The city of Atafona, situated at Paraíba do Sul Estuary, has been suffering erosion in its coastline for decades. This study is an evaluation of sedimentation rates in the Paraíba do Sul estuary and its correlation with the strong erosion that occurs in Atafona city, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We performed four transects along Paraíba do Sul Estuary with 14 sampling points. About 540 sediment samples were collected in January 2010 and February 2011. Sedimentation rates were determined by 210Pb dating method and inventories of 210Pb were determined for all sampling points. Two models were applied for the sedimentation rates determination: the Constant Initial Concentration model (CIC-model) and the Constant Rate of Supply model (CRS-model). The 210Pb dating results were validated based on the elemental concentration variation throughout two of the sediment cores. The elements determination was performed using the mass spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma technique (ICP-MS). The multivariate analysis were applied trough the principal factor analysis (PFA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HAC) in order to obtain factors that may traduce quantitatively the sample composition describing the region. At sampling points located at south of the Paraiba do Sul River (PSR) mouth, 210Pb inventories were higher than those at the northern and central sampling locations. The inventory average obtained at south was 1.0 Bq cm-2, much higher than those located at north of the river mouth, with a mean value 0.16 Bq cm-2, indicating that the sediments are transported southward by the alongshore current. The accumulation rate estimated for the deeper layers was 0.06 g cm-2 yr-1, which represents a reference value of sediment accumulation rate for the period prior to 1950. Accumulation rates obtained for the most recent period ranged from 0.2 g cm-2 yr-1 in the points situated at north and center to 0.6 g cm-2 yr-1 in points located at south of RPS mouth. It was observed that Cr, Cu, Cd and Zn concentrations increased significantly from the eighties that matches with the Cia Paraibuna Metals accident occurred in 1982. A consequence of changes in land use and the damming of the river is a change in the nature of the particulates reaching the PSR delta. The normalization of elemental concentrations to aluminum could help trace these changes, particularly for elements with a distinct origin, such as Ca and Mg. The Mg/Al versus ages plot showed a strong change between 1962 and 1988. There were four factors identified that traduce four sediment phases, two of them were related to the matrix, other was related to the carbonate phase and the other representing sulfides phase.