Paleoindian Cave Dwellers in the Amazon: The Peopling of the Americas
Abstract
A Paleoindian campsite has been uncovered in stratified prehistoric deposits in Caverna da Pedra Pintada at Monte Alegre in
the Brazilian Amazon. Fifty-six radiocarbon dates on carbonized plant remains and 13 luminescence dates on lithics and sediment
indicate a late Pleistocene age contemporary with North American Paleoindians. Paintings, triangular bifacial spear points,
and other tools in the cave document a culture distinct from North American cultures. Carbonized tree fruits and wood and
faunal remains reveal a broad-spectrum economy of humid tropical forest and riverine foraging. The existence of this and related
cultures east of the Andes changes understanding of the migrations and ecological adaptations of early foragers.
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- ReferencesReferences21
- "The sums of the weighted values were used to calculate the Impact Score. FIGURE 7 | Summed probabilities of predictive models of terras pretas (McMichael et al., 2014a), geoglyphs (McMichael et al., 2014b), and major archeological sites (Roosevelt et al., 1991Roosevelt et al., , 1996 Erickson, 2006; Heckenberger et al., 2008) within Amazonia sensu stricto. The highest probabilities indicate where anthropogenic influence on past, and potentially present, vegetation is most likely based on available data. "
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: The ecological status of prehistoric Amazonian forests remains widely debated. The concept of ancient Amazonia as a pristine wilderness is largely discredited, but the alternative hypothesis of extensive anthropogenic landscape remains untested in many regions. We assessed the degree of ancient human impacts across western Amazonia based on archaeological and paleoecological data using methodologies that would allow inter-regional comparisons. We also aimed to establish baselines for estimating the legacies of ancient disturbances on modern vegetation. We analyzed charcoal and phytolith assemblages from soil samples from an archaeological site, sites in close proximity to archaeological sites, sites from riverine and interfluvial forests, and a biological research station believed to contain some of the least disturbed forests within Amazonia. We then quantitatively compared phytolith assemblages within and between the surveyed regions. Palm enrichment was evident at the archaeological site, and the biological station survey contained little to no evidence of ancient human activity. The other sites exhibited a gradient of ancient disturbance across the landscape. The phytolith assemblages showed statistically significant between-region variations that indicated our metrics were sufficiently sensitive to detecting ancient disturbance. Our data highlight the spatial heterogeneity of ancient human disturbances in Amazonian forests. The quantification of these disturbances provides empirical data and a more concrete link between the composition of the modern forest and ancient disturbance regimes. Accounting for ancient disturbances will allow a deeper understanding of the landscape heterogeneity observed in the modern forests.- "Bal ee, 1989; Erickson, 2008; Heckenberger & Neves, 2009; Roosevelt, 2013). Initially colonized by c. 13,000 calibrated years before present (bp) (Roosevelt et al., 1996; Capriles & AlbarracinJordan, 2013), population densities in Amazonia may have increased persistently but slowly prior to c. 2500 bp. From that time onward, more intensive and technologically diverse forms of agriculture and landscape management allowed human occupation to become more sedentary and widespread (e.g. "
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: An important debate has been re-invigorated by new data concerning the size and environmental impacts of human populations in the Amazon Basin during pre-history. Here, we review the history of debates concerning pre-historic human occupation of the Amazon Basin along with the presentation of empirical data from archaeological and palaeoecological research. The combined evidence suggests that human occupation and resulting influence on Amazonian ecosystems were heterogeneous on both regional and local scales. Pre-historic occupation sites are more likely to have been located in forests with a pronounced dry season or in forests that are within 15 km of a river floodplain, rather than in ever-wet forests or in interfluvial regions far removed from large rivers. Forest enrichment of preferred species and game depletion through hunting are most probable within 15 km of an occupation site. Given the spatial and temporal patterning of these data, views of significant Amazonian-wide cultural impacts on riverine and interfluvial forest are not supported at this time.- "There is solid archaeological evidence for a terminal Pleistocene occupation in South America, including lithic tools and faunal remains in anthropogenic contexts (e.g. Dillehay 1989; Jackson et al. 2007; Miotti and Salemme 2003; Roosevelt et al. 1996; Sandweiss et al. 1998), but skeletal evidence of the people who produced these assemblages is almost absent, making it difficult to assess many aspects of their diet and other lifeways. This is particularly true for the Pacific Coast of South America, where archaeological sites signal discontinuous spots of occupation of the region associated with faunal remains indicating marine resource consumption (Sandweiss 2008). "
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: A coastal route for the initial peopling of the Americas has been debated for over 30 years. Nevertheless, evidence supporting this coastal dispersal is often elusive, especially bioanthropological data. Here we report archaeological human remains directly dated to ca. 11,200 cal BP from the semiarid north coast of Chile (31 • S), supporting an early settlement along the Pacific Coast. 15 N stable isotope analyses of these remains indicate that the individual relied primarily on marine resources , suggesting coastal dwelling rather than seasonal rounds that included sporadic exploitation of littoral resources. When placed in a regional context, our results suggest that marine resources were important to the subsistence of some groups during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.
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