Denise P. Schaan

As a specialist in Amazonian archaeology, Dr Denise Schaan is best known for her innovative research on Marajó Island at the mouth of the Amazon River, and more recently for her leading role in the Western Amazonia geoglyph research. Both studies have attracted worldwide attention. Together with Per Stenborg, she has directed the Cultivated Wilderness Project since 2010, focusing on the ethnohistoric Tapajó occupation in the Lower Amazon.

Dr Schaan completed a Masters Program in Archaeology in 1996 in Brazil, and earned her PhD degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 2004. In 2005, she joined the Faculty of the Department of Anthropology of the Federal State University of Pará, in northern Brazil, where in 2010 she and her colleagues created the first Four Field Anthropology Graduate Program in the country.

Dr Schaan has published 30 scientific articles, 32 book chapters and 12 books focusing on Amazonian archaeology. Her book ‘Sacred Geographies of Ancient Amazonia’ (Left Coast Press, 2012) offers a comparative perspective on understanding Amazonian social formations at the eve of the European contact, based on a historical ecology approach.