Caverna da Pedra Pintada facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Caverna da Pedra Pintada
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Location of State of Pará in Brazil (blue area indicates water)
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| Country |  Brazil |
| State | Pará State |
| Mesoregion | Baixo Amazonas Mesoregion |
| Microregion | Santarém Microregion |
Caverna da Pedra Pintada means Painted Rock Cave in English. It is an important archaeological site in northern Brazil. This cave shows signs that humans lived there about 11,200 years ago.
This discovery changed what scientists thought about how people first settled in South America. Anna Curtenius Roosevelt, an American archaeologist, has been the main researcher here since 1990. She believes the cave's findings prove that early people, called Paleo-Indians, lived far south in the Amazon. They had their own culture, existing at the same time as other early Native Americans in North America. Before this, many researchers thought Amazon settlements came later. They believed these settlements were started by people moving from the Andes mountains.
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Where is the Painted Rock Cave?
Caverna da Pedra Pintada is located near the town of Monte Alegre. This area is in the Amazon River Basin in Pará state, northern Brazil.
The cave is the main attraction of the Monte Alegre State Park. This park was created in 2001 and covers about 3,678 hectares (about 9,000 acres).
How the Cave Was Found and Studied
The American archaeologist Anna Curtenius Roosevelt rediscovered the cave. She led big excavations, or digs, from 1990 to 1992. Her work was supported by the Field Museum and the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Scientists used special methods like radiocarbon dating and thermoluminescence dating to find the age of the lowest layers in the cave. They found that these layers were from about 11,200 to 10,000 years ago. These very old dates changed how experts understood human settlement in the Amazon Basin. Roosevelt thinks the evidence from the cave supports the idea that people settled in the Amazon much earlier than previously thought.
What Was Found in the Cave?
The old dates of human presence in the cave show something important. They suggest that humans did not only move from North America down to the Andes mountains in South America. Some archaeologists used to believe this was the only way people settled the continent.
Anna Roosevelt explained, "We found strong evidence that a culture quite different from the North American Paleoindian culture, but existing at the same time, was more than 5,000 miles to the south." She added that "Paleoindians traveled far and adapted to many different places. The fact that distinct cultures existed east of the Andes suggests that North American big-game hunters were not the only source of people moving into South America."
The oldest layers of the cave contain burnt plant and animal remains. They also have stone tools, including spear points. This suggests that the first visitors were hunter-gatherers. They lived in a humid tropical environment. These Paleo-Indians used the cave often for about 1,200 years. They left behind remains of fruits and seeds, like Brazil nuts. They also left bones from fish, birds, reptiles, shellfish, and amphibians.
More than 30,000 stone tools and pieces of stone have been dug up from the cave.
Ancient Paintings
Scientists have dated small pieces of raw pigment and drops of paint from the cave paintings. These paintings are thought to be the oldest in South America. They are also the earliest known cave paintings in all of the Americas. The images include a stick figure of a woman giving birth. There are also geometric designs and hand stencils in shades of brown, red, and yellow.
