Christelle Lahaye

A new late Pleistocene archaeological sequence in South America: the Vale da Pedra Furada (Piauí, Brazil)

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 Meltzer et 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 of 14C 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.

New Data on a Pleistocene Archaeological Sequence in South America: Toca do Sítio do Meio, Piauí, Brazil

Sítio do Meio, discovered in the 1990s, showed a sedimentary sequence clearly composed of two sets of deposits separated by a zone of large rockfall from the massive collapse of the shelters overhang. The bottom set, slightly more than 60 cm thick, was trapped between the bedrock (upon which it rested) and the lower part of the roof fall (reaching more than 1 m in the excavation area), and yielded some charcoal without other archaeological material. New excavations, however, have revealed the presence of artifacts, additional charcoal, and an alignment of sandstone blocks providing clear boundaries for the artifact concentration. The typological and technological composition of the artifacts is classic, with tools made by shaping high-quality quartz pebbles and tools made on shaping chips or on chips obtained by bipolar percussion of quartz blocks. Quartzite was also used, but only in the manufacture of larger tools, of certain types. The toolkit is made of several convergent pieces, denticulates, rostres, scrapers, and end scrapers. Radiocarbon dating results indicate a Pleistocene age, corresponding to the end of the mid-Upper Pleistocene (MIS3). These dates confirm that Sítio do Meio is the seventh Pleistocene stratigraphic sequence known from a 20-km-radius zone, coming from different sedimentary horizons, testifying to a human presence that extends from MIS3 until the middle Holocene, in this region of Piauí. Particularly, we observed that this occupation still has periodic gaps, with phases of occupation occurring in either short or long periods. With the new data, we are able to consider the cultural specificities of each set in the context of climate data to better understand the diversity of occupation within a single territory, for example behavioral variation in the management of space, adaptive responses to environmental pressures, or potentially both at the same time.

The peopling of South America: expanding the evidence

The objective of the Franco-Brazilian mission, established in 2008 at the request of and in collaboration with Brazilian researchers, was to address the issue of the earliest peopling of South America as evidenced in north-eastern Brazil. Such early settlement had been suggested, and in our view demonstrated, by the previous research undertaken at the site of Boqueirão da Pedra Furada. Yet like any discovery, this occurred at a particular point in the history of research. Its acceptance depends on many factors that have often been difficult to accommodate as the evidence has unfolded. Still more fundamental has been the reasoned argument presented by the discoverers, since that is the basis of knowledge. The increasing number of sites and the conjunction of multiple approaches—stratigraphic, taphonomic, experimental, technological and functional—play a key role in the construction of this argument. Whether or not it is accepted will be part of the history of science. With the sites of Boqueirão, Sı́tio do Meio, Tira Peia and now Vale, we know that the settlement of this region of Piauı́ began more than 20–25 000 years ago, and occupation persisted throughout the entire Holocene period. When the data from these sites are compared with those from Santa Elina in the Mato Grosso, the antiquity of human settlement is confirmed and the area occupied at this early period is expanded. Another step has been taken; further steps must clearly follow in order to advance further. We now need to orient our questions differently by addressing behavioural issues.

Dating the Middle Paleolithic deposits of La Quina Amont (Charente, France) using luminescence methods

The site of La Quina Amont, located in the Charente region, is one of the most important sites in southwestern France for studying major changes in human behaviors from the Middle Paleolithic (MP) to the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP). Extensively excavated over the past 50 years, numerous dating studies have been focused on the Upper Paleolithic deposits using radiocarbon on bone collagen and thermoluminescence (TL) on heated flints; however, the Mousterian levels remain undated due to the scarcity of suitable materials. Our investigations aimed to provide for the first time a chronological framework for the site using luminescence dating methods on different minerals contained in the sediments. Coarse grains of quartz were dated using the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) technique, and polymineral fine grains were dated using both infrared (IRSL) and post-infrared (pIR-IRSL) stimulated luminescence signals. OSL, IRSL and pIR-IRSL results were combined with available TL and radiocarbon data sets to propose a chronology for the site. The agreement between these methods provides key insights into the sedimentological processes involved in the site formation and into the chronology of the human occupations. In particular, it shows that the sequence spans almost ∼20,000 years (20 ka). Moreover, the new chronological framework suggests that the makers of the Quina lithic technocomplex (LTC), who were reindeer hunters, inhabited the site from the end of marine isotope stage (MIS) 4 to the beginning of MIS 3. We also show that Levallois and Discoidal industries occurred successively under temperate paleoclimatic conditions, during MIS 3 but not after ∼40 ka. Finally, we compare the Quina LTC dataset with other sites in southern France in order to shed light upon the variability in Mousterian industries of this region.

The Cerutti Mastodon Site: Archaeological or Paleontological?

ABSTRACT The newly reported California discovery of mastodon remains possibly altered by humans more than 130 ka is unprecedented and potentially transformational. It calls for a concerted effort in North and South America to investigate other such ancient contexts that substantially predate the commonly accepted late-glacial timing of the first peopling of the New World.