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Pedra Furada

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Stone arch at Pedra Furada.

The Pedra Furada (The Drilled Rock) is an important collection of over 800 archaeological sites and rock paintings in Brazil where it has been registered a human presence before the first settlements from Beringia into North America at Clovis. It was discovered in 1973 by a Brazilian and French team, when excavating a site located in the Southeastern portion of the state of Piaui in what is now the Serra da Capivara National Park. The discovery was reported by the Brazilian archaeologist Niède Guidon, who published her findings in 1986[1].

The Pedra Furada includes a collection of rock shelters, used by thousands of years by diverse human populations. The first excavations yielded artifacts with C14 dates of 48000 to 32000 years BP. Repeated analysis has confirmed this dating, carrying the range of dates up to 60000 BP[2]. The best analyzed archaeological levels are dated between 32160 ± 1000 years BP and 17000 ± 400 BP. The collection of stone age artifacts includes darts and atlatls but no arrows or bows.

Guidon has established 15 distinct levels, classified in three cultural phases, called Pedra Furada, that includes the oldest remains, Serra Talhada, from 12000 to 7000 BP, with tools like knives, scrapers, flakes used "as is" or with some retouch and lithic cores, all made of quartz or quartzite. Finally there is Agreste late phase. The site also has hundreds of rock paintings dated from 5,000 to 11,000 years ago.[3]

Those discoveries has been the subject of debate as they apparently contradicted the "Clovis first" view for humans in the Americas, or short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 15,000 – 17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants.[4][5] Pedra Furada is one site that provides arguments for the proponents of the long chronology theory, which states that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at a much earlier date, possibly 21,000–40,000 years ago,[6][7] with a much later mass secondary wave of immigrants.[8][9]

Controversy

The controversy is whether or not the artifacts and hearths are instead geofacts that were made naturally. This seems to be a dividing line on the debate between archaeologists disputing Guidon beliefs about the items being artifacts that prove human settlement in the Americas long before what was previously theorized. The controversy has been characterized by Alex Bello, at The Guardian, as "U.S." archaeologists believing that the items are geofacts created naturally, "because the North Americans cannot believe that they do not have the oldest site", while David Meltzer, of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas asks "...if we have (pre-Clovis) humans in South America, then by golly, why don't we have them in North America too?". On the other hand Guidon has not made easier for their critics to come at terms with her theory, saying that "The carbon is not from a natural fire. It is only found inside the sites. You don't get natural fires inside the shelters" and adding that "The problem is that the Americans criticize without knowing. The problem is not mine. The problem is theirs. Americans should excavate more and write less".[10] French palaeolithic archaeologist Jacques Pelegrin, believes that there is a possibility of natural processes creating flaked stones that could mimic the Pedra Furada specimens because of their simplicity, but he finds this very unlikely in this case because of continuous human presence in the site.[11]

Additional discoveries at Monte Verde, dated at 14800 years BP, which was initially contested in the very same way and with similar arguments[12], as well as other anthropological discoveries in Piedra Museo in the argentinian province of Santa Cruz, dated 11000 years BP[13], in Topper in the state of California, dated 50000 years BP[14][15], and the Meadowcroft Rockshelter located near Avella in Washington County, in southwestern Pennsylvania, United States, dated 16000 years BP, have raised doubts about the "Clovis First" theory, or the theory of late settlement of the Americas, and have led to alternative proposals for the routes of colonization and the diffusion of culture through the continent, in a heated dispute that has not been solved.

Indigenous Amerindian genetic studies have concluded that the "colonizing founders" of the Americas emerged from a single-source ancestral population that evolved in isolation, likely in Beringia.[16][17] The isolation in Beringia might have lasted 10,000–20,000 years.[18][19] Age estimates based on Y-chromosome micro-satellite place diversity of the American Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA) at around 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.[20][21] This does not address if there were any previous failed colonization attempts by other genetic groups, that could be represented by those settling the Piedra Furada site, as genetic testing can only address current population ancestral heritage.[20]

References

  1. ^ Guidon, Niède y G. Delibrias. 1986 "Carbon-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32 000 years ago"; Nature 321: 769-771
  2. ^ Guidon, Niède. 1986 "Las Unidades Culturales de Sao Raimundo Nonato - Sudeste del Estado de Piaui-Brasil"; New Evidence for the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas: 157-171. Edited by Alan Bryan. Center for the Study of Early Man. University of Maine. Orono.
  3. ^ "Pedra Furada, Brazil: Paleoindians, Paintings, and Paradoxes: An interview with Drs. Niède Guidon, Anne-Marie Pessis, Fabio Parenti, Claude Guérin, Evelyne Peyre, and Guaciara M. dos Santos"
  4. ^ "Chaw joins poop in archaeology arsenal". University of Wisconsin.
  5. ^ Axelrod, Alan (2003). The Complete Idiot's Guide to American History. Alpha Books. ISBN 0028644646. Retrieved 2010-02-05.
  6. ^ "Introduction". Government of Canada. Parks Canada. 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-09. Canada's oldest known home is a cave in Yukon occupied not 12,000 years ago like the U.S. sites, but at least 20,000 years ago
  7. ^ "Pleistocene Archaeology of the Old Crow Flats". Vuntut National Park of Canada. 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-10. However, despite the lack of this conclusive and widespread evidence, there are suggestions of human occupation in the northern Yukon about 24,000 years ago, and hints of the presence of humans in the Old Crow Basin as far back as about 40,000 years ago.
  8. ^ "Atlas of the Human Journey". National Geographic.
  9. ^ "Jorney of mankind". Brad Shaw Foundation.
  10. ^ "Brazilian Findings Spark Archeological Debate" by Alex Bellos
  11. ^ "Stones of contention" by David Meltzer
  12. ^ Tom D. Dillehay, Michael B. Collins, Mario Pino, Jack Rossen, Jim Adovasio, Carlos Ocampo, Ximena Navarro, Pilar Rivas, David Pollack, A. Gwynn Henderson, Jose Saavedra, Patricio Sanzana, Pat Shipman, Marvin Kay, Gaston Munoz, Anastasios Karathanasis, Donald Ugent, Michael Cibull, and Richard Geissler. "On Monte Verde: Fiedel's Confusions and Misrepresentations". Universtiy of Kentucky. Retrieved 2 November 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Paleoamerican Origins, Smithsonian, http://www.smithsonian.org/encyclopedia_si/nmnh/origin.htm
  14. ^ The Topper Site: Beyond Clovis at Allendale, http://www.allendale-expedition.net/publications/MT%2016_4.pdf
  15. ^ New Evidence Puts Man In North America 50,000 Years Ago, Science Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041118104010.htm
  16. ^ Jody Hey, "On the Number of New World Founders: A Population Genetic Portrait of the Peopling of the Americas", Public Library of Science Biology, 3(6):e193 (2005)
  17. ^ "Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American Founders". PLoS ONE (eISSN-1932-6203).
  18. ^ "The peopling of the Americas: Genetic ancestry influences health". Scientific American.
  19. ^ "First Americans Endured 20,000-Year Layover - Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News". Retrieved 2009-10-05.
  20. ^ a b The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Digitised online by Google books). Random House. 2002. ISBN 0812971469. Retrieved 2009-11-21. {{cite book}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  21. ^ (2003) "Y-Chromosome Evidence for Differing Ancient Demographic Histories in the Americas," (pdf) Maria-Catira Bortolini, Francisco M. Salzano, Mark G. Thomas, Steven Stuart, Selja P. K. Nasanen, Claiton H. D. Bau, Mara H. Hutz, Zulay Layrisse, Maria L. Petzl-Erler, Luiza T. Tsuneto, Kim Hill, Ana M. Hurtado, Dinorah Castro-de-Guerra, Maria M. Torres, Helena Groot, Roman Michalski, Pagbajabyn Nymadawa, Gabriel Bedoya, Neil Bradman, Damian Labuda, Andres Ruiz-Linares. Department of Biology, University College, London; Departamento de Gene´tica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil; Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas, Caracas, Venezuela; Departamento de Gene´tica, Universidade Federal do Parana´, Curitiba, Brazil; 5Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; 6Laboratorio de Gene´tica Humana, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota´; Victoria Hospital, Prince Albert, Canada; Subassembly of Medical Sciences, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Laboratorio de Gene´tica Molecular, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellı´n, Colombia; Universite´ de Montreal, Montreal. 73:524-539. Retrieved 2010-01-22.
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