Along Brazil’s temperate south coast, the Sambaqui tradition painted the shoreline with great mounds of shell, bone and ash — cinematic ridges on the horizon that record centuries of human labor. Jabuticabeira II is one such complex, archaeologically characterized by dense shell deposits, hearths, midden stratigraphy and burials. Radiocarbon and stratigraphic studies place the occupation of many southern sambaqui sites across the late Holocene; the individual sampled here dates to 553–646 CE, situating them within a long-lived coastal tradition.
Archaeological data indicates these shell mounds were not merely refuse heaps but places of repeated occupation, cooking, craft, and ritual. Material culture recovered at Jabuticabeira II — pottery fragments, fish and marine mammal remains, and human burials sealed within midden layers — suggests seasonally focused exploitation of rich coastal resources and enduring social ties to particular shoreline locales. Limited evidence suggests regional exchange and stylistic continuity across nearby sambaqui complexes, but local variation was significant.
Because the genetic evidence from this context derives from a single individual, broad claims about population origins or demographic shifts are preliminary. Nonetheless, integrating stratigraphy, radiocarbon chronology, and midden assemblages with genetic data allows us to begin mapping how coastal lifeways and maternal lineages intersected in the first millennium CE.