POTENCIAL TURÍSTICO DE SÃO JOSÉ DE ESPINHARAS

ARQUEOLOGIA ENQUANTO FATOR ECONÔMICO PARA O MUNICÍPIO

Resumo

This article aims to identify the tourist potential of the municipality of São José de Espinharas, in the State of Paraíba, Brazil, especially in its archaeological aspect, as an important economic and cultural factor for the sustainable development of the municipality. Dismembered from the municipality of Patos in 1961, the municipality has a distant history that dates back more than a thousand years and the existence of recently discovered archaeological sites emerges as a tourist potential. When the white man arrived in the town, in the mid-17th century, the region was inhabited by indigenous peoples, decimated in just over a century. The municipality has been going through a process of impoverishment and reduction of its population, given the low capacity to generate income and income for its inhabitants. For these reasons, archaeological tourism appears as an opportunity, a fact that is confirmed and justified with the present study.