by Peter Speetjens | 26/08/2025 | Brazil
De metalen watertoren op stelten is van mijlenver zichtbaar. Weer en wind hebben het Fordlogo helemaal doen vervagen. Maar wanneer de boot na zes uur varen vanuit Santarém op de oever van de rivier Tapajós afstevent, laten de felrode letters op de enorme loods er geen...
by Peter Speetjens | 07/08/2025 | Brazil
Having lived in Guyana for more than a decade, Dutch botanist Hans ter Steege spends his time these days mostly on home soil. Yet his heart and mind very much remain among the trees of the tropics, which he considers his “personal pet plants.” A professor of community...
by Peter Speetjens | 09/05/2024 | Brazil, South America
A professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Roosevelt has been dubbed the “matriarch” of archaeology in the Amazon Basin. In a career spanning some 40 years, she helped accomplish a radical shift in the way we perceive past and present in the...
by Peter Speetjens | 09/05/2024 | Brazil
Streets lie deserted. Gardens have overgrown homes. Doors and windows are bricked up. The Bebedouro neighborhood in Maceió, in Brazil’s northeastern coastal state of Alagoas, is a shadow of its former self. And soon not even that. Every building there is numbered. As...
by Peter Speetjens | 09/04/2024 | Brazil
Michael Heckenberger has lived among the Kuikuro people at the Upper Xingu River for some 30 years. A professor of anthropology at the University of Florida his research has shown that, prior to the European conquest, the region was not “pristine forest” as was...
by Peter Speetjens | 16/05/2023 | Brazil
The Amazon Rainforest is considered the ultimate wilderness. Here, nature rules ruthlessly in all its grandeur, with no room for agriculture and, hence, none for humankind. However, recent archaeological research has turned the image on its head. Human presence in the...
