Piedra Museo facts for kids
Piedra Museo is an amazing archaeological site in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. It's one of the oldest places in the Americas where scientists have found signs of early human life.
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Discovering Ancient Life
Around 1910, an Argentine scientist named Florentino Ameghino first found this important site. He was a naturalist who studied nature and people. Ameghino wrote a famous book in 1878 called The Antiquity of Man in the Río de la Plata Basin. This book was one of the first detailed studies about ancient people in Argentina.
Many years later, in 1995, another important discovery happened. University of La Plata archaeologist Dr. Laura Miotti led a new excavation. Her team used a special method called carbon dating to find out how old the human remains were. They learned that these ancient human fossils are about 11,000 years old!
What Was Found at Piedra Museo?
The Piedra Museo site is located about 250 kilometers (150 miles) from Pico Truncado. This area is in the Deseado Department of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. It's one of the very oldest places in the Americas where archaeologists have found human traces.
Scientists found many interesting things there. They discovered spear heads that had tiny bits of ancient animals on them. These animals included the Mylodon and Hippidion. These creatures have been extinct, meaning they died out, since at least 10,000 BC.
The first people who lived at Piedra Museo were called the Toldense people. They were hunter gatherers. This means they hunted animals and gathered plants for their food. Besides the Mylodon and Hippidion, they also hunted animals like rheas (large birds) and guanacos (animals similar to llamas).
Solving the Mystery of Early Americans
Piedra Museo is a very important site for understanding how people first came to the Americas. For a long time, many scientists believed in the "Clovis First" idea. This idea suggested that the Clovis culture was the very first group of people in the Americas. They thought this because there wasn't much evidence to say otherwise.
However, sites like Piedra Museo, along with Pedra Furada in Brazil, Monte Verde in Chile, Topper, and the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in the United States, have changed this idea. These discoveries show that people might have been in the Americas much earlier than the Clovis culture. This has led to new theories about the settlement of the Americas.
Where to See the Discoveries
If you want to see some of the amazing things found at Piedra Museo, you can visit the Pico Truncado Regional Museum of History. This museum also has artifacts and petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) from the nearby Los Toldos site.
See also
In Spanish: Piedra Museo para niños- Cueva de las Manos
