Rising from the rhythm of tides and the slow accretion of discarded shells, the people of Jabuticabeira II left an enduring landscape of mounded refuse — the sambaqui. Located on the southern Brazilian coast in present-day Santa Catarina (Jabuticabeira Shell Midden II), these deposits accumulated across centuries between about 410 BCE and 880 CE. Archaeological data indicates repeated seasonal or year-round use of rich littoral resources: vast quantities of marine shell, fish bone, and remains of coastal birds and shellfish.
Mortuary deposits interleaved with midden layers suggest that Jabuticabeira II was not only a food-production locus but also a place of place-making and memory. Skeletal remains and grave goods recovered from the site show a community embedded in the sea’s economy and social world. Material culture includes worked bone and shell tools and, in later contexts, traces of simple ceramics — although ceramic evidence is sparse and its chronology remains debated. Radiocarbon dates from charcoal and shell place primary mound growth in the first millennium CE and earlier, pointing to long-term occupation and repeated landscape engineering.
Limited evidence suggests these coastal groups participated in regional interaction networks along the Brazilian littoral, exchanging materials and ideas with neighbouring sambaqui and inland groups. The archaeological picture is robust for subsistence and site formation, but many questions remain about social organization and the scale of mobility: current interpretations must be cautious and open to new finds.