For those of you who are going to visit Ilha Grande, you would like to know a little about the local history, and imagine that it all started with the discovery of the island by Europeans, did you know that the island was inhabited for over 10 thousand years?

    The Amerindians were prehistoric peoples, they used to have an average of 1.5 meters and lived from the activity  the main fishing and collectors_ shells and shellfish, but as these molluscs were not enough for their survival, they fished and had their main food.

    They used to fish in shallow waters and also dominated fishing in deeper places.

    Better known as sambaquis, as they were called by the tupiguarani indians, which in tupi sambaquis means heaps of shells, as they buried their species along with the shell remains and also with some artifacts, utensils and weapons that they produced.

    These peoples were the first records of inhabitants on our coastal coast, where there are more than 2,000 of these agglomerates registered, with some reaching more than 30 meters tall, as well as Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

    Archaeologists found some of these clusters of shells in the Aventureiro Cove, between Praia do Sul and Praia do Oriente, better known as Islet of the south, however throughout Ilha Grande it is possible to see caves in the coastal rocks where the stone tools were sharpened, which were used for fishing and hunting these places are called Lítica workshop.

    The species of fish that were most found next to their bodies was the croaker, which on average was up to 30% less than those found today , as they used to fish in large quantities in places that were nurseries of these fish.

    Climate change has made  these peoples migrate from the north, and settle in the south and southeast._cc-95cde99 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_

   Tools found in these piles of shells, bodies, and artifacts, proved that they made canoes for fishing, explaining how they arrived on islands, as in the case of Ilha Great.  

    For those interested in visiting some of these Litica Workshop, here are some tips. In Praia Preta, which is 10 minutes from Vila do Abraão, there are several of these brands, in Lopes Mendes, who walks to the right side of the beach, which by the way is a special place to visit, since the waters there are always calm and clear, on the border between the two beaches there are several stones with these marks, and crossing this other little beach, which is part of Lopes Mendes, you can also find some of these marks. On this border between the two beaches, a large amount of fossils were also found, also considered more of a sambaquis.

    At Ponta do Acaiá, where there is the Gruta do Acaiá, a beautiful place to visit, a sambaqui was also found, and it is also possible to find these workshops.

     In the Aventureiro cove, there are also a lot of marks on the rocks, where the largest cluster of samba was found on Ilha Grande, both on Praia do Aventureiro, on Ilhote do Sul and on Canto do Leste, it is possible to easily find these marks.

      Now that you know a little about this history and the places where they are, when you visit Ilha Grande, Try to notice in these places, a little of this History