Rock art at the pleistocene/holocene boundary in Eastern South America.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Most investigations regarding the first americans have primarily focused on four themes: when the New World was settled by humans; where they came from; how many migrations or colonization pulses from elsewhere were involved in the process; and what kinds of subsistence patterns and material culture they developed during the first millennia of colonization. Little is known, however, about the symbolic world of the first humans who settled the New World, because artistic manifestations either as rock-art, ornaments, and portable art objects dated to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition are exceedingly rare in the Americas.

Methodology/principal findings

Here we report a pecked anthropomorphic figure engraved in the bedrock of Lapa do Santo, an archaeological site lo

SUBMITTER: Neves WA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3284556 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature