Brazil - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu today visited a cattle breeding farm in the municipality of Santo Antônio de Leverger in Brazil’s west-central state of Mato Grosso which has won acclaim for its innovative methods Boqueirão Farm was one of those scoring highest under the Famato System in the Field Award an initiative of the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of Mato Grosso (Famato) in partnership with the National Rural Learning Service (Senar-MT) and the Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics (Imea).  The Director-General acknowledged farm owner Arno Schneider’s sustained efforts in enhancing productivity while minimizing the agricultural carbon footprint by leveraging science, technology, and innovation. "Science-based statistics are essential for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production,” he said. The annual World Food Forum organized by FAO serves as an ideal platform for advocacy for all partners especially farmers and people in rural areas who are equipped with knowledge and data Schneider began livestock activities in Santo Antônio de Leverger in 1983 five years after moving from the far south of Brazil and fattening cattle, using advanced technologies originating from a breed imported from India Schneider was a pioneer in early-maturing steers he began investing in crossbreeding with the hardy European Caracu breed With the goal of diversifying economic activities, Schneider also began cultivating teak trees Among the factors to which Schneider attributes the farm’s high score in the awards is the integration of livestock and forests allowing for higher stocking rates per hectare with better animal performance 43,000+ global companies doing business in the region 102,000+ key contacts related to companies and projects news and interviews about your industry in English July 24, 2024 | | | | | The ad-free version is ready for purchase on iOS mobile app today we couldn't find that page";var n=e.querySelector("h2");return n&&n.remove(),{staticContent:e,title:t}},d=function(e){var t=document.createElement("button");return t.innerText=e,t.classList.add("error-page-button"),t},f=function(e){var t=document.createElement("div");t.id="recirculation-404",t.classList.add("brand-hint-bg");var n="\n \n \n \n \n \n '.concat(e,' Tick here if you would like us to send you the author’s response Between March 2017 and January 2018, researchers tracked the movements of a female puma as it prowled around the Boqueirão da Onça protected area complex in the north of Brazil’s Bahia state. They’d named her Vitória, the first puma (Puma concolor) in the region to be captured and fitted with a radio collar, which researchers from the Amigos da Onça program a wildcat project affiliated with conservation nonprofit Pró-Carnívoros they noticed a change in Vitória’s roaming the puma began to avoid the work area and its surroundings she didn’t cross the area of wind turbines,” says Carolina Esteves a researcher at Pró-Carnívoros and co-founder of Amigos da Onça circling the entire complex to reach a water point Researchers also observed the same behavioral change of maintaining distance from the construction site among the region’s jaguars (Panthera onca) Pumas and jaguars occur across a range of Brazil’s biomes with each population differing to a certain degree based on their habitat have stiffer whiskers and thicker leg hair to deal with the hotter open ground than their cousins in the lush forests of the Amazon or the wetlands of the Pantanal “We usually say that if we catch an adult [puma or jaguar] from any other biome and release it in the Caatinga especially during the dry season,” Esteves says for a year and a half to two years the mother will teach him everything he needs to know to survive in addition to how to hunt and protect itself it will also show you where the main water points are.” which jars with their reputation for generating clean electricity is that the Caatinga big cats are on the verge of extinction and they depend on the native forests to survive It’s estimated there are only 250 jaguars and 2,500 pumas left in the entire biome and a larger environmental protection area (APA) where some degree of sustainable human activity is permitted the park and the APA cover 853,000 hectares (2.11 million acres) accounting for the largest protected area complex in the Caatinga The jaguar is listed as critically endangered in the Caatinga one level shy of being declared locally extinct from the wild here but its classification as endangered in the Caatinga is worse than in all the other biomes in Brazil where the species is classified as vulnerable the population estimates that Esteves and her team are working with may be overly optimistic “From the reports we have of hunting and proven removal of individuals the current estimates are not good,” she says If Vitória was already showing changes in her movements six years ago it’s easy to imagine that the big cats in the same region face a much more difficult reality today There are currently four wind farms operating in the Boqueirão da Onça APA “And there are six more wind farms to be installed,” says Cláudia Bueno de Campos a carnivore biologist and co-founder of Amigos da Onça who is also an official with the Brazilian Ministry of Environment’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) the region has also become attractive for solar energy generation clearing 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of native Caatinga vegetation in the process “The removal of vegetation on the tops of the mountains alters the natural flow of rainwater that feeds the surroundings “These springs are extremely important for the big cats because during droughts they become the only water points for them to drink not to mention their importance for the local people.” conservationists had pushed for the creation of a large protected area in the Boqueirão da Onça region as a way of ensuring the conservation of the wildlife in this relatively well-preserved part of the Caatinga then-president Michel Temer signed a decree transforming an area of 347,557 hectares (858,832 acres) into Boqueirão da Onça National Park 505,692 hectares (1.25 million acres) for Boqueirão da Onça Environmental Protection Area The decision not to establish the entire area as a national park left environmentalists frustrated as the region demonstrated enormous potential for their business Brazil’s northeast region is home to 90% of the country’s wind farms mostly in the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Bahia State and municipal governments have welcomed the investments that these projects have ushered in but for conservationists they’ve exacerbated an age-old problem: the deliberate killing of big cats “When faced with wind farms and having to move much farther to find resources such as water and food big cats often end up getting closer to rural properties where there are domestic animals or even herds of goats something common in this region,” says Paulo Marinho an ecologist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and specialist in Caatinga mammal conservation “This intensifies conflicts between farmers and these cats To prevent the economic losses from the predation of their livestock farmers set traps that end up killing pumas and jaguars in addition to studying and monitoring the cats’ populations Amigos da Onça runs an “education for conservation” program for local communities and livestock ranchers to get them to co-exist more peacefully with the predators This includes a specific project to prevent retaliatory killings by the ranchers but the ultimate objective is to find ways to ensure the cats don’t attack domestic animals and livestock in the first place the researchers have helped develop special pens that the big cats can’t get into unlike the traditional corrals that are completely open goats and sheep are herded into these pens resulting in better health and quality of the meat for future sale there were barely any studies on the big cats of the Caatinga although there was no doubt that they’d always existed in this semiarid region: rock paintings depict jaguars among the wildlife native to the region The sheer abundance of biodiversity in the Amazon leaving it little studied as a consequence It was even believed that the aridity of the soil indicated a scarcity of flora and fauna The first warnings about the worrying situation of big cats in the biome came from a survey carried out between 2006 and 2011 by ICMBio’s National Center for Research and Conservation of Carnivorous Mammals (CENAP) but it was noticed that pumas were also under threat; and without protecting one “It was possible to see the fragility of the species,” says Campos she saw an urgent need to take action to protect the felines Yet despite the efforts made over the past decade by the researchers and their collaborators in the field all working voluntarily for the conservation of these animals the reality that’s unfolded has been a dismal one “The opening of roads for these wind farms facilitates access for hunters,” Esteves says “Many test wind turbines are installed without prior permission from the licensing body Companies open access roads and place towers with measuring devices for approximately one year “Reports from residents are heartbreaking,” she adds Esteves says one of the aggravating factors continues to be the way in which the Caatinga is perceived in relation to other Brazilian biomes “The big challenge is to bring the attention of the population public policies and the media to the biome The Caatinga is seen as the ugly duckling of biomes This is reflected in the lack of resources for its improvement,” Esteves says “Look how long it took us to understand the value that the biome has The Caatinga is still not considered a national heritage by the Constitution the march of renewable energy development is relentless the few remaining pumas and jaguars that still survive in the Caatinga grow ever more threatened “It is important to make it clear that the power generation proposal is extremely relevant and important,” Esteves says “but what needs to move forward at the same speed is the understanding of the impact of these projects in conserved regions.” Banner image of a puma in Boqueirão da Onça Environmental Protection Area Image courtesy of Roland Brack/ Amigos da Onça This story was reported by Mongabay’s Brazil team and first published here on our Brazil site on Aug The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] The first week of the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games Open started in a country that has seen CrossFit boom over the last few years The CrossFit community in Spain gathered in Madrid at the Caja Mágica Stadium on Thursday to celebrate the start of the Open and to represent their country on the big stage Thousands of people from around the world tuned in online to witness the announcement of Open Test 23.1 Three affiliate owners from several of Spain's most influential affiliates were given the honor of opening the envelopes and announcing the first test to the world and Jennifer Lopez Announcing 23.1 | Photo by @wongsdottir four athletes from these affiliates were the first to throw down in 23.1 Carlos Del Arco Troncoso from CrossFit Wezon PAC and Antonio Sanchez Carrascosa from CrossFit Coraje took on the 14-minute AMRAP in front of a live audience Being able to celebrate the growth of CrossFit in Spain is amazing," Fernandez told announcer Lauren Smith before the start of the workout Next to take the floor were four esteemed Games athletes: Lazar Dukic REWATCH THE LIVE ANNOUNCEMENT OF 23.1 The CrossFit community was then tasked to take on Open Test 23.1 in their affiliates and garage gyms across the globe Open Test 23.1 was a repeat of 14.4 Complete as many reps as possible in 14 minutes of: READ MORE 23.1 at CrossFit Marrickville | Photo by Ruby Wolff Registration for the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games Open came to a close on Monday and 322,000 athletes are registered to compete in the worldwide celebration of fitness This is one of the best times of year for affiliates as they bring the community together with Friday Night Lights A post shared by CrossFit AERE (@crossfitaere) The Open is a time of year when athletes can truly test their fitness It gives athletes an opportunity to retest themselves on movements they have been practicing all year and set new goals Since 23.1 was a retest from a previous Open many athletes had a score to beat and an opportunity to showcase how much fitness they’ve gained since 2014 A post shared by CrossFit Games (@crossfitgames) this workout allowed them to achieve their first ring muscle-up or to complete sets of heavy cleans for the first time A post shared by Crossfit CHF (@crossfitchf) A post shared by Camille Joy (@camielatte) After cutting her 2022 season short to heal a back injury 18-year-old Emma Cary has returned and is already taking over the leaderboard This will be her second career Open test win Her first was in 21.2 when she was just 16 years old and became the all-time youngest Open test winner Third-fittest man on Earth Roman Khrennikov has added his first career Open test win to his resume topping the men's leaderboard with a score of 306 He set himself up nicely heading into the live announcement of Open Test 23.2 when he’ll compete head-to-head with Patrick Vellner this week A post shared by MAYHEM ATHLETE (@mayhemathlete) Iran's Zohreh Rasouli tops the women's scaled leaderboard finishing a total of 400 reps Willie Murphy III tops the men's scaled leaderboard with a score of 400 reps. Murphy is a member of Fulcrum CrossFit in Attleboro Brazil's Ana Paula Ferreira Claro topped the women's foundations leaderboard with a score of 400 Sixteen-year-old Elionaid Torres from Jibaros CrossFit in Puerto Rico finished Open Test 23.1 with a score of 400 reps in the foundations division Check out the Open leaderboard for a list of all winners from each division We are already in the second week of the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games Open The announcement of Open Test 23.2 will be broadcast live from CrossFit Bison in Midland Park, New Jersey, on Thursday, Feb. 23, presented by Chipotle Khrennikov will face Vellner in the live announcement matchup LEARN MORE Never miss an update from the CrossFit Games Enel Green Power has begun a project to repopulate Lear’s macaw Another demonstration of our commitment to biodiversity SISU president and co-founder; succeeding Scott Charles Kelley; wife Dell Technologies product line manager; wife ThinkLand instructor and DOIT manager; succeeding Carlos Atauria Mañuico; wife Counselors — Hernan Alex Quispe Juscamaita The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintenance technician; wife 2024) President — Heber Neftali Vazquez Hernandez Tamaulipas State Government federal tax supervisor; succeeding Nazario Antonio López Barrios; wife Counselors — Abel Leobardo Garcia Covarrubias Secretary of Education in Tamaulipas designer; wife independent contractor and project leader; wife businessman; succeeding Ricardo Francis Reghin; wife 2024) President — Marvin Estuardo Alvarado Secaida Telus International application analyst; succeeding Sergio Armando Castañon Lopez; wife Counselors — Edgar Geovanny Martinez Gonzalez optometrist; succeeding Dale Alan Salmon; wife Prairie Rose Public Schools deputy superintendent; wife Prosper Marketplace CEO; succeeding Darryl Paul Rains; wife Turo senior director of corporate FP&A; wife Compass Group/Foodbuy CEO of health care and education; succeeding Timothy Scott Hollingshead; wife retired ExxonMobil technical and supervisory professional; wife BNI Utah South owner and executive director; wife ShareSaveCommentInnovationScienceFirst Lear’s Indigo Macaw Hatched In The Wild by Captive-Bred ParentsByGrrlScientist Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights 08:27am EDTShareSaveCommentThis article is more than 2 years old.The first Lear’s indigo macaw to ever hatch in the wild to captive-bred parents is raising scientists’ hopes this may be the first step to rejuvenating a functionally extinct population of the species in Brazil Captive-bred pair of Lear's macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) This species is an Endangered all-blue parrot that is endemic to the caatinga in northeastern Brazil There is evidence that the enigmatic Lear’s indigo macaw was living — incognito — under our very noses for decades. This parrot was named for English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, Edward Lear (1812 – 1888), who was the first person to (unknowingly) document this parrot in captivity. Mr Lear was best known for his amusing limericks and nonsense poems, such as The Owl and the Pussycat, and for his meticulous art. F I G U R E 1 : The spectacular painting (Plate 9) that eventually resulted in the formal ... More description of Lear's indigo macaw (Anodorhynchus (Macrocercus) leari). This parrot was originally misidentified as a hyacinthine macaw (Anodorhynchus (Macrocercus) hyacinthus) by artist Edward Lear in his book, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832). As it turned out, Lear’s indigo macaw lives in the caatinga. This is a semi-arid biome in northeastern and central Brazil. Its name, “caatinga”, translates from the local Indigenous Tupi language as “white forest” or “white vegetation”, which was inspired by the appearance that the locally-adapted vegetation assumes during most of the year. F I G U R E 2 : Geographical location of the Caatinga Phytogeographycal Domain (after IBGE 2004) More bounded by the Atlantic rainforest to the east and cerrado savannas to the west (map prepared by M.F It is one of six main types of biomes within Brazil and comprises almost 10% of Brazil’s territory (Figure 2) Although the caatinga is typically hot and usually is extremely dry it does experience an annual rainy season that is roughly three months long These seasonally heavy rainfalls trigger a brief exuberance of growth and flowering before the plants shed their leaves to reduce dehydration during the ensuing dry season the caatinga supports its own special aggregation of subtropical vegetation consisting of small thorny trees and brush bromeliads and arid-adapted grasses (Figure 3) this abundance of drought-tolerant vegetation supports more than 1000 species of fish and mammals — as well as 26 million people F I G U R E 3 : The caatinga biome is found exclusively in the interior of northeast and central .. that features many canyons and rocks carved by erosion into huge obelisks Raso da Catarina is considered to be a “key site” by the Alliance for Zero Extinction a global collaboration of biodiversity conservation organizations working to preserve the last remaining refuges of Endangered or Critically Endangered species Raso da Catarina is likewise recognized as a priority area of extremely high importance for conserving the caatinga biome by Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment F I G U R E 4 : A pair of Endangered Lear’s indigo macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) in flight over Raso .. This species is exclusively found in the semi-arid caatinga in northestern Brazil where they dig nest cavities in sandstone cliffs (Credit: Fábio de Paina Nunes / CC BY-SA 4.0) five federal and state conservation parks have been established in Raso da Catarina that support birding F I G U R E 5 : A flock of Endangered Lear's indigo macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) at Canudos ... More Biological Station in Bahia, Brazil. The macaws living at this research station represent the majority of the world's population of this species. (Credit: Brendan Ryan / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Nuts of the licuri palm, Syagrus coronata, are a critically important food for Lear’s indigo macaws, comprising around 95% of the diet consumed by them (Figure 6). Each Lear’s indigo macaw may eat up to 350 licuri nuts per day, using its specially adapted beak to crack open the hard shells. The licuri palm is a small, slow-growing evergreen plant that is endemic to the caatinga, where it is distributed in patches throughout the landscape. Its blossoms are bright yellow, and the plants bear fruit throughout most of the year. When licuri palm fruits are scarce, other fruits and seeds, agave flowers, and cultivated crops, particularly maize, Zea mays, supplement this macaw’s diet. F I G U R E 6 : Licuri palm (Syagrus coronata): small tree (left) More (Credit: Paul Craft / CC BY / via Palmpedia.) But this intense interdependence also contributes to Lear’s indigo macaws’ limited geographic distribution licuri palms are often cut down or burned by local farmers to make way for fields or pasture effectively killing them — thereby limiting the geographic range occupied by these parrots and their palms In contrast to the macaws living in the Raso da Catarina and especially those lucky parrots living near the Canudos Biological Station the second population of Lear’s indigo macaws at Boqueirão da Onça is not doing well at all That population collapsed to just two nonbreeding adults mainly due to poaching for the illegal wildlife trade Other threats come from habitat loss to farm fields and pasture overgrazing and trampling of young licuri palms nest competition with Africanized honeybees and electrocution or collisions with power lines this population is currently considered to be functionally extinct “The fact that the last two individuals cannot guarantee the growth of this population would result in a local extinction” Dr Pacífico is the coordinator of the Lear’s Macaw Release Project in Boqueirão da Onça the Lear’s Macaw would cease to exist in Boqueirão da Onça.” But there are glimmers of hope for this functionally extinct population a large pre-release training and conditioning aviary was constructed in Boqueirão da Onça specifically for conditioning captive-bred Lear’s indigo macaws and teaching them how to survive in the wild for rehabilitating individuals from the Raso da Catarina population that are recovering from injuries sustained in the wild for preparing macaws confiscated from the pet trade for their return to the wild and for strengthening flight muscles that are essential for long-distance flights for all of these soon-to-be-released macaws (Figure 7) F I G U R E 7 : Pre-release training flight for beginning the soft-release reintroduction process .. More for Lear's indigo macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) (Credit: Thiago Filadelfo / Loro Parque Fundación.) This project is the result of a collaboration between Loro Parque and the government of Brazil where Loro Parque agreed to develop and optimise specific protocols for keeping and breeding this species in captivity as well as for releasing them into the wild and then share those protocols with zoos and breeding centers around the world that are also working with this species one such protocol that Loro Parque pioneered especially for breeding Lear’s indigo macaws in captivity was to provide artificial rock faces that imitate the steep cliffs where these parrots breed in their natural habitat (Figure 8) F I G U R E 8 : A captive pair of Lear's indigo macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) at the Rio de Janeiro .. These parrots construct their nests in natural cavities that they either find or dig into sandstone cliffs so zoos provide them with this substrate to imitate their natural habitat Nineteen captive-bred Lear’s indigo macaws have been donated to this reintroduction program by Loro Parque Fundación so far the first group of six captive-bred Lear’s indigo macaws were introduced into the pre-release training flight at Boqueirão da Onça Because the captive-bred macaws had lost their wild culture that is essential for their survival in the caatinga where the parrots spent many months learning about their natural foods because the macaws fly between 60-80 km (40-50 mi) daily to feed on licuri palm nuts it was essential that they build up their strength and endurance prior to release The macaws were also taught about the predators they would face after release birds of prey — and even humans — that pose threats to the macaws accompanied by recordings of their characteristic sounds were included in this pre-release training process “After a four month-period of acclimatization and training in the pre-release enclosure (recognition of natural food the macaws were released in the wild in 2019” each Lear's indigo macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) is equipped with its .. a stainless steel leg band and a uniquely numbered metal necklace tag were given to each macaw and they were microchipped and GPS-tagged thereby enabling the team to monitor their movements continuously from a distance as well as to identify each individual at close range (Figure 9) microchip and numbered metal [tag] or GPS [tracker] so we can study their daily movements and find out more information about the areas of historical use by the species in the locality GPS tagging and microchipping (as well as the presence of the field station nearby) probably reduces the temptation to steal these rare macaws from the wild and sell them to foreign collectors or pet owners F I G U R E 10 : Newly released Lear's indigo macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) feast on fresh licuri .. which are provided to keep them from wandering too far away in search of food Their necklace tags for monitoring them from a distance are visible the researchers were pleased to see the last two free-ranging macaws in the area visited the release aviary daily getting to know the young captive macaws and raising hopes that they will tutor their naïve kin in the ways of the wild a feature of the soft-release protocol is the doors to the training aviary remain open so the parrots can come and go as they please for as long as necessary and fresh licuri fruits are provided to prevent the newly-released parrots from being forced to wander too far in search of food (Figure 10) two additional releases of Lear’s indigo macaws have occurred in 2021 and 2022 in Boqueirão da Onça so far “More than forty birds have been born in the Loro Parque Fundación’s breeding centre” “Nineteen have already been sent to Brazil and eight of those have been successfully introduced into the wild.” Additional captive-bred macaws, bred by the Fundação Zoológico de São Paulo accompanied by several wild macaws that had recovered from physical injuries The success of this conservation effort depends upon the local communities “In addition to the collaborative monitoring done by citizen science and the protection of the macaws the community also gets involved in the macaw’s pre-release training activities” “They allow the researchers to access their properties to monitor the macaws and make themselves available to help whenever needed.” Rejuvenating this population of Lear’s indigo macaws will benefit the local wildlife and plants as well as the local communities — which rely upon the licuri palms as a food source or for producing their traditional handcrafts “The presence of the macaws in Boqueirão da Onça will also provide the rescue of the cultural memory of the local community since many children and teenagers in the region have never heard about the species” “This cultural rescue will enable a new generation of people to be more aware of the human-environment relationship.” The best news is that two of the captive-bred macaws from the initial 2019 release cohort provided by Loro Parque are now a bonded pair “The macaws nested in a natural cave in the historic roosting site” This indicates that providing captive macaws with sandstone cliffs in aviaries and zoos was a sound strategy although only two of them usually survive” the macaws still face pressure from illegal wildlife trade with their eggs and chicks being removed from the nests every year.” This juvenile wild-born macaw is the first hatch record in the area in almost 30 years and is a hopeful sign that it may yet be possible to recover this population The fledgling is still dependent upon its parents for food and will remain with them for one year (Figure 11) but it has already integrated into the free-flying flock of released macaws and accompanies them on their visits to local feeding areas F I G U R E 11 : Newly fledged Lear's indigo macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) being fed by one of its .. More captive-bred parents in Boqueirão da Onça The macaws are perched in a licuri palm above a bunch of fruits which has a special relationship with them The protection and ongoing recovery of Lear’s indigo macaw has been a long and arduous process that started 16 years ago when the Brazilian Government transferred two pairs to Loro Parque Fundación with the goal that the aviary could figure out how to breed them thereby taking the first step towards saving this Critically Endangered species that was in a very dire situation rescuing the Lear’s indigo macaw from impending extinction is one of Loro Parque Fundación’s major conservation success stories but it is one of ten conservation successes they’ve had so far “It also reinforces the key role of zoos as protectors of endangered wildlife as they provide the animals with a safety net “These actions are part of an integrated project with birds bred ex situ [outside of their natural habitat] and in situ [in their natural habitat] in which Loro Parque Fundación collaborates with more than 10 institutions around the world.” 26a8b4067816acd2da72f558fddc8dcfd5bed0cef52b4ee7357f679776e6c25d Do you know the oldest archaeological site in Brazil This information is available on the Brazilian Radiocarbon Database website (brc14database.com.br) an archaeologist from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) the website provides access to 3,769 datings from 1,249 Brazilian archaeological sites recorded in the National Registry of Archaeological Sites (CNSA) it allows users to collaborate to update information Bueno and his colleagues completed the CNSA records with information from 459 documents (scientific articles and dissertations) on the location of the sites and the age of the materials found there An interactive map allows users to access information about each site with the number of artifacts dated and the oldest and most recent dates The oldest are from Abrigo do Morro Furado in Bahia and Boqueirão da Pedra Furada in Piauí with both sites dated at around 40,000 years old “A quick comparison between the number of sites for which we have been able to gather data on radiocarbon dating so far and the number of sites recorded in the CNSA gives a sense of how much is still to be done,” the authors said in a scientific article describing the project (Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará Bulletin © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved By 2024-02-23T09:39:00+00:00 BRAZIL: Federal development bank BNDES has agreed to fund studies for a 22·8 km light rail line linking Centro Cívico in Curitiba with Afonso Pena International Airport in neighbouring São José dos Pinhais A contract for BNDES to provide R$12·5m to fund the technical-operational and environmental feasibility studies was signed by the acting Mayor of Curitiba Eduardo Pimentel and the CEO of Paraná metropolitan authority AMEP Gilson dos Santos The feasibility studies are scheduled to begin in March and to be completed by May 2025 Curitiba’s first light rail is expected to have 27 stops in total including three serving the established bus terminals at Hauer as well as Terminal Central in São José dos Pinhais The line would have a capacity to carry up to 160 000 passengers per day The plans envisage the awarding of a concession to implement the line over two years from July 2025 at a projected cost of R$2·5bn with the public sector contribution to be covered from the federal government’s Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) The concessionaire would also be expected to cover the cost of the studies being undertaken with BNDES funding the idea of the tariff and investment necessary for the light rail project’ A 10·6 km section of the light rail line would run along Avenida Marechal Floriano Peixoto between Praça Carlos Gomes and Terminal Boqueirão It would take over the segregated alignment of the existing bus rapid transit line which will be discontinued Most of the alignment is expected to run at ground level although the 3·2 km section between Central Terminal and Afonso Pena Airport may be elevated and a section near Civic Centre could be built underground The civic leaders envisage that the urban realm along the route would also be redeveloped with renewed public spaces and pedestrian walkways as well as new bicycle infrastructure The four bus terminals would also be renovated.  BRAZIL: The Ministry of Transport has signed an agreement for the transfer of 15·5 km of moribund railway to the municipality of Campina Grande for the development of a light rail service The R$170m project covers the reconstruction of a cross-city section of the 1 000 .. BRAZIL: The state government of Bahia has approved the call of tenders for the construction of a three-line light rail network in Salvador totalling 36 km at an estimated cost of R$3·6bn The first 16·6 km line would link Calçada in the centre of the conurbation .. monorail and suburban rail extensions totalling 39km are now being built in São Paulo but several of the other fastest-growing Brazilian cities have no major projects currently under way Site powered by Webvision Cloud Brasil: Even as northeastern Brazil suffers a devastating drought few remember a grim chapter of a past drought when the government forced mass internment of peasants trying to flee dying farms The first was in 1915 and the last time was between 1932 and 1933 when the authorities set up what they called concentration camps -- a fairly common term in several countries at the time and yet to be associated with the horrors of Nazi Germany The people they forced in were not an enemy or even a targeted ethnic group but rather rural inhabitants desperate for help Fearing the peasants would descend in huge numbers from their parched lands into the city of Fortaleza the government ordered thousands of families incarcerated in camps with little food unhealthy living conditions and under guard Seven such "concentration camps" were established along the rail line that the farming population was trying to use to reach Fortaleza which today is again suffering severe lack of rain The authorities promised food and medical help but the unwilling population of the camps dubbed these centers "government corrals," because they felt they were being treated just like the animals they'd left behind The government's worry was that there'd be a repeat of a flood of 100,000 peasants in 1877 into Fortaleza which by the 1930s was enjoying an era of modernization and wealth "The concentration camps functioned as a prison," wrote historian Kenia Sousa Rios in the book "Isolation and power: Fortaleza and the concentration camps in the drought of 1932." They were only given permission to leave in order to work on construction of streets or reservoirs or urban projects for Fortaleza or to be transferred to another camp," he wrote Only a few clues remain to testify to the episode a small town about 186 miles (300 km) from the state capital there are still the abandoned buildings where guards worked and where food was kept The last known survivor of the camps is Carmela Gomez Pinheiro They all died of ill treatment or hunger," she told AFP "The food was disgusting and people started getting bloated." Every year a march is staged in honor of the victims of the drought a living memorial created in 1982 by an activist Italian priest Father Albino The walk ends in what they call "the cemetery of the dam," where locals say more than 1,000 people from the camps were buried in mass graves Marking the place today is a cross -- and dozens of bottles of water  versão em português (para assinantes) The French archeologist Antoine Lourdeau was excavating a site in the Serra da Capivara mountain range He was only able to see one side but the stone’s size and shape suggested it would fit ideally in an adult hand He suspected it had been fashioned as a tool Using a brush and a trowel he delicately unearthed the object Lourdeau unearthed hundreds of stone fragments which he believed to be tools made by prehistoric peoples to cut Many of the pebbles had chips removed on only one face and since the artifacts took advantage of the natural shape of the stone their appearance is not always what one might expect of a tool At a restaurant near the beach at Boa Viagem the archeologist explained that fracturing of rock to produce stone tools always follows the same principles but man has an objective in mind when he chips a rock it is possible to know whether they reflect a predefined objective If there is a logic to the removal of material Lourdeau is thin and has long hair; and he appears younger than his 31 years he specialized in the study of stone tools in the pre-history of Brazil Ten days after defending his doctoral thesis Lourdeau solicited a position at Federal University of Pernambuco in the Brazilian city of Recife and in 2011 he moved to the Recife neighborhood of Boa Viagem He has been participating in the excavations organized by a French-Brazilian team under the leadership of Boëda The group has continued the work begun by the Brazilian scientist Niède Guidon in the Serra da Capivara an ongoing research project since the 1970’s Lourdeau lead the dig at the site Toca da Tira Peia a 25 square meter area excavated to a depth of 2.5 meters The density of material uncovered was not particularly significant: between 2008 and 2011 the site produced only 113 pieces interpreted as undisputable artifacts The results began to be published last year in the Journal of Archaeological Science the highest impact factor journal in the field The paper concluded that a number of the artifacts are at least 22,000 years old If this interpretation is accepted by the archeological community it would make these the oldest evidence of human presence on the American continent the American continent was the latest to be occupied by Homo sapiens since the species’ first appearance in Africa Remains left by prehistoric humans allow us to trace their movements as they spread throughout the Middle East and from there to Europe and South East Asia At the time when the first humans conquered the world the planet was experiencing a prolonged period of cooling and glacial expansion Sea levels were more than 100 meters below those of the present day and the contours of the continents looked quite differently the 90 kilometer ribbon of sea separating Alaska from Siberia Eurasia and the Americas formed a continuous land mass a particularly long-lived and cheerful errant hunter-gatherer might well have wandered from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Tierra del Fuego entirely on foot remained emerged from 27,000 to 10,000 years ago The bridge is believed to be the point of arrival for the first Americans this hypothesis was reinforced by DNA testing of human fossils which revealed genetic similarities between Native American and Asian populations Researchers proposing other models of population – via the Atlantic or Pacific – have not achieved general acceptance the leading hypothesis proposed that the first peoples arrived in the Americas around 15,000 years ago – a number which is incompatible with the suggestion that humans were knapping flints in Piauí 7,000 years prior The first author of the article published in the Journal of Archaeological Science is Christelle Lahaye and a specialist in dating archeological sites The most common dating technology used by researchers is radiocarbon dating which measures the presence and quantity of the isotope carbon-14 and fossilized skin or bone with preserved collagen No organic material of this kind was found at the Toca da Tira Peia site The team relied on photoluminescence dating Lahaye’s area of concentration at the University of Bordeaux 3 The technique allows scientists to measure a material’s last exposure to sunlight – in other words the approximate date it was buried underground Lahaye explained that radiocarbon dating has less margin of error “Photoluminescence allows us to date events which could not be dated by other methods,” she explained; “however it is important to combine the two methods.” Lahaye went to Piauí to collect samples and survey the context in which they were removed Material is captured using a PVC tube inserted into the wall of an excavation; only the material inside the tube The analysis does not determine the age of the artifacts themselves but of the layer of sediment in which they were buried It was not the use of photoluminescence dating however which generated the criticism the paper received upon its publication Science News magazine gave voice to two archeologists unconvinced by the results One said the fragments could have been the result of erosion – the natural fracturing of the rocks American archeologist Stuart Fiedel proposed another possibility: capuchin monkeys or other primates might have produced the tools a violent summer storm caused flooding in the city of Folsom the rain brought to the surface the bones of a giant bison an extinct species of giant mammal which had been abundant in North and South America at the end of the last ice age two ribs of the animal were found with a stone flint wedged between them The finely made point had grooves or flutes indicating it may have been attached to the shaft of a spear The digging at the site was interrupted immediately to telegraph archeologists at various national research centers The specialists arrived within days and gave their verdict: the find was an unequivocal sign that the bison had been killed by hunters This was the first verifiable indicator of humans on the American continent in the midst of the last ice age other spear points even larger than those found at Folsom this time alongside the bones of giant mammoths similar projectile points began to be found at other sites in the United States the central plains of North America had been inhabited by populations hunting large animals In instances where artifacts appear associated unequivocally with fossils as with the points found at Folsom and Clovis age can be determined by radiocarbon dating of the adjacent organic material was it possible to determine with any precision the provenance of the two points: 13,000 and 13,500 years ago.* Scientists suspect that around that time a great corridor had been opened between the immense glaciers covering the territory that is today Canada This had been something like an avenue for the migration of hunter gatherer peoples coming from Asia It appeared that these hunters may have been the first Americans and this model of population became known as “Clovis First” the Clovis points became objects of devotion in the U.S. exhibitions and workshops related to stone tools The rarest examples can be traded for tens of thousands of dollars The flints became something of a founding myth of the culture of innovation: in his book First Peoples in a New World the archeologist David Meltzer suggests that the technology of the spear point would have been the first American invention a problem to be faced by the proponents of this model The Clovis points all date to a rather narrow window of time and occur in a similarly restricted geographical region – Panama is the southernmost point at which they appear there are other signs of the presence of humans which are nearly contemporary with the Clovis culture they were very quick to cover so much territory the stone tools attributed to southern peoples bear little resemblance to the Clovis and Folsom points The Clovis First model does not account for this technological diversity nor the similar age of sites south of the Equator these discrepancies have not impeded the theory’s general acceptance The incredulity with which some archeologists received the news of the French-Brazilian finds at Piauí echo a similar resistance towards the results of earlier excavations in the region The supposed tools of 22,000 years ago from Toca da Tira Peia are not the first artifacts older than the Clovis points to appear in the Serra da Capivara – nor the oldest At the center of the controversy is the archeologist Niède Guidon She studied natural history at the University of São Paulo and pre-history at the Sorbonne with André Leroi-Gourhan and Annette Laming-Emperaire where she directs the Fundação Museu do Homem Americano the foundation responsible for managing the Serra da Capivara National Park Niède explained how she had come to find out about the archeological treasure in Piauí she organized an exhibition of prehistoric paintings at the Museu Paulista She was approached by a visitor looking to speak with the curator of the exhibition “He said that near his land there were indigenous paintings and he showed me some photographs” “I could see that this was something completely different.” A few years passed before Niède was finally able to visit the paintings at Piauí In the interval Brazil experienced a military coup and she decided to move to France at the School of Advanced Studies for the Social Sciences in Paris she found an opportunity to visit Piauí and photograph a few sites with paintings The photographs helped her to obtain financing for further study of the region Prehistoric paintings are abundant on the sandstone walls of the Serra da Capivara There are more than a thousand identified sites in the region like those found at Altamira in Spain or Lascaux the paintings at Piauí are found on exterior rock walls something rare in the prehistoric paintings of Europe Since the pigments used were not made from organic material it is not possible to obtain a direct measure of their age Other means of dating chips of paint found at archeological sites indicate that the paintings became abundant around 10,000 years ago although they may have begun long before that – some of them have been dated closer to 20,000 years Niède Guidon convinced the French government to establish an archeological mission for the study of prehistory at Piauí France has supported archeological excavations in various corners of the globe Expeditions in dozens of countries are financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Relations which sees in archeology an instrument of its “scientific diplomacy” It was on her first expeditionary foray that Niède discovered the largest – and most controversial – archeological site in the Serra da Capivara: the Toca do Boqueirão da Pedra Furada some seventy meters wide and nearly seventy meters tall inclined so as to form a kind of shelter at the base The wall is covered with prehistoric paintings – more than a thousand individual figures have been catalogued The site is a good indicator that the area was frequented by peoples in the past Niède encountered stone fragments which appeared to have been shaped by humans and charcoals that indicated intentional fires “These were fires that had been built; they arranged a ring of stones and built the fire inside” Niède sent samples of charcoals to a French lab for dating When she received the results by mail she was in disbelief: the samples were 26,000 years old She immediately called the laboratory to register a complaint with the researcher in charge of the analysis: “You’ve confused my samples In America there’s nothing that old!” The response on the other side of the line was: “Go back and continue your excavation because these coals are yours.” Niède returned to the field and confirmed that her colleague was right The world would hear about the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada in 1986; an article in the journal Nature sustained that humans were already living in Piauí 32,000 years ago From the wooden guard rail installed for the tourists who visit the paintings the immense volume excavated by the investigation becomes evident the dig “covers an area of about 60 by 15 meters and reaches a depth of 8 meters.” Excavation lasted ten years work at the site was led by the Italian archeologist Fabio Parenti Parenti’s aim was to prove that the artifacts discovered could not have been produced by a natural accident Fragments of quartz – the primary material for the tools – occur naturally in the soil at the top of the bluff overlooking the site the edges which give the fragments the appearance of tools are no more than an accident removing quartz from the bluff and causing it to fall to the canyon below and fracture upon impact the Italian made an analysis of 2,000 quartz fragments collected at the base of the elevation and found that they had a pattern that was quite different from the material excavated from the site Parenti’s team had catalogued nearly 600 objects they believed to be created by peoples predating the Clovis culture goes up to the limit which can be measured by radiocarbon technology capable of measuring beyond the limits of carbon-14 have led Niède to defend an even older population at the site If the scientists working at Piauí are correct then humans were living in Brazil’s North East tens of thousands of years before hunters following migratory herds spread out across North America the time of arrival for the first Americans defended by archeological consensus would suffer a profound setback and a radically different model for the peopling of the Americas would need to be formulated Niède has suggested an arrival directly from Africa taking advantage of lower sea levels and a favorable current: “They would have arrived at the level of the Parnaíba river delta” Few of her colleagues however have given much credit to her hypothesis Even if an arrival 50,000 years ago is contested by nearly the entire archeological community the same thing cannot be said for other theories defending a human presence in the Americas prior to the Clovis Evidence of earlier peoples has existed since the nineteenth century and began appearing with increasing frequency around 1970 then a professor at the Universidade Austral de Chile was presented with samples collected by timbermen near a creek in Chile’s Monte Verde region The specimens included a mastodon bone and stone artifacts along with other objects Dillehay uncovered an impressive range of particularly well-preserved remains fossilized feces and three footprints approximately 13 centimeters in length A layer of peat had isolated the remains from oxygen and impeded the growth of bacteria The diversity of materials seemed to suggest a collection assembled by humans Among the plant species encountered were varieties occurring only many kilometers away including alimentary and medicinal plants used by local indigenous peoples suddenly abandoned due to a flood or some other natural disaster Carbon-14 dating of the samples placed them at 14,600 years old Since they were not compatible with the Clovis First model It took almost a decade before wider acceptance arrived In 1997 the site was inspected in loco – as had been the practice at the time of Folsom and Clovis – by a panel of twelve archeologists including long standing critics of Dillehay’s work All agreed that the site and the materials recovered by Dillehay’s team attested to a definite human presence at Monte Verde over 14,000 years ago The rare consensus made headlines; The New York Times affirmed that archeology had crossed a threshold similar to the breaking of the sound barrier for aviation For an archeological find to be accepted without controversy a number of pre-requisites must be fulfilled It is essential that the site be found in good condition demonstrating a clear succession of layers None of this was a problem at the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada also essential for its acceptance: it must demonstrate an unequivocal human occupation The fragments discovered at Piauí by Niède Guidon and Fabio Parenti were hardly considered tools by their peers Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence so goes the saying popular among scientists Archeologists who have claimed to have proof of very ancient cultures in the Americas have always been systematically discredited by skeptics among their colleagues the journal Science called the archeologists defending the status quo on the peopling of the American continent “the Clovis Police” a scientist who harbors doubts regarding assertions by a colleague can always attempt to replicate the results of an experiment in the lab the replication of a discovery is impossible drawings and descriptions found in an article are not always sufficient to convince the most rigorous and in many cases acceptance of a theory comes only after peers can visit a contested site the flint lodged between the ribs of the prehistoric bison at Folsom perhaps the find would have been received with the same skepticism which has greeted new models explaining the peopling of the Americas It was with this in mind that Niède Guidon organized a 1993 symposium on the peopling of the Americas in São Raimundo Nonato She invited North American colleagues to visit the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada Among those whom accepted the invitation were Tom Dillehay an archeologist who had explored a pre-Clovis site in the North East of the United States – Meadowcroft – with human remains up to 20,000 years old a site also contested by some of his peers The inspection was reported in an article for the journal Antiquity in which the authors questioned the human origin of the charcoals tested by Niède and Parenti and doubted whether the fragments of quartz were true artifacts Fabio Parenti assumed a regretful tone when discussing the visit in a recent conversation He was clearly disillusioned by the passing judgment his colleagues made regarding the work of many years “It is not possible to judge such a complicated situation in four or five hours of observation.” published a reply to the article by Meltzer Adovasio and Dillehay in which she dismissed their criticism as either false or superficial She has never lost sleep over the rebuke from her North American colleagues She has often said that it was never her priority to weigh in on when the continent was populated “I came to Piauí on behalf of the cave paintings I was never in search of what was oldest.” Whoever asks her about the peopling of the Americas will believe there is no controversy at all; only some researchers who persistently refuse to accept new evidence what is at play is a collision between the French school of archeology incapable of letting go of Clovis – a theoretical model which More than convince her colleagues to the north the Brazilian archeologist is concerned with consolidating the legacy she has constructed in the backlands of Piauí over decades Niède no longer coordinates the French-Brazilian archeological mission researcher at the CNRS and professor at the Université Paris X Boëda has edited and written numerous books precisely on the subject of prehistoric flints is a treatise on ancient lithic cutting tools He worked in Syria for more than twenty years on the steppes bordering the Euphrates River his team excavated to a depth of 22 meters uncovering more than a million years of pre-historical evidence left by Homo sapiens and their ancestors in the region Since 1997 he has participated in excavations in China to investigate the tools used by the early peoples of East Asia He found that both primary materials and technologies were very different from those used in Africa at the same time Presented with samples of the quartz fragments found at Piauí Boëda noticed immediately that they had little resemblance to stone tools found elsewhere in the Americas they were similar to lithic technologies he had encountered in East Asia only someone unfamiliar with the prehistoric tools of other peoples would fail to recognize the anthropic character of the fragments from the Serra da Capivara “If the stones I encountered in China were man made I could not say that the ones found at Piauí were not.” the tools found in China were made from only partially knapped stones The production of the implement began with the selection of a suitable specimen “You choose a stone which has the ideal shape and then shape only that part which will be the active zone” he said “It’s like sculpting a bust from a block where there is already a head and ears: it would only be necessary to add the missing features.” In Chinese prehistory they are different from the artifacts made by the Clovis people and other cultures: when selecting a stone to fashion a flint they made use of the by-products of fracturing – these fragments were then worked to produce an implement Boëda believes that many of his colleagues have refused to accept the human origin of these artifacts because they cannot recognize them the fragments are what the French archeologist calls “objects without memory” they do not pertain to the conceptual repertoire of the beholder and do not evoke any association because they are unlike other tools.” Boëda compared the situation to that of a doctor who is unable to make a diagnosis the site analyzed in the latest article by the French-Brazilian team was baptized in honor of a snake found during the excavations – tirapeia is the local name for a native species of pit-viper a ten kilometer dirt road with a number of precarious stretches leaves from the municipality of Coronel José Dias Tira Peia is outside the perimeter of the Serra da Capivara National Park the geographer Gisele Daltrini Felice described how the Serra da Capivara park lies on the border of two distinct geological formations The Toca da Tira Peia is part of a limestone massif a geological formation that is completely different from the sandstone formations inside the park the site is also located at the base of a high rock wall but here the escarpment is not covered with the quartz fragments so abundant at the other site “We are 15 kilometers from where these rocks occur naturally” “And yet the critics continue to say that the fragments simply fell from the cliff above.” Gisele was born in Bragança Paulista and studied geography in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul She fell in love with the geographical diversity of the Serra da Capivara when she visited the region in the 1980’s She moved to Piauí in 1995 and lives in São Raimundo Nonato since ’99 where she is a professor at the Federal University of Vale do São Francisco investigated the hypothesis that the coals found at the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada could have been produced by wild fire the coals should have been found over a wider area Gisele excavated other sites in the region She did not find any evidence of an extensive fire localized charcoals she believes to be man-made at a site just dozens of meters in front of the rock wall at the Pedra Furada – the Vale da Pedra Furada The excavations made at this new site rendered hundreds of artifacts in layers of rock almost 25,000 years-old The results will be made public this year in an article for the journal Antiquity the Vale da Pedra Furada is yet another sign of human occupation in Piauí predating the Clovis culture has confirmed the 50,000 year-old dates at the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada Standing in front of the dig at Toca da Tira Peia Gisele is wearing a blue jersey that says ARCHEOLOGY She explains that members of the team working at the excavations in Piauí have no doubt about the age of the sites “Human presence here around 20,000 years ago is undisputable” Clovis is neither the oldest culture nor the essential reference for the peopling of the Americas.” The discovery of human remains with datable organic material could put the controversy over the age of these sites to rest the acidity of the sandstone soils where the majority of archeological sites in the Serra da Capivara are found is not suitable for preservation of fossils Ancient human skeletons are a rare find in the region served to reconcile Niède Guidon with a former critic the biological anthropologist Walter Neves Neves is best known for his description of Luzia an 11,000 year-old human skeleton unearthed in the 70’s at Lagoa Santa Neves showed how aspects of the well preserved skeleton more closely resembled features of skeletons from Africa and Oceania than those from Eastern Asia which in turn demonstrate more similarities to the skeletal structure of modern indigenous peoples Neves proposed a model of two separate occupations of the continent by genetically distinct populations The first would have been the culture of Luzia The ancestors of the Clovis and of modern indigenous peoples would have arrived in a second migration Neves related how he had been initially skeptical about the age of the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada He changed his mind when he got to know the site and the materials from other excavations in the Serra da Capivara “I left 99% convinced that those sites are very old.” Neves returned to Piauí to study the skeleton of Zuzu with the bio-anthropologist Mark Hubbe They demonstrated that the skeleton is the oldest yet encountered in the region “The few skeletons which have been found there have the same morphology as the Luzia people” The number of sites allegedly older than Clovis is in the hundreds In South America the list includes Taima Taima in Venezuela and Santa Elina in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso where artifacts have been dated at 25,000 years old The majority of these sites remain contested by archeologists Monte Verde in Chile is still the only site older than Clovis to be widely recognized A 2012 survey of scholars studying the peopling of the Americas found that only 10% continue to contest the age of the Monte Verde site Such consensus however applies only to the 14,600 years dates Stone artifacts and charcoals found in another part of the site have been dated at almost 40,000 years old Wary of the difficulties in convincing colleagues of far less Tom Dillehay doesn’t even bother trying to achieve a consensus around the almost embarrassingly early date If “Clovis First” seems to have been surpassed another model capable of explaining the peopling of the continent The site now recognized as the oldest in the Americas is located in the Southern Cone 13,000 kilometers from the supposed point of entry for the first peoples To have been in Monte Verde 14,000 years ago the ancestors of prehistoric Americans must have crossed Beringia millennia before – perhaps 16 or 20 thousand years ago If the evidence of 20,000 year old anthropic artifacts in Piauí were to become widely accepted it would be necessary to further revise the date of an arrival by way of the Bering Strait the young French professor at Federal University of Pernambuco hopes that the question will be resolved sooner rather than later the fixation on establishing a date of arrival distracts from the questions which are truly important “The real goal is to try to understand who was here and how they traveled and what their relation may have been to the societies which came afterwards” researchers in the peopling of the Americas met in Santa Fe only a few hundred kilometers from the historic sites of Clovis and Folsom was held at the municipal convention center like the majority of the architecture in the city’s historic center the event drew hundreds of students and researchers as well as amateur archeologists and prehistory buffs (wearing wide brimmed hats and jerseys many of the attendees appeared as if they were on their way to an excavation) the event included also an exhibition of spear points another large conference on the peopling of the Americas was held at the same location The Monte Verde site had already been confirmed two years earlier but the event – “Clovis and Beyond” – was still held under the aegis of the then decades-old theoretical model In the years separating the two conferences important contributions were made towards the understanding of human prehistory on the American Continent archeologists know more than they did fourteen years ago there is less certainty regarding how the peopling of the Americas really happened In a hallway conversation during the recent conference explained that presently there are four central questions to be answered regarding the occupation of the continent: who were the first peoples to live here “Already we have spent millions in research and we still can’t answer a single one of them” One of the organizers of Paleoamerican Odyssey was the geoscientist Michael Waters professor at Texas A&M University and the director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans Waters lead a team that uncovered a projectile point lodged in the ribs of a 14,000 year old mastodon skeleton in the state of Washington yet another site dated before the supposed spread of the Clovis people across North America Waters speaks with a distinct Texan accent and in an interview at the end of the first day of the conference he said that now is a formidable time to be studying the origin of the first peoples of the Americas We are free of the Clovis First model and we can explore new ideas Waters was using the terms consecrated by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions an enduring influence for the philosophy of science we are living a moment in which the complex of presuppositions shared by the scientists of a given discipline – a paradigm – is no longer able to explain an ever increasing number of discrepant data Waters had been impressed by the presentation made just before by the evolutionary biologist Eske Willerslev The Danish scientist had shared the results of a study to be published the following month in the journal Nature: the analysis of genetic material from the 24,000 year old skeleton of a boy unearthed in Siberia – the oldest human DNA to have been sequenced The child’s genetic material demonstrated similarities with indigenous peoples of the Americas This would suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas were not only descended from peoples from East Asia as prior genetic evidence had seemed to indicate Waters has wagered that the paradigm to substitute Clovis will include important contributions from molecular biology the genetic evidence and the archeological evidence we take out of the ground will converge and once we that happens we will have a novel story.” In his opinion the script of that story does not appear to include a chapter in the Serra da Capivara When I asked if he was familiar with the latest finds by the French-Brazilian team he said he knew the material from the site at the Pedra Furada The fragments “appear to be stones that were chipped and broken naturally and don’t have the appearance of human-made artifacts but I don’t think it will stand up to scientific scrutiny.” At the exhibition of archeological objects organized in parallel with the conference the Clovis points were the items most prominently exhibited Some were displayed on cushions of leather or felt Ensconced in a glass case was a dark piece of obsidian some 25 centimeters in length It had been excavated at a site in Washington State and was presented as the largest fluted point yet found Also on display were fifteen quartz artifacts recently discovered at the Vale da Pedra Furada in layers of rock 23,000 years old the French archeologist circulated at the exhibition Yet he was ill at ease with the environment He felt that the artifacts had been displayed on the basis of some aesthetic criteria “This has all the appearance of a beauty pageant” The pebbles from the site at Pedra Furada did in fact attract far less attention from visitors than the many projectile points perhaps because their form does not immediately evoke any specific function a number of the artifacts brought by Boëda could hardly have been recognized as tools by an untrained eye I asked whether he could identify a tool simply by looking at it “It’s like looking at a pen sitting in a plate of pasta” looking at me over the rims of his oval-framed spectacles Boëda’s presentation was included in a panel entitled “Archeology of Pre-Clovis” which gathered a number of controversial finds He presented the results of the continuation of the French-Brazilian mission in Piauí demonstrating the criteria used to classify the excavated objects and determine whether or not they were of anthropic origin he apologized for his heavily-accented English Boëda faced also the stigma of the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada the rejected site of 50,000 year-old artifacts which continued to cast a shadow of doubt over any further claims coming from Piauí According to what I heard from one participant at the conference whenever a researcher would present work from the Serra da Capivara “The reaction was always the same: Here come those crazies from Piauí again.” The isolated character of the discoveries emboldened critics: if there had been such ancient human population in Brazil’s North East why were the archeological finds all concentrated in a single area When he assumed leadership of the French-Brazilian investigation Boëda made every effort to guard flanks where he felt their work might be vulnerable like the Toca da Tira Peia and the Vale da Pedra Furada – there are now seven sites with identified artifacts of ancient human occupation The group also continued to publish in English and in journals read by North American archeologists And Boëda attempted to court strategic allies capable of providing interdisciplinary support a specialist in the microscopic analysis of stone fragments Clemente’s studies confirmed that artifacts from the sites at Piauí had been used to cut meat and animal hides and work wood As he finished a hamburger and a beer at the end of a day of the conference Boëda explained how he had also sought out the Chilean geologist Mario Pino who had been instrumental to the excavations at Monte Verde Pino performed analysis on the sedimentation at the new sites in Piauí “Pino convinced Tom Dillehay that the material was in fact of human origin” he said that he had changed his mind about the material from Piauí “Looking back at the sites explored by Niède Guidon and Eric I am becoming more convinced that people were there 20 or 25 thousand years ago” “The accumulation of data through time is pretty consistent.” But he still expressed reticence regarding other objects of supposed anthropic origin found at the excavations which I know the French-Brazilian team is focused on a lot I am a little concerned about other aspects of human activity and signatures And I said these things to Eric and his colleagues.” Since traces of the cave paintings have not been uncovered by the excavations the paintings do not serve to corroborate the age of a human presence at those sites Dillehay is a professor at Vanderbilt University he looks like a maverick cowboy from an old western he presented the results of an excavation he has been pursuing at a site in Huaca Prieta he encountered tools whose simplicity caught his attention these fragments had been only minimally worked – Dillehay noted the similarities with the artifacts found at Monte Verde The dating of the materials has suggested a human occupation at Huaca Prieta around 14,000 years ago general of the Clovis brigade which had criticized the results of the French-Brazilian research in the Science News story was the last speaker to take the stage on the second day of the conference He works as an archeologist for an environmental consulting company and is among the 10% who still contest the anthropic origin of the Monte Verde site One colleague described him as “a pure conservative – maybe the last – certain to completely reject any possibility that Clovis might not represent the first American population.” Fiedel criticized what he described as precarious evidence of human occupation prior to Clovis like fossilized feces and foot prints of dubious origin He mockingly noted that these were the same kinds of evidence presented to demonstrate the existence of the legendary Big Foot Considering in detail the prints found by Dillehay at Monte Verde the prints could only have been made by a one year old child but do not demonstrate the characteristics of a human foot of that age Fiedel concluded his talk with a vehement refutation of the evidence lending to the reunion of scientists the air of a sports match I asked Fiedel if the most recent evidence from new sites in Piauí seemed to him stronger than in the past He returned to the argument he had used in the past: “The fragments could have been produced by capuchin monkeys who make stone tools and live in exactly the same areas where those sites are located” a woman who had waited until the end handed Fiedel a pair of baby shoes and asked him to autograph the sole a new paradigm imposes itself gradually as it is accepted by an increasing number of scientists in a given field But the old paradigm retains a residual minority and does not completely disappear a paradigm is only finally surpassed with the death of its last remaining adept the leader of the excavations at Monte Verde which had marked the demise of Clovis First He defended the decolonization of scientific research and recommended that colleagues open their minds to new possibilities He also addressed critics who had taken issue with his work and the research of others making special reference to Stuart Fiedel’s remarks on the French-Brazilian excavations at Piauí “What kind of monkey produces an archeological site?” he asked “I hope that the next generation of scholars doesn’t have to go through the bullshit that some of us went through I welcome the next generation of researchers.” * – The results of radiocarbon dating need to be adjusted to arrive at the approximate age of the material tested The dates provided in the text have all been accordingly processed é apresentador do podcast A Terra é Redonda (Mesmo) e autor dos livros Admirável novo mundo: uma história da ocupação humana nas Américas (Companhia das Letras) e Domingo É Dia de Ciência (Azougue Editorial)