The Museum of Archeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo (MAE-USP) is a department of the University of São Paulo. Focused on research, teaching, and cultural and scientific diffusion. It was created in 1989, from the dismemberment of the archeology and ethnology sectors of the Museu Paulista, to which the collections of the Institute of Prehistory of USP (the former museum of the same name of the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences (FFLCH)) and the Plínio Ayrosa Collection were merged. It is located in Cidade Universitária (campus), in the West Zone of São Paulo.
The museum has one of the largest collections of archeological and ethnographic artifacts in Brazil, consisting of more than one hundred and fifty thousand (150,000) pieces, formed through field collections, excavations, purchases, exchanges, loans, and donations since the end of the 19th century. The archeological collection covers civilizations from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, pre-Columbian America, and especially pre-colonial Brazil. The ethnographic collection includes pieces related to African and Afro-Brazilian populations and indigenous peoples from all regions of Brazil. It also has a vast library, with about 60,000 volumes, including books, catalogs, doctoral theses, periodicals, and rare works.Collection. Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Accessed April 26, 2013. Archived from the original on January 21, 2013
MAE offers extension courses and optional subjects for undergraduate students. At the graduate level, it maintains the archeology Program for undergraduates in general, training professionals in the areas of prehistoric and historic archeology and classical archeology. It promotes exhibitions and educational programs aimed at the community in general. The research is developed in the form of office, field and laboratory activities, in partnership with several Brazilian and foreign institutions. It maintains the Mário Neme Regional Center for Archeological Research, in the city of Piraju, and the Iguape Regional Museum, in Vale do Ribeira, as logistic and operational support centers for field research. It also has links with the Centro de Arqueologia Biomas da Amazônia, in the municipality of Iranduba, in conjunction with the State University of Amazonas. Between 1991 and 2011, it regularly published the Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, in print and with annual periodicity, but since 2012, the journal became biannual, in electronic format and with open access through the Journal Portal of USP.
History
The Archeological and Ethnographic Collections of the Paulista Museum
The creation of the collection of the USP's Museum of Archeology and Ethnology is intrinsically related to the historical process of development of the archeology and ethnology sectors of the Paulista Museum, since MAE is the direct heir of these collections. Some of the oldest and rarest objects in MAE's collection come from the Museu Paulista. Already in the initial collection of the Paulista Museum, composed of objects from the vast and eclectic private collection gathered in the mid-nineteenth century by merchant Joaquim Sertório, to which was added the collection of the extinct Provincial da Associação Auxiliadora do Progresso da Província de São Paulo museum (founded in 1877), there were ethnographic and archaeological pieces, besides other objects of various natures, such as historical, zoological, and botanical items. The museum followed the model of an encyclopedic museum, with a naturalistic stamp typical of museology institutions of the 19th century, and reflecting the character of a cabinet of curiosities of the referred Sertório collection.
Housed in the Ipiranga Palace, the Paulista Museum has shown interest in archaeological and ethnographic research since its inauguration in 1895, as evidenced by the first volume of the Revista do Museu Paulista, of the same year, which features an article signed by Hermann von Ihering, the museum's first director, entitled "A civilização pré-histórica do Brasil meridional" (in English "The prehistoric civilization of southern Brazil"), discussing ethnographic aspects of the indigenous populations of southern Brazil. Throughout Ihering's tenure, the museum would considerably expand its archeology and zoology collections, mainly through exchanges with similar institutions.
After Ihering's departure, however, the museum began to give in to the international trend of specialization of encyclopedic museums, gradually abandoning the profile of a natural history museum: in 1927, the botany section was transferred to the newly created Biological Institute and, in 1939, the zoological collections were transferred to the custody of the Secretary of Agriculture, which soon after used them as the base collection of the Zoology Museum. The archaeological, ethnographic and historical collections remained at the Ipiranga Palace, giving the Paulista Museum the character of a "memory museum", following the project prepared by Afonso d'Escragnolle Taunay. This new configuration, however, did not harm the museum's scientific activities, since it had been linked to the University of São Paulo since its foundation in 1934, as a Complementary Institute. As of 1963, the museum was permanently incorporated into the university, as an integration entity.
Another important phase of changes at the Museu Paulista began in 1946 when the institution was directed by historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. The new director created the Ethnology Section, left under the care of Herbert Baldus, one of the precursors of ethnology in Brazil, and began to conduct research in the fields of anthropology and archeology as his main activities. Baldus was charged with initiating the first scientific fieldwork expeditions and the systematic collection of ethnographic artifacts from indigenous populations. These expeditions, in which the researcher Harald Schultz and the Indianist Curt Nimuendaju, among many others, participated, headed to various parts of the Brazilian territory, returning with large batches of objects, including ceramics, textiles, pieces of featherwork, and archaeological artifacts in general. About the fruits of these expeditions, Baldus would comment, in 1953:
In the post-Baldus era, the Paulista Museum sought to maintain the scientific rigor of its research. Beginning in 1968, with the appointment of an archaeologist, the museum began to conduct systematic research at archaeological sites, by the modern scientific conceptions of the time. The archaeological collections were reorganized and dismembered from the Ethnology Section, becoming its own department. From then on, research programs covering different regions of the Brazilian territory multiplied, most of the time in partnership with other institutions. Among others, the Paranapanema Project, coordinated by Luciana Pallestrini, aimed at surveying and analyzing archeological sites along the Paranapanema River in São Paulo, and the Anhanguera Project, under the direction of Margarida Andreatta, which carried out prospects and excavations in the state of Goiás, in cooperation with the Federal University of Goiás, and the Piauí Project, coordinated by Niède Guidon, responsible for a series of research in the Piauí municipality of São Raimundo Nonato, of which archaeological findings would culminate in the creation of the Serra da Capivara National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991.
In addition to the pieces gathered in excavations, collections, scientific expeditions, and donations, occasional purchases from private collections would contribute to the quantitative and qualitative expansion of the archaeological collection of the Paulista Museum. This is the case of the highly relevant collection of Tapajonic archeological ceramics, acquired in 1971 with funds provided by the São Paulo Research Foundation. It is a collection of more than 8,000 ceramic pieces, statuettes and lithic objects, formed from the aggregation of two private collections, belonging to Ubirajara Bentes and José da Costa Pereira, collected over more than twenty years in an area extending from Santarém to the Xingu River.
The Plínio Ayrosa collection A second important set of objects preserved today in the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology has its origin in the extinct Ethnography Museum, founded in 1935 by Professor Plínio Ayrosa, regent of the Chair of Ethnography and Tupi-Guarani Languages of the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences, University of São Paulo. The Ethnography Museum's collection began to be formed in the 1930s, through collections and donations. A considerable part of this collection, in turn, originates from the collections of the Ethnographic and Social Documentation Center of the Institute of Education of USP, highlighting the Ramkokamekra-Canela Collection. This precious collection, consisting of 391 objects, was formed by Curt Nimuendajú and donated by him to the Ethnographic and Social Documentation Center in 1936. With the extinction of the center in 1938, all the collections were transferred to the Museum of Ethnography.
From the 1970s on, in line with the greater development of ethnology in Brazil, the collection of the Ethnography Museum registered an expressive growth, reaching 4,000 pieces at the time of its incorporation into the MAE. Due to this historical conjecture, most of the objects coming from the Ethnography Museum are composed of relatively recent materials collected by researchers from the Anthropology Department of USP and other institutions. There is, however, little historical documentation about the Ethnography Museum and many of the documents are contrasting among themselves, starting with the name of the institution, sometimes called "Museum of Ethnology". The University of São Paulo's internal records refer to the collection, since at least 1975, under the name "Acervo Plínio Ayrosa." The Museum of Ethnography, however, has not been named "Acervo Plínio Ayrosa".
The Institute of Prehistory The Institute of Prehistory (IPH) was established in 1952 by the intellectual Paulo Duarte, after his return to Brazil at the end of the Estado Novo. Initially called the Commission of Prehistory, the institute was at first linked to the Congress. Inspired by the Parisian institution of the same name, and with the support of Paul Rivet, then director of the Musée de l'Homme, the IPH was one of the main responsible for the development of Brazilian academic archeology, in addition to conducting numerous excavations and scientific research in various parts of the national territory.
Among its most important achievements was the discovery, in a midden on Santo Amaro Island, of the oldest human remains so far known in South America, the "Man of Maratu", about eight thousand years old, measured by carbon-14. Professionals such as Joseph Emperaire and Annette Laming-Emperaire, responsible for forming a considerable portion of the first academic archaeologists in Brazil, worked at the institute.