Trees have always been important to provide wood as a building material for human settlements. In prehistory, houses on stilts were commonly built in or near to bodies of water. This strategy allowed defense against attacks and subsistence fishing. In Brazil, archeological pile dwelling sites are found only in Maranhão state, Eastern Amazonia. These sites were inhabited by the “Water People” between 1230 and 1050 BP. Considering the many different tree species in the area, the present work aimed to identify the archeological waterlogged wood used most by these inhabitants. The studied archeological site is named “Encantado,” and it covers 13 hectares and has 171 identified waterlogged wood pillars. Although the “environment conditions” (with dry and flooding periods) to which the pillars were submitted were harsh, the wood anatomy was preserved; additionally, despite the homogeneity of wood anatomy, it was possible to identify seven groups that might correspond to different species and/or trees. Of those, the majority (32 samples) was identified as the genera Tabebuia/Handroanthus, both popularly known as “ipê.” In addition, the ipê samples had the spectrum collected with the near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) as a complementary method for wood characterization. NIR and principal component analysis (PCA) data allowed the differentiation of ipê samples with ca. 80% of variation between data. However, PCA did not separate them according to their types. Further, when NIR spectra of wood pillars were compared with recently sawn ipê wood, the samples were separated; therefore, the latter cannot be used to identify waterlogged wood.

树木一直很重要，可以提供木材作为人类住区的建筑材料。在史前时期，高跷房屋通常建在水体中或附近。这种策略可以防御攻击和生存捕鱼。在巴西，仅在东亚马孙州的Maranhão州发现了考古堆居民区。这些遗址在1230至1050 BP之间曾被“水人”居住。考虑到该地区有许多不同的树种，本工作旨在确定这些居民最常使用的考古涝木。经过研究的考古遗址被称为“ Encantado”，占地13公顷，有171个已确定浸水的木柱。尽管提交支柱的“环境条件”（干旱和洪水期）很苛刻，但保留了木材解剖结构。此外，尽管木材解剖结构具有同质性，但有可能确定出可能对应于不同物种和/或树木的七个群体。其中，大多数（32个样本）被确定为属Tabebuia / Handroanthus，俗称“ipê”。此外，ipê样品具有用近红外光谱（NIR）收集的光谱作为木材表征的补充方法。NIR和主成分分析（PCA）数据可区分ipê样品，其值约为。数据之间的差异为80％。但是，PCA并未根据其类型将它们分开。此外，当将木柱的近红外光谱与最近锯过的ipê木材进行比较时，样品被分离了。因此，后者不能用于识别浸水的木材。