Paisagem, ferrovia e indústrias: redes de circulação e cultura material em Paranapiacaba

Abstract

This article examines how material culture identified in the lower part of the village of Paranapiacaba expresses the commercial, industrial, and technological networks involved in its formation and transformation from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The study draws on materials recorded during the Archaeological Survey and Monitoring Program conducted in 2016, encompassing archaeological contexts as well as domestic and museum collections. The research combined curatorial procedures, the identification of manufacturers’ marks, consultation of maps and historical documents, and the systematic analysis of periodical advertisements, treated here as Anunciologia. French roof tiles, English pottery and equipment, British coal, and products manufactured in Brazil made it possible to trace the transition from a network strongly dependent on imports to circuits increasingly supplied by national industry. The results show that this change did not occur through rupture, but through the overlapping of networks, products, and consumption practices. By mapping the trajectories of objects, the study connects the village’s everyday scale to broader economic and socio-spatial transformations produced by the railway and demonstrates the potential of material culture for understanding Paranapiacaba as a historically connected landscape.