Toca da Tira Peia is a rock shelter site, located in the municipality
Coronel José Dias
Coronel José Dias is a municipality in the state of Piauí in the Northeast region of Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin Am ...
,
Piauí
Piaui (, ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP.
Piaui has the shortest coastline of any coastal Brazilian state at 66&n ...
state, near the
Serra da Capivara National Park
Serra da Capivara National Park (Portuguese: ''Parque Nacional Serra da Capivara'', , locally ) is a national park in the Northeastern region of Brazil. The area has many prehistoric paintings.
The name of the mountain range that defines the p ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
,
thought to hold evidence of prehistoric human presence in South America dating to 22,000 years ago.
Site
The Toca da Tira Peia
rockshelter
A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long, rock shelters are almost alway ...
was discovered in 2008. There are four well preserved sediment layers, the youngest of which dates to 4,000 years BP. 113 knapped stone tools and artifacts have been recovered.
The site has been dated through
optically stimulated luminescence
In physics, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) is a method for measuring doses from ionizing radiation. It is used in at least two applications:
* Luminescence dating of ancient materials: mainly geological sediments and sometimes fired pott ...
technique.
"Digging turned up 113 stone artifacts consisting of tools and tool debris in five soil layers. Using a technique that measures natural radiation damage in excavated quartz grains, the scientists estimated that the last exposure of soil to sunlight ranged from about 4,000 years ago in the top layer to 22,000 years ago in the third layer."[
]
According to the authors, this site offers some advantages to the other sites such as Pedra Furada in regard to dating. As opposed to the Pedra Furada sites, Toca da Tira Peia doesn't have so many naturally occurring pebbles that can be confused with those that “were brought and knapped by human beings”.
Also, the authors claim that the Toca da Tira Peia artifacts “are in their original position; they had not been subject to movements since their burial”.
See also
*
Pedra Furada sites
*
Caverna da Pedra Pintada
Caverna da Pedra Pintada (Painted Rock Cave ), is an archaeological site in northern Brazil, with evidence of human presence dating ca. 11,200 years ago.Saraceni, Jessica E. and Adriana Franco da Sá"People of South America."''Archaeology.'' Vol. ...
References
Bibliography
*
*German Dziebel
THE TOCA DA TIRA PEIA SITE AND THE END OF AN ICE AGE IN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY.Anthropogenesis, April 24, 2013
External links
When Did People Reach South America?archaeology.org March 20, 2013
Archaeological sites in Brazil
Pre-Clovis archaeological sites in the Americas
Rock shelters
{{Brazil-protected-area-stub