SUMMARY:
THE BRAZIL SITE IN PREHISTORY
Unlike many archaeological investigations, the Brazil Site Project did not involve any new excavations; instead, it was a complete study of all the materials and information collected from the site over the last 60 years. The Project was designed to re-evaluate many of the old theories about the prehistory of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, using modern scientific standards and techniques to try and answer some of the research questions of interest to Central California archaeologists. This section reviews some of what we have learned from the study.
How old is the Brazil Mound?
How long did people live here?
Radiocarbon dating of organic material from the Brazil Site showed that the first people may have come to live here about 2,400 years ago. This is the beginning of what many Central California archaeologists call the Middle Period (see the chart on page 11). People continued to live on this mound at the edge of the river off and on for nearly 2,000 years, well into the Late Period . Then, around 600 years ago, people stopped living at the site, for reasons we don't completely understand. We'll turn back to this question in a moment.
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