVan de KerkeS (eds) Linguistics and Archaeology in the Americas: The Historization of Language and Society. Leiden: Brill Publishers, pp. 1–10.
58.
RodriguesADCabralAS (2012) Tupían. In: CampbellLGrondonaV (eds) The Indigenous Languages of South America. Berlin; Boston, MA: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 495–574.
59.
RoggeJH (2005) Fenômenos de fronteira: Um estudo das situações de contato entre os portadores das tradições cerâmicas pré-históricas no Rio Grande do Sul. Pesquisas Antropologia62: 1–125.
60.
RoweHDunbarRMucciaroneD. (2002) Insolation, moisture balance and climate change on the South American Altiplano since the Last Glacial Maximum. Climatic Change52: 175–199.
61.
SantosEJMda SilvaALSEwertonPD. (2015) Origins and demographic dynamics of Tupí expansion: A genetic tale. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas10: 217–228.
62.
Santos-GraneroF (2009) Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
63.
Scheel-YbertRBeauclairMBuarqueA (2014) The forest people: Landscape and firewood use in the Araruama region, southeastern Brazil, during the late-Holocene. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany23: 97–111.
64.
Scheel-YbertRMacarioKBuarqueA. (2008) A new age to an old site: The earliest Tupiguarani settlement in Rio de Janeiro State?Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências80: 763–770.
65.
SchmidlU (1599 [1567]) Vera historia admirandae cuiusdam navigationis, quam Huldericus Schmidel Straubingensis ab Anno 1534 usque ad annum 1554 in Americam vel novum mundum, iuxta Brasiliam & Rio della Plata, confecit. Noribergae: Impensis Levini Hulsii.
66.
SchmitzPI (1991) Migrantes da Amazonia: A Tradicao Tupiguarani. In: KernA (ed.) Arqueologia Prehistorica do Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto, pp. 295–330.
67.
SilvaLCSternbergLHaridasanM. (2008) Expansion of gallery forests into central Brazilian savannas. Global Change Biology14: 2108–2118.
68.
SpracklenDVArnoldSRTaylorC (2012) Observations of increased tropical rainfall preceded by air passage over forests. Nature489: 282–285.
69.
StadenH (1557) Warhaftige Historia und beschreibung eyner Landtschafft der Wilden Nacketen, Grimmigen Menschfresser-Leuthen in der Newenwelt America gelegen. Marburg: Andreas Kolb.
70.
StevauxJC (2000) Climatic events during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in the upper Parana River: Correlation with NE Argentina and South-Central Brazil. Quaternary International72: 73–85.
71.
Van GeelBBokovenkoNBurovaN. (2004) Climate change and the expansion of the Scythian culture after 850 BC: A hypothesis. Journal of Archaeological Science31: 1735–1742.
72.
Viveiros de CastroEB (1992) From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
73.
WalkerRSWichmannSMailundT. (2012) Cultural phylogenetics of the Tupi language family in lowland South America. PLoS ONE7: e35025.
74.
WangXAulerASEdwardsR. (2007) Millennial-scale precipitation changes in southern Brazil over the past 90,000 years. Geophysical Research Letters34: L23701.
75.
WhitneyBSMayleFE (2012) Pediastrum species as potential indicators of lake-level change in tropical South America. Journal of Paleolimnology47: 601–615.
76.
ZechMZechRMorrásH. (2009) Late Quaternary environmental changes in Misiones, subtropical NE Argentina, deduced from multi-proxy geochemical analyses in a palaeosol-sediment sequence. Quaternary International196: 121–136.
77.
ZhouJLauK (1998) Does a monsoon climate exist over South America?Journal of Climate11: 1020–1040.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
