The Amazon Basin is now recognized as a cradle of cultural and technological innovation in the ancient Americas. It was there that the hemisphere's earliest known ceramics (ca. 5000 b.c.) were produced. Located at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil, Maraj Island was home to one of the region's most populous and sophisticated ancient societies (a.d. 300-1300). Island chiefdoms built impressive mounds to support multifamily longhouses, ceremonial...