The date of the first settlement of the Americas remains a contentious subject. Previous claims for very early occupation at Pedra Furada in Brazil were not universally accepted (see Meltzeret al.1994). New work at the rockshelter of Boqueirão da Pedra Furada and at the nearby open-air site of Vale da Pedra Furada have however produced new evidence for human occupation extending back more than 20 000 years. The argument is supported by a series of14C and OSL dates, and by technical analysis of the stone tool assemblage. The authors conclude that the currently accepted narrative of human settlement in South America will have to be re-thought. The article is followed by a series of comments, rounded off by a reply from the authors.
O alto rio Uruguai é uma área importante para compreender o povoamento pré-histórico da bacia do rio da Prata. Nela foram localizados sítios de caçadores-coletores, referentes ao passado mais antigo da região, e de grupos ceramistas relacionados às unidades arqueológicas Tupiguarani e Taquara-Itararé. Este artigo apresenta os primeiros resultados das pesquisas realizadas no sítio ACH-LP-07 situado próximo à foz do rio Chapecó na margem direita do rio Uruguai, no oeste de Santa Catarina. O mesmo apresentou várias ocupações por caçadores-coletores no início do Holoceno, caracterizadas por uma variabilidade nas produções de pedra lascada, onde se destaca a produção de lâminas por uma debitagem específica. No último milênio o local também foi povoado por grupos ceramistas Guarani. O sítio tem trazido diferentes contribuições a respeito dessas antigas sociedades, especialmente as modalidades de ocupação e de sucessão dos grupos humanos no alto rio Uruguai.
The first dense settlement in central and northeast Brazil, starting ca. 13,000 cal yr BP, is often associated in the literature with the "Itaparica tradition." This assumed homogeneous technocultural group was defined typologically by the presence of unifacially shaped lithic tools called limaces, plano-convex tools, or unifaces. In this article, the results of a techno-functional analysis of the lithic assemblages from the site of GO-JA-01 are presented and compared with those from Toca do Boqueirão da Pedra Furada and Toca do Pica-Pau. It appears that unifacially shaped artifacts correspond to a new technical concept, based on unique structural, productional, and functional principles. These artifacts are part of a technical system within which they have a complementary relationship with the other tools. The comparison between the assemblages from the three sites studied and other sites described in publications sheds light on the geographic uniformity of this technical system. We can conclude from this that the Itaparica technocomplex definitely exists in central and northeast Brazil during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and the early Holocene, corresponding to the first phase of dense settlement in the region.
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