Serra da Capivara

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Location of the national park

The Serra da Capivara is a national park in the southeast of the Brazilian state of Piauí . It is located on the slopes of the Serra do Congo , where they drop to the Chapada da Capivara plain and covers 129,140 hectares. It was established in 1979 to protect the rock carvings that can be found there in great numbers. The park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1991 . The lead archaeologist was Niède Guidon , who announced in 2018 at the age of 85 that she would move to France.

Rock paintings in the park: the first assumptions

Rituals around a tree

In the 1960s, paintings were discovered in shelters carved out of the rock. On the basis of broken rock from the Pedra Furada shelter, it was believed to be able to prove that drawings had been made there for about 24,000 to 28,000 years. The oldest surviving and still recognizable drawings were dated to an age of around 14,000 years. These are the oldest examples of rock art in South America.

The majority of the representations date from 10,000 to 4,000 BC and can be assigned to the cultures of Nordeste and Agreste . The drawings of the Nordeste depict people, animals, plants and geometric shapes. From them an image of human society can be obtained that includes various rituals: dances, sexuality, rites around a tree and hunting. The Agreste paintings, which can be found all over South America, mostly depict people.

Dating of finds using the latest methods

Rock formations in the national park

The very early dates of finds in the national park were controversial until 2016 because they were not compatible with the usual theories about the settlement of America . Contrary to the majority opinion, the following picture emerges today: Already Guidon had come across charcoal fire below a painted rock wall, which she dated to much earlier than the known relics of the Clovis culture . However, your information was not taken seriously by the many scientists. These US researchers claimed that Guidon's allegedly outdated dating methods were inconsistent with modern Western standards. They countered Guidon's interpretation with various explanatory models: the fires were not lit by people, but were caused by bush fires; others considered the possibility that monkeys had started the fires.

Eric Boëda from the University of Paris-Nanterre , on the other hand, determined by measuring 6000 charcoal particles that the fireplaces had always been in the same place for long periods of time. They were layered on top of one another and not widely scattered as in bush fires. Hence the fires must have been kindled by humans. The dating of the charcoal showed an age of 22,000 years, which is 10,000 years earlier than, according to the Clovis theory, the first humans should have set foot on the American continent. Researchers sought to back up this view, which completely changed the chronology of prehistory in America. The geophysicist Christelle Lahaye from the University of Bordeaux Montaigne initially wanted to date the tools found beneath the rock face, but did not succeed because they were made of stone. With the help of thermoluminescence dating , Lahaye was then able to determine when the respective layer of earth in which the stones lay had been exposed to light for the last time, and thus determine the minimum age of the artifacts they contain. Examination of the samples at the University of Bordeaux showed that the stone tools are at least 20,000 years old. So far, this result cannot be challenged.

Accordingly, Guidon seems to be right in her early assumption that the first previously known Americans had settled in Brazil. Since it is now a hostile, deserted, parched region, Markus Reindel from the German Archaeological Institute examined soil samples from layers of different depths. From the geographic archive of sediments, dust and pollen, he was able to reconstruct the environmental conditions of different periods. The result supports Guidon's assumptions. According to this, 20,000 to 30,000 years ago there was a flourishing landscape with plenty of water and food. Evidence has been found for the existence of the nine-ton mastodon , an early form of the elephant, saber-toothed tiger and giant sloth , from which bones have been discovered.

Regarding the origin of the first Americans more than 20,000 years ago, Guidon takes the view that they came from West Africa 1,600 nautical miles away . The south equatorial current runs from West Africa to South America, and this east-west movement of the water is supported by the direction of the trade winds . With his simple boat made of papyrus, Thor Heyerdahl proved that the route can be mastered without any problems. A further clue was found in the mountains, towards the Andes, a rock painting depicting a boat. Furthermore, an ancient skull with typical African features was excavated in the Serra. Finally, the researchers found that thousands of years old coprolites contained African parasites.

See also

Web links

Commons : Serra da Capivara National Park  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Lilo Berg: In the footsteps of the first Americans. June 7, 2018, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Sensational find in Brazil. In: Terra X. zdf, accessed on June 18, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Christelle Lahaye et al .: Another site, same old song: The Pleistocene-Holocene archaeological sequence of Toca da Janela da Barra do Antonião-North, Piauí, Brazil. 2018, accessed June 21, 2020 .

Coordinates: 8 ° 40 ′ 4 ″  S , 42 ° 32 ′ 57 ″  W.