9500 BC to 1499

Long before Cabral

People have lived in what is now Brazil for at least eleven thousand years, as skeletons found at Lagoa Santa show. Along the coast, fishing peoples pile up huge shell mounds, the sambaquis. On Marajo Island, at the mouth of the Amazon, the Marajoara culture builds earth mounds and painted pottery from about 400 to 1400. By 1500 Tupi peoples hold much of the coast.