  location in Brazil | |
| Location | Coronel José Dias, Piauí |
|---|---|
| Region | near Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil |
| Coordinates | 8°48′32″S42°21′16″W / 8.80889°S 42.35444°W Coordinates: 8°48′32″S42°21′16″W / 8.80889°S 42.35444°W |
Toca da Tira Peia is a rock shelter site, located in the municipality Coronel José Dias, Piauí state, near the Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil, [1] thought to hold evidence of prehistoric human presence in South America dating to 22,000 years ago.
The Toca da Tira Peia rockshelter was discovered in 2008. There are four well preserved sediment layers, the youngest of which dates to 4,000 years BP. 113 knapped stone tools and artifacts have been recovered.
The site has been dated through optically stimulated luminescence technique.
"Digging turned up 113 stone artifacts consisting of tools and tool debris in five soil layers. Using a technique that measures natural radiation damage in excavated quartz grains, the scientists estimated that the last exposure of soil to sunlight ranged from about 4,000 years ago in the top layer to 22,000 years ago in the third layer." [2] [1]
According to the authors, this site offers some advantages to the other sites such as Pedra Furada in regard to dating. As opposed to the Pedra Furada sites, Toca da Tira Peia doesn't have so many naturally occurring pebbles that can be confused with those that “were brought and knapped by human beings”.
Also, the authors claim that the Toca da Tira Peia artifacts “are in their original position; they had not been subject to movements since their burial”. [1]
The Kalambo Falls on the Kalambo River is a 772-foot (235 m) single-drop waterfall on the border of Zambia and Tanzania at the southeast end of Lake Tanganyika. The falls are some of the tallest uninterrupted falls in Africa. Downstream of the falls is the Kalambo Gorge, which has a width of about 1 km and a depth of up to 300 m, running for about 5 km before opening out into the Lake Tanganyika rift valley.
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1920s and 1930s. It appears around 11,500–11,000 uncalibrated RCYBP at the end of the last glacial period and is characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools. Archaeologists' most precise determinations at present suggest this radiocarbon age is equal to roughly 13,200 to 12,900 calendar years ago. Clovis people are considered to be the ancestors of most of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Monte Verde is an archaeological site in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Southern Chile, which has been dated to as early as 18,500 cal BP. Previously, the widely accepted date for early occupation at Monte Verde was ~14,500 years cal BP. This dating added to the evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 cal BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but the evidence then became more accepted in archaeological circles.
Topper is an archaeological site located along the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina, United States. It is noted as a location of artifacts which some archaeologists believe to indicate human habitation of the New World earlier than the Clovis culture. The latter were previously believed to be the first people in North America.
The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was used by the Neanderthals in Europe and by modern humans in other regions such as the Levant.
Serra da Capivara National Park is a national park in the Northeastern region of Brazil. The area has many prehistoric paintings.
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Later Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span, however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, Homo neanderthalensis, than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic. The MSA is associated with both anatomically modern humans as well as archaic Homo sapiens, sometimes referred to as Homo helmei. Early physical evidence comes from the Gademotta Formation in Ethiopia, the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and Kathu Pan in South Africa.
Niède Guidon is a Brazilian archaeologist known for her work in pre-historic archeology of South American civilizations and her efforts to secure the conservation of the World Heritage Site Serra da Capivara National Park.
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Walter Alves Neves is a Brazilian biologist, archeologist, antropologist and a retired professor from the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology of the Institute of Biosciences at the University of São Paulo. He was responsible for the study of Luzia, the oldest human skeleton on the American continent that was discovered by French archaeologist Laming-Emperaire during the 1970s, and the oldest rock inscription on the American continent, phallocentric.
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Buttermilk Creek Complex refers to the remains of a paleolithic settlement along the shores of Buttermilk Creek in present-day Salado, Texas dated to approximately 15,500 years old. If confirmed, the site represents evidence of human settlement in the Americas that pre-dates the Clovis culture.
Caverna da Pedra Pintada, is an archaeological site in northern Brazil, with evidence of human presence dating ca. 11,200 years ago.
Zengpiyan is a Neolithic cave site in southern China. It is located in the Guilin region on the south-western fringes of the Dushan Mountain in the autonomous region Guangxi and is considered to be one of the most important cave sites of the Neolithic in China as it is one of the many independent centers for the introduction of animal domestication and pottery.
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Boomplaas Cave is located in the Cango Valley in the foothills of the Swartberg mountain range, north of Oudtshoorn, Eden District Municipality in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. It has a 5 m (16 ft) deep stratified archaeological sequence of human presence, occupation and hunter-gatherer/herder acculturation dating back 80,000 years. The site's documentation contributed to the reconstruction of palaeo-environments in the context of changes in climate within periods of the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene. The cave has served multiple functions during its occupation, such as a kraal (enclosure) for animals, a place for the storage of oil rich fruits and as a hunting camp. Circular stone hearths and calcified dung remains of domesticated sheep as well as stone adzes and pottery art were excavated indicating that humans lived at the site and kept animals.
The Cerutti Mastodon site is a paleontological and possible archeological site located in San Diego County, California. In 2017, researchers announced that broken mastodon bones at the site had been dated to around 130,700 years ago.
Panga ya Saidi is an archaeological cave site located in Kilifi County, southeastern Kenya, about 15 km from the Indian Ocean in the Dzitsoni limestone hills. The cave site has rich archaeological deposits dating to the Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, and Iron Age. Excavated deposits preserve an unusually long record of human activities, from around 78,000 years ago until around 400 years ago, a chronology supported by radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence dating. This sequence puts Panga ya Saidi alongside other key sites such as Enkapune ya Muto, Mumba Rockshelter, and Nasera Rockshelter that are important for understanding the Late Pleistocene and the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in eastern Africa.
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