Archaeological findings in the Amazon, particularly in the triple-border region between Colombia, Peru and Brazil, show evidence of human presence dating back 13,000 years. Now, for the first time, researchers and students at the National University of Colombia (UNAL) Amazonia Campus will be able to analyze archaeological evidence in the region where it was found and alongside communities that preserve knowledge and memories about those sites.
In Leticia, capital of the Colombian department of Amazonas, the university has opened the region’s first Archaeology Laboratory to study its millennia-old human history.
The new infrastructure will strengthen research that for years has depended on facilities outside the Amazon, according to Professor Jeison Lenis Chaparro Cardenas, an anthropologist and archaeologist who leads the project. He was quoted in a statement from Unimedios, UNAL’s news agency.
“In this enormous region of the northwestern Amazon, the Amazonia Campus laboratory is the one that coordinates research on the past of human groups. In practical terms, it is the first laboratory for this region within the region,” he said.
Studying ancient settlement, mobility and exchange
The new laboratory will allow researchers to analyze materials and other evidence to investigate how the first human groups arrived and settled in the region, how they moved through the jungle and along rivers, what forms of exchange they established and how they transformed the landscape over thousands of years.
Conducting that research from Leticia, according to Unimedios, also expands the scope of the questions researchers can ask. The laboratory’s area of influence encompasses a territory historically and culturally connected across Colombia, Peru and Brazil, although the area is now divided by national borders.
From Leticia, researchers will be able to study ancient processes of settlement, mobility and exchange, as well as the transformations experienced by Amazonian societies, from a regional perspective.
But traces of the past are not only found underground or limited to objects recovered during excavations. The laboratory follows a social archaeology approach that incorporates the memories and knowledge of communities with historical and cultural ties to the sites being studied.
“Social archaeology recognizes the importance of indigenous communities,” Chaparro said. “It is not only about carrying out nice academic projects, but also about supporting local initiatives such as strengthening memory processes or recognizing sacred sites.”
“This perspective takes on special importance in the Amazon, where many archaeological sites and objects are part of territories that preserve cultural and spiritual meanings for their inhabitants,” the Unimedios statement said. “For this reason, the laboratory seeks to ensure that research can also respond to questions and needs raised from the territory, in addition to producing academic knowledge.”
A laboratory for training archaeologists
The laboratory will also play a role in training a new generation of archaeologists and researchers. Students in the Anthropology program at the Amazonia Campus will be able to gain practical experience through laboratory and fieldwork, using tools and equipment to analyze and document archaeological materials and other evidence.
The facility will connect academic training with research conducted directly in the Amazon. For Chaparro, this is one of its central functions.
“The laboratory serves as a space for coordination between what is developed at the university in academic and scientific terms and the communities. It is the place that makes it possible to address scientific questions in order to respond to people’s needs and expectations,” he said.
The work is already extending beyond the university’s facilities. The team is developing its first archaeological intervention project with the community of Mocagua, in collaboration with Abel Santos, a professor and Indigenous leader at the UNAL Amazonia Campus.
The university is also working with the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) on the custody of reference pieces and developing research networks with institutions in other countries.
The goal is to establish Leticia as a regional research center that connects archaeological materials, university training, local communities and scientific research into the Amazon’s human past.