Human Occupation in South America by 20,000 BC: The Toca da Tira Peia Site, Piauí, Brazil

A rock shelter discovers in Brazil continues to push back the timeline for the arrival of modern humans in the new world.

When and how did the first human beings settle in the American continent? Numerous data, from archaeological researches as well as from palaeogenetics, anthropological and environmental studies, have led to partially contradictory interpretations in recent years, often because of the lack of a reliable chronological framework. The present study contributes to the establishment of such a framework using luminescence techniques to date a Brazilian archaeological site, the Toca da Tira Peia. It constitutes an exemplary case study: all our observations and measurements tend to prove the good integrity of the site and the anthropological nature of the artifacts and we are confident in the accuracy of the luminescence dating results. All these points underline the importance of the Toca da Tira Peia. The results bring new pieces of evidence of a human presence in the north-east of Brazil as early as 20,000 BC. The Toca da Tira Peia thus contributes to the rewriting of the history of the peopling of the American continent.

Lahaye et al. (2013) published a paper that does precisely that – it demands a radical reformulation not just of the Paleoindian archaeological record but of the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic archaeological record as well. The Toca da Tira Peia rockshelter in Brazil (originally discovered in 2008) has yielded 113 knapped artifacts from 4 perfectly preserved layers dated from 4,000 to 22,000 YBP by luminescence techniques. The anthropogenic origin of the lithic artifacts is beyond doubt (see Fig. 5 below), the dating method is top of the line and is widely used to date artifacts in the Old World, and the oldest dates are some 10,000 years older than Clov

anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org...

The original paper

dx.doi.org...

Very interesting, star and flag.

reply to post by punkinworks10

You horse is starting to look like a winner, punkin'.

I hope this pans out. Great find!

Harte

This would tend to confirm the Palo Verde findings as well as some of the other findings in Texas and along the Atlantic coast that date to at least 20,000 BC. That would put the earliest human migrations into the New World at least some 22,000 years ago (because you don't show up in a new continent and instantly populate every corner of it.)

Smashing stuff, I look forwards to delving into this when I finally get home, SnF

reply to post by skalla


Hey Skalla,
Here a link to a site with a very good section on new world archeology, its a little dated, the site hasn't been updated for a few years, but its still very good.
www.andaman.org...
The Brazil section covers the most well know sites.

I highly recomend the rest of the site the information on the negrito people of the pacific basin and of the Indian ocean.

reply to post by punkinworks10


many thanks.. it's something i'd like to learn more on having learnt about new world points and material culture as a side effect of a hobby as much as study.. a good "in" is gratefully recieved

ETA: purely as an aside (well, in the spirit of exchange too), i dont know if you have ever come across Tim Rast's blog "Elfshot" on paleoeskimo archaeology/material culture and his career reproducing it - you may find it quite fascinating, the guy is phenomenally interesting and a skilled craftsman to boot