Jonas Gregorio de Souza

Jonas Gregorio de Souza is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, specialising in geographical information systems and modelling of radiocarbon dates for the PAST project.

Jonas completed his PhD at the University of Exeter. His PhD research involved settlement systems, household archaeology and Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates at pit houses of southern Brazil, funded by a Wenner-Gren Foundation dissertation fieldwork grant. Most of Jonas’ fieldwork and research was concentrated on the subtropical southern Brazilian highlands, where he has explored themes like emergence of complex societies, cultural interactions and resistance, and potential anthropogenic influence on the expansion of Araucaria (Paraná pine) forests. He has also participated in fieldwork across Amazonia, from the Bolivian Iténez region to the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. His latest research, as a co-investigator in a National Geographic Society grant, was dedicated to explore a major regional gap in the distribution of monumental enclosures along 1800 km of the southern Amazon periphery.

Currently, Jonas’ main interests include the compilation and analysis of large databases of archaeological sites and 14C dates in order to model pre-Columbian population expansions and interactions over different areas of lowland South America, in conjunction with continental-scale climate and vegetation records.