Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T01:23:44.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pedra Furada in Brazil and its ‘presumed’ evidence: limitations and potential of the available data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Fabio Parenti
Affiliation:
Instituto Italiano di Paleontologia Umana, Piazza Mincio 2, 00198 Rome, Italy
Michel Fontugue
Affiliation:
Centre des Faibles Radioactivités, Laboratoire mixte CNRS/CEA, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France
Claude Guérin
Affiliation:
Département des Sciences de la Terre, Université Claude Bernard-Lyon 1, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbane Cédex, France

Extract

Recent prehistoric and palaeoanthropological debate is focusing new interest on the peopling of the Americas — an old and difficult research-case. Proponents of new sites need to submit their putative 'new and revolutionary' discoveries to a wider judgement, mainly contra sceptics and partisans of more conservative theories. Such a review is helpful, and we are grateful to our colleagues for their considered assessment of the evidence proposed in our Brazilian research. Nevertheless their view of the Pedra Furada evidence has gaps, misunderstandings and ambiguities.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellomo, R. V. 1990. A methodological approach for identifying archaeological evidence of fire resulting from human activities, Journal of Archaeological Science 20: 525–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guérin, C., Hugueny, M., Mourer-Chauvire, C. & Faure, M.. 1993. Paléoenvironment pléistocène dans l'aire archéologique de Säo Raimundo Nonato (Piaui, Brésil): apport des mammifères et des oiseaux, Documents du Laboratoire Géologique de Lyon 125: 187203.Google Scholar
Guidon, N. & Arnaud, M. B.. 1991. The chronology of the New World: two faces of one reality, World Archaeology 23(2):167–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guidon, N. & Pessis, A. M.. 1993. Recent discoveries on the Holocenic levels of Sitio do Meio rock-shelter, Piaui, Brazil, Clio 1(9): 7780.Google Scholar
Keeley, L. H. 1980. Experimental determination of stone tool uses: a microwear analysis. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D. J., Adovasio, J. M. & Dillehay, T. D.. 1994. On a Pleistocene human occupation at Pedra Furada, Brazil, Antiquity 68: 695714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parenti, F. 1993. Le gisement quaternaire di la Toca do Boqueirâo da Pedra Furada (Piaui, Brésil) dans le contexte de la préhistoire américaine: fouilles, stratigraphie, chronologie, évolution culturelle. Ph.D dissertation, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.Google Scholar
Parenti, F., Mercier, N. & Valladas, H.. 1990. The oldest hearths of Pedra Furada, Brasil: thermoluminescence analysis of heated stones, Current Research in the Pleistocene 7: 36–8.Google Scholar
Parenti, F. & Torroni, A.. 1994. Archeologia preistorica e analisi del DNA mitocondriale nella questione del populamento delle Americhe, Rivista di Antropologia 72: 114.Google Scholar
Shea, J. J. 1991. Behavioural significance of Levantine Mousterian industrial variability. Ph.D dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Torroni, A., Neel, J. V., Barrantes, R., Schurr, T. G. & Wallace, D. C.. 1994. Mitochondrial DNA ‘clock’ l'or the Amerinds and its implications for timing their entry into North America, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 91: 115862.Google Scholar
Valladas, H. 1981. Thermolummescence de grès de foyers préhistoriques: estimation de leur temperature de chauffe, Archaeometry 23(2):221–9.Google Scholar
Whitley, D. S. & Dorn, R. I.. 1993. New perspectives on the Clovis vs. pre-Clovis controversy, American Antiquity 58(4):626–47.Google Scholar