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Suscribe x MercoPress, en Español Montevideo, May 5th 2025 - 13:57 UTC Foreign travelers brought in US$7.341 billion in revenue to Brazil last year the South American country's Central Bank (BCB) announced on Friday citing a report from the Ministry of Tourism These figures represented the best results in 15 years and an increase of 6.28% compared to the US$6.907 billion in 2023  The activity thus surpassed the returns on foreign trade of strategic export products such as cotton or copper ore “This is the highest value recorded in the last 15 years surpassing even the period of the 2014 FIFA World Cup when foreign tourists spent 6.914 billion dollars,” the Ministry of Tourism said “The arrival of foreign visitors to Brazil not only boosts the economy but also reaffirms Brazil's strength and beauty as a desired destination on the world stage,” Tourism Minister Celso Sabino argued Nearly a week after leading Brazilian airlines Azul and Gol announced their intentions to merge into a large-scale carrier the former announced Friday the suspension of services to smaller destinations effective March The company will no longer operate in Campos and Barreirinha (MA) due to various factors “ranging from the increase in aviation operating costs impacted by the global crisis in the supply chain and the rise in the dollar added to issues of fleet availability and supply and demand adjustments,” according to a statement Fernando de Noronha will only be served from Recife flights from Juazeiro do Norte will be handled at the company's main hub operations at Caruaru Airport will be performed by single-engined 9-passenger-seat Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft “The customers affected are being notified in advance,” Azul explained signed a memorandum of understanding to begin negotiations for a merger that would create an airline holding 60% of the country's passenger aviation share Turkish Airlines and LATAM Brasil announced an extension of their codeshare operations adding five new domestic routes from São Paulo's Guarulhos Airport to Aracaju Passengers may now book flights with either carrier and enjoy reciprocal benefits such as earning and redeeming miles on these codeshare routes Commenting for this story is now closed.If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page Cutting-edge technology used to unite data about sites with prehistoric paintings and engravings in the state in an interactive format Marilia Perazzo/USP; 3D Processing Camila Duelis Viana/USP São Paulo was considered a state with almost no records of the past without systematic research that would allow the identification of sites in addition to the characterization and analysis of rupestrian records,” says archaeologist Marília Perazzo a researcher on a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research in Evolution and Environment of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the University of São Paulo (LEVOC-MAE-USP) “Our research fills a gap within the scope of archaeology in the state of São Paulo enabling São Paulo to be put on the rupestrian map of Brazil.” In the context of the project led by archaeologist Astolfo Araujo, Perazzo and colleagues from LEVOC have been surveying these areas since 2019 and have now created an interactive map of the archaeological sites with rupestrian records in the state of São Paulo in 2023 the team from MAE recorded another 33 it is possible to see photographs of rocky panels and other general information about the sites The group used photogrammetry and laser scanning techniques to create digital replicas of the engravings and paintings that are on the site and classify the sites into three categories: visited not visited by the LEVOC team—but with records of its existence in the literature—and destroyed sites The team has already processed 3D images for six of them The São Paulo map was inspired by the Summa Arqueológica project of the Museum of the American Man Foundation (FUMDHAM) headquarters of the National Institute of Archaeology and Environment of the Semiarid Region (INAPAS) which is dedicated to mapping archaeological and paleontological information from the semiarid region of the Northeast of Brazil The research center is one of the National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCT) funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) There are 2,172 recorded sites on the platform “Mapping is a trend in the field of archaeology Researchers have long-sought an interactive way of connecting the information that they gather with society generating content for education and scientific dissemination,” says computer scientist Eduardo Krempser a researcher from INAPAS and one of those responsible for the development of the Summa project and of the map of rupestrian records of São Paulo we use robust technologies and programming languages Krempser adopted a platform on which the researcher which are made available in real time for the user of the map “It stores the information from the collection in the field until its storage in a research institute or in a museum,” he says it is possible to reconstruct the entire work process of the scientific finding.” Perazzo has visited 39 sites in four years of research who cannot choose a favorite but gets enchanted on every field trip “When I arrive and see those figures it’s as if I hadn’t walked at all in the north of the state of São Paulo: rock paintings represent animalsMarilia Perazzo/USP “It is very important that this work has been done at this time because it records the existence of sites before their disappearance,” remarks archaeologist Daniela Cisneiros coordinator of the Graduate Program in Archaeology at UFPE and a researcher at FUMDHAM who did not take part in the USP study “Many of the São Paulo sites are in an advanced state of deterioration and are very fragile Knowledge about them can contribute towards their protection.” Among the most impressive panels visited is the Pedra do Dioguinho in the municipality of Dourado, in the middle of the state, 280 kilometers from the state capital. Measuring 48 meters in length, it is considered the largest rock art panel in the state There are types of graphics called tri-digits which are line drawings that resemble bird footprints one of the most significant in São Paulo,” states Perazzo The analyses indicate a date of around 4,000 years ago—which does not mean that human groups made records at the same time She highlights another two sites that the LEVOC team has been able to date: Abrigo do Alvo and Abrigo de Itapeva (in the city of the same name) The first is the oldest that is known in the state with rupestrian records from around 7,500 years ago; the second is estimated to be 4,700 years old It is difficult to pinpoint the meaning of the engravings and paintings the work of the researchers from USP is aimed more at cataloging that there may have been some type of intention on the part of whoever drew the scenes and shapes on the rocks are memory markers of the authorial groups,” Cisneiros adds which involve pigments and are more prevalent in the Northeast there is a dominance of geometrical shapes with few scenes and more isolated graphisms: the figures are not very dynamic they are more static,” analyzes the archaeologist from UFPE A large part of the records in the Northeast are found on riverbanks out in the open which are mostly located in shelters protected by rock All the characteristics of the rupestrian records make Cisneiros think about the people that lived here thousands of years ago “Coming into contact with this information it goes far beyond a scientific discovery,” she reflects Project Human occupation of southeastern South America throughout the Holocene: An interdisciplinary, multiscalar, and diachronic approach (nº 19/18664-9); Grant Mechanism Thematic Project; Principal Investigator Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo (USP); Investment R$2,236,584.53 © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved Niéde Guidon has long since stopped her walks through Serra da Capivara National Park Living as a recluse since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic who retired from her position as president of the Museum of the American Man Foundation (FUMDHAM) in 2020 volleyball and tennis matches and even a bit of reading keep me company [from day to day],” the Franco-Brazilian researcher told Mongabay Guidon has lived with her dogs in a house at the back of the FUMDHAM in the rural interior of the northeastern state of Piauí between journeys between France and Brazil threats from powerful figures and scientific achievements she is celebrating the reopening of the national park that she helped to create after it had remained closed during the pandemic and the insecurity caused by the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro who celebrated her 90th birthday on March 12 has received a series of tributes this year to mark the occasion With her movement now restricted because of the arthritis she developed after having contracted chikungunya in 2016 Guidon has already handpicked the events she will attend in person One of these was an event that took place on June 9 in which most of the town of São Raimundo Nonato came out in force to celebrate Guidon’s life and career The event was attended by the French Consul General in Recife and a whole host of other political and academic personalities who landed at the municipality’s recently reopened airport — a long-standing wish of the archaeologist who was labeled by some as a “megalomaniac” for the many pet projects she backed throughout her life to improve the social infrastructural and scientific conditions of the area surrounding the park “There was a Piauí and São Raimundo Nonato before Niéde Guidon and there was one after her,” the mayor of the city which took place on the grounds of the FUMDHAM a nonprofit institution founded by Guidon in the 1980s with the aim of running the park which is home to some of the world’s most important archaeological sites the area is maintained in partnership with the ICMBio (the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation) and receives support from a number of public bodies Another attendee at the event to pay homage to Guidon was Eric Boëda a professor and researcher at Paris Nanterre University and today head of the Franco-Brazilian mission that has accompanied Guidon in her work in the park ever since she first made her discoveries taking on Guidon’s mantle in the archaeological field the French consul general from Recife confirmed the French government’s plans to fund a new mission in the region Niéde Guidon first heard of São Raimundo Nonato 60 years ago while she was working in the University of São Paulo’s Paulista Museum after having studied history at the same university she was working on a photography exhibition of prehistoric paintings that had been discovered in Lagoa Santa thought to be the only of their kind in Brazil It was upon receiving a visit from the then-mayor of the northeastern city of Petrolina that Guidon was made aware of the existence of “some drawings of caboclos,” as the mayor described them that bore some resemblance to those that were the subject of the exhibition The photographs that the mayor showed Guidon were of a rock shelter in Serra da Capivara Guidon excitedly prepared a visit to the region to see it firsthand only to be held up by a number of setbacks primary among them the fateful year of 1964 the first of the Brazilian military dictatorship which loomed over the country and forced Guidon into exile she had done a specialization in prehistoric archaeology at Sorbonne University The archaeologist would only make it to São Raimundo Nonato in 1973 Guidon would be known as “doctor” by everyone in the city Her persistence and force of will changed not only the lives of many of the region’s inhabitants but the course of the field of Brazilian archaeology have continued to dispute Guidon’s theories to this day Discoveries in the fields of genetics and biochemistry have seen Guidon’s theories gain more consistency year by year with a new wave of researchers increasingly confident in the dating proposed by the archaeologist but I can say that there is always the need for scientific theories to be proven I believe that our work was done with the utmost rigor If there are still those for whom doubts persist they should do the same work and then disagree or agree with due reasoning,” the archaeologist said “In the first years here [in Serra da Capivara] we realized that the overwhelming poverty in the region would never allow us to protect the park’s prehistoric legacy Someone who is going hungry only thinks about how they are going to solve their immediate problems,” Guidon said Guidon recalled the main obstacle when she arrived in the town of Coronel José Dias The researcher saw up close the harsh reality of the local inhabitants who survived on the meager harvest from their agriculture and did not have access to electricity They did not even begin to imagine the prehistoric treasures hidden beneath the ground: more than 800 archaeological sites with cave paintings and engravings as much as 12,000 years old measuring 100,000 hectares (247,105 acres) and spread over the municipalities of São Raimundo Nonato Merely delineating the park’s boundaries was not enough, however. Social work with the local inhabitants also had to be carried out on a daily basis. One of the most important steps in this regard was the creation of the Museum of the American Man Foundation (FUMDHAM) economic and cultural development of the area among its primary goals with the body’s management plan committed to integrating the local population into conservation efforts for the park “To talk about Niéde is to talk about the past such as her work to empower the women who were by her side,” Abujamra told Mongabay self-assured female “doctor” arriving in the Sertão — as Brazil’s arid backlands are known — driving a country wagon while dressed in a pair of jeans femicide levels are very high in the northeast a woman in a position of power arriving in the park incentivizing women to free themselves from submission,” Abujamra added One of Guidon’s most well-known moves was her decision to promote many of the region’s housewives into guardians of Serra da Capivara National Park Known locally as “guariteiras,” these women would stand at the park’s entrances and guide visitors protect the park’s perimeter and prevent the hunting of wild animals she found one of the guardhouses in disarray In the ensuing discussion with the security worker she heard a sexist explanation about “who should clean the place.” This led Guidon to decide to turn the role into one fulfilled by women other roles that have traditionally been the preserve of men have been demystified so much so that today many local women have their own sources of income whether that be from working in local businesses in the ceramics factory or in the national park itself the current head of Serra da Capivara National Park told Mongabay that as a little girl growing up in the community of Várzea Grande she observed the coming and going of researchers with fascination who was the only one in the village to have a car in the 1970s used to take them to the archaeological excavation sites “In our heads we imagined that it was gold that they were taking from there because they were always talking about an “archaeological treasure,” Rodrigues said “I really wanted to understand what it was all about one of the few professions that a woman could do at the time.” Rodrigues followed the transformation of the area from the very start from the demarcation of the park’s boundaries to the revolts the victories and the legends that surrounded Guidon One of the unique examples of Guidon’s work in Serra da Capivara came in the 1990s when FUMDHAM’s projects were going from strength to strength with the aim of supporting the construction of full-time schools and health clinics in this rural corner of Piauí Teachers moved to the region from São Paulo as well as educators from universities such as the University of São Paulo innovative curriculum using pioneering methods to teach subjects such as environmental studies “Bit by bit I was introduced to conservationist ideas and I understood that I could be something more than a primary school teacher I wanted to search for answers in order to understand what was happening with the community and I was able to get deeply involved in research,” said Rodrigues who worked in the local schools at the time a nonprofit organization founded on the principles of what is known as collaborative archaeology “We want to promote a relationship between the community and the park about how archaeological projects must be carried out in partnership with the local community at every stage of the process.” In July this year Rodrigues’ project follows the same ideals as Guidon’s pioneering work in promoting education in the Brazilian Sertão The Olho D’Água Institute has already trained hundreds of local residents to work in businesses and tourism activities who arrived in São Raimundo Nonato when the city did not even have basic sanitation facilities her struggles and campaigns over the years have transformed into concrete change such as the construction of the ceramic factory as well as the development of beekeeping in the region and the construction of the much-anticipated São Raimundo Nonato airport “When Doctor [Niéde] celebrated her 90th birthday okay?’ It made me nervous,” Rodrigues recounted and now I see the region changing so quickly and growing with the crucial participation of the local population,” Guidon said “Young people are not migrating as much as in the past because they find jobs here Private enterprise is growing day by day; people are less reliant on the state than they were The two activities that we founded in the hope that tourism and beekeeping — are today successful and practically self-sustaining but it looks like there is no way back now São Raimundo Nonato has its place on the world map.” Image courtesy of André Pessoa /Projeto Raízes do Piauí This story was reported by Mongabay’s Brazil team and first published here on our Brazil site on July 31 Carbon-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32,000 years ago 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 […] 2018."> World Subscribers only Rapper Diddy's trial for sex trafficking begins World Subscribers only Far right clinches overwhelming victory in first round of Romanian presidential election World Subscribers only Kenneth Roth: 'Human rights can be defended without the US' World Subscribers only Founder of Sant'Egidio community fears next pope could undo Francis's legacy Opinion Subscribers only 'Russian gas and Europe is an old story that ended badly Economy Subscribers only Europe's steel industry flattened by crisis World Subscribers only How European countries plan to fund defense efforts France French rail strikes: Traffic will be 'strongly disrupted' in Paris region commuter trains on Monday France Subscribers only Macron announces citizens' convention on school schedules France Subscribers only 21 charged over French prison attacks as investigation narrows in on drug traffickers France Subscribers only French mosque stabber was driven by 'morbid fascination,' prosecutor says Videos World expos: From Paris 1855 to Osaka 2025 Videos How the Trump administration is attacking scientific research in the US Videos Tesla cars set on fire in Las Vegas as calls to boycott Musk's company grow worldwide Videos Can France's nuclear deterrent protect Europe Opinion Subscribers only 'It is pointless to imagine a significant wave of American academics leaving' Opinion Subscribers only 'The American dream is dying' Opinion Subscribers only 'The trade war creates new opportunities for Europeans and France' Opinion Subscribers only 'Faced with Trump is global finance a stabilizing force or an enormous bubble on the verge of bursting?' Magazine Subscribers only Tracking down the pianos taken from French Jews during the Nazi Occupation Magazine Subscribers only Eve Rodsky the American helping couples balance the mental load Magazine Subscribers only Desecration or more glory Joan Didion's private diaries are revealed Magazine Subscribers only For Jewish cartoonist Joann Sfar 2025."> Pixels Subscribers only Golden Owl solution is revealed but leaves players of 31-year hunt disappointed Pixels Subscribers only Secrets of decades-long Golden Owl treasure hunt to be revealed Lifestyle Inside Chanel's French leather workshops Culture Subscribers only The marvelous bronzes of Angkor on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris FeatureThis natural park in the Nordeste state of Piaui is a 130,000-hectare environmental reserve and open-air art gallery But the UNESCO World Heritage site is suffering from the effects of mass tourism Judging by the cave paintings in Brazil's Serra da Capivara a UNESCO World Heritage site and archaeological jewel of the Americas conjures up a vision of blissful effervescence with its more than 1,000 sites of cave paintings and engravings dating back 6,000 to 12,000 years Hence its well-deserved nickname of the "Brazilian Lascaux." While the scenes depicted are open to infinite interpretation everything here is movement: Characters run and leap and styles intermingle an iron oxide) to milky white (from gypsum) The technique used to fix them to the rock remains a mystery Some researchers suspect the use of a mixture of animal fat You have 89.39% of this article left to read Lecture du Monde en cours sur un autre appareil Vous pouvez lire Le Monde sur un seul appareil à la fois Ce message s’affichera sur l’autre appareil Parce qu’une autre personne (ou vous) est en train de lire Le Monde avec ce compte sur un autre appareil Vous ne pouvez lire Le Monde que sur un seul appareil à la fois (ordinateur En cliquant sur « Continuer à lire ici » et en vous assurant que vous êtes la seule personne à consulter Le Monde avec ce compte Que se passera-t-il si vous continuez à lire ici Ce dernier restera connecté avec ce compte Vous pouvez vous connecter avec votre compte sur autant d’appareils que vous le souhaitez mais en les utilisant à des moments différents Nous vous conseillons de modifier votre mot de passe Votre abonnement n’autorise pas la lecture de cet article merci de contacter notre service commercial Niède Guidon at the American Man Museum in São Raimundo Nonato PiauíNiède Guidon at the American Man Museum in São Raimundo Nonato French-Brazilian archaeologist Niède Guidon former director of the American Man Museum Foundation (FUMDHAM) won the 36th edition of the Admiral Álvaro Alberto Award for Science and Technology which this year was awarded for humanities The honor is awarded annually by Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Brazilian Ministry of Science and R$200,000 prize will be awarded is set to be held at the Rio de Janeiro Naval School on May 8 She earned her degree in natural history from the University of São Paulo (USP) and specialized in prehistoric archaeology with an emphasis on cave paintings she created FUMDHAM in São Raimundo Nonato which was responsible for protecting the Serra da Capivara National Park Guidon identified more than 700 prehistoric sites in the park including 426 cave paintings and evidence of ancient human habitation she hypothesized that Homo sapiens arrived in the region more than 100,000 years ago contrary to the traditionally accepted theory that humans migrated to the Americas from Asia around 13,000 years ago via the Bering Strait © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved. Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Menu.page-294822379{--colorD:#e3fc01;--colorJ:#e3fc01;--gradientTransparentJ:#e3fc0100;--colorDC:#e3fc01;--colorDA:#e3fc01;--colorDF:#e3fc01;--colorJD:#e3fc01;--colorDJ:#e3fc01;--colorJF:#e3fc01;--colorJG:#e3fc01;--colorDDC:#e3fc01;--colorDTransparent:#e3fc01;--colorJTransparent:#e3fc01}ScienceOne Extremely Human Quality May Help Explain Why Neanderthals Went ExtinctAnthropologists once saw Neanderthals as dull-witted brutes But recent archaeological finds show they rivaled us in intelligence Bonnafe Jean-Paul/Moment/Getty ImagesWhy did humans take over the world while our closest relatives, the Neanderthals but there’s surprisingly little evidence that’s true Neanderthals had big brains, language, and sophisticated tools. They made art and jewelry Maybe the crucial differences weren’t at the individual level but in our societies Forty thousand years ago Neanderthals disappeared from Asia and Europe, replaced by humans. Their slow, inevitable replacement suggests humans had some advantage Anthropologists once saw Neanderthals as dull-witted brutes Neanderthal skulls at the Natural History Museum in London They gathered plants, seeds, and shellfish Hunting and foraging all those species demanded a deep understanding of nature Neanderthals also had a sense of beauty, making beads and cave paintings. They were spiritual people, burying their dead with flowers Stone circles found inside caves may be Neanderthal shrines Neanderthal lives were probably steeped in superstition and magic; their skies full of gods Then there’s the fact Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had children together but our survival is tied to larger social groups as a bee’s fate depends on the colony’s survival It may be that the key differences were less at the individual level than at the societal level It’s impossible to understand humans in isolation any more than you can understand a honeybee without considering its colony The bands combine into a loosely organized tribe of a thousand people or more but they’re linked by shared language and religion Neanderthal societies may have been similar but with one crucial difference: smaller social groups An illustration of early humans from the 19th Century What points to this is evidence that Neanderthals had lower genetic diversity If one person in ten carries a gene for curly hair one death could remove the gene from the population five people would carry the gene – multiple backup copies small groups tend to lose genetic variation In 2022, DNA was recovered from the bones and teeth of 11 Neanderthals found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia including a father and a daughter – they were from a single band Because we inherit two sets of chromosomes — one from our mother and one from our father — we carry two copies of each gene You might get a gene for blue eyes from your mother and one for brown eyes from your father the Altai Neanderthals often had one version of each gene that low diversity suggests they lived in small bands — probably averaging just 20 people It’s possible Neanderthal anatomy favored small groups. Being robust and muscular, Neanderthals were heavier than us. So each Neanderthal needed more food, meaning the land could support fewer Neanderthals than Homo sapiens And Neanderthals may have mainly eaten meat Meat-eaters would get fewer calories from the land than people who ate meat and plants If humans lived in bigger groups than Neanderthals Neanderthals, strong and skilled with spears were likely good fighters. Lightly-built humans probably countered by using bows to attack at range But even if Neanderthals and humans were equally dangerous in battle they could bring more fighters and absorb more losses and techniques for crafting tools and sewing clothing Just as big groups have higher genetic diversity And more people means more connections. Network connections increase exponentially with network size, following Metcalfe’s Law A 20-person band has 190 possible connections between members while 60 people have 1770 possible connections Information flows through these connections: News about people and movements of animals; toolmaking techniques; and words Plus the group’s behaviour becomes increasingly complex But interactions between millions of ants lets colonies make elaborate nests forage for food and kill animals many times an ant’s size human groups do things no one person can — design buildings and cars Humans aren’t unique in having big brains (whales and elephants have these) or in having huge social groups (zebras and wildebeest form huge herds) To paraphrase poet John Dunne no man — and no Neanderthal — is an island humans formed larger and larger social groups: bands It may be then that an ability to build large social structures gave Homo sapiens the edge against nature and other hominin species This article was originally published on The Conversation by Nicholas R. Longrich at University of Bath. Read the original article here After four decades in the Serra da Capivara the archaeologist confirms that she will leave Piauí after the opening of the new exhibition space The Museum of Nature will likely be the last great contribution of Niède Guidon to Serra da Capivara National Park a conservation site created in the southern region of Piauí in 1979 It covers approximately 130,000 hectares and is administered by the Museum of the American Man Foundation (FUMDHAM) in partnership with the Chico Mendes Institute (ICMBio) and the Institute for Historical Heritage and National Art (IPHAN) who lives in São Raimundo Nonato (PI) and heads up the foundation has played a key role in the consolidation of the park and the preservation and study of its 1,200 sites with rock paintings and archaeological and paleontological material and with limited mobility due to the side effects of the chikungunya fever Niède is no longer able to explore the prehistoric sites that she so loves when the new museum is inaugurated (the second one to open in the region) she will leave her leadership position with the foundation She will likely return to France where she worked for two decades and where she holds citizenship doubt that she will carry out this promise to leave Piauí which she has claimed to do on other occasions When we built the Museum of the American Man there was also an area dedicated to fossils But the human collection grew so much that we had to remove the nature component As we did not have anywhere to display the fossils including those of marine life from when this area was covered by ocean This was more or less between 2002 and 2003 the president of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) changed and there was no further development but the funds were only released in 2017 without any financial correction we had to make some adjustments to the project in order to remain within budget we are going to show the entire region and highlight climatic changes and geological events that have taken place here the Amazon forest was part of the Serra da Capivara and It was the meeting point of the two biomes the forest disappeared and the Caatinga (semiarid scrublands) took root there are animal and vegetable species of these two biomes that have survived here We will inaugurate the museum and then we will see how it will be maintained The museum has been designed to be self-sustaining The governments should stimulate tourism in the region thus fostering construction of 4- and 5-star hotels It is both expensive and difficult to get here It is not easy to go to Petrolina to catch a plane We were able to arrange for the opening of the airport in Serra da Capivara but there are no commercial flights that operate there Will you leave your leadership post at FUMDHAM I am going to reclaim my right to do nothing I began working when I was only 18 years old What is the current situation of the foundation and the park we began to prepare the park to receive tourists I visited various heritage preservation projects around the world Every 10 km of the park we built security lookouts with employees communicating via two-way radio IBAMA [currently replaced by ICMBio] did not maintain anyone here They simply named the park ranger and left But where did the money come from to build the park The first construction projects were funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) the environmental compensation mechanism and sponsorships through the Rouanet Act allowed us to expand the infrastructure and begin park operations companies that directly impacted nature were required to give a percentage of profits as a means of compensating the institutions that care for the environment paid us environmental compensation every year an environmental compensation fund was established and was administered by the bank Caixa Econômica Federal the mechanism changed again and now the fund is managed directly by ICMBio We never again received the environmental compensation monies Petrobras entered into crisis management and also stopped supporting us the government of Piauí has supported us to the extent possible And this is how the park has been maintained But we are always asking ICMBio for financial support We have had as many as 270 people working for FUMDHAM I do not know where the money will come from to cover employee payouts The money would have come from a claim by the Order of Brazilian Lawyers (OAB) of Piauí against the Union arguing that it is obliged to maintain heritage sites How much money does FUMDHAM need to maintain its activities The grant for the Museum of the American Man comes from IPHAN and we have 15 staff in the park and an additional 15 in our research laboratories The researchers are normally paid through their connection with scientific projects or they are employees of universities or institutions in Brazil or abroad In order to maintain a solid team of employees and manage the park roads we had as many as 12 on our team for the conservation of rock paintings Every day they would go into the park and visit the sites to undertake maintenance projects it will be [biologist] Marcia Chame of FIOCRUZ in Rio de Janeiro She was recommended by FUMDHAM to replace me She is an excellent researcher and has worked with us since the 1980s an election will be held to choose the new board of directors Teeth from a deer found alongside human bones inside a cave in the state of Piauí suggest that humans were present in the region more than 20,000 years ago  Published in January 2015 Two teeth from a large deer discovered at a prehistoric site in the vicinity of the Serra da Capivara National Park in São Raimundo Nonato will likely add fuel to the debate regarding the date of modern man’s arrival in the Americas Two different laboratories independently dated these giant mammal remains which were discovered at a depth of slightly over half a meter in the same geological layer of Toca do Serrote das Moendas in which human bones were recovered One tooth was analyzed at the Department of Physics of the Riberão Preto Faculty of Philosophy which is part of the University of São Paulo (FFCLRP/USP); the other tooth was examined at the Department of Chemistry of Williams College in Massachusetts The results of both tests indicate similar results: 29,000 years in the first case and 24,000 in the second At the Baixada Santista campus of the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) a third group ascertained the age of the concretion a compact layer rich in carbonates capping the sediments in which the animal teeth and human skeleton fragments were discovered the latter test confirmed that the concretion layer was younger than the layer that contained the animal remains: the soil sample was 21,000 years old Equipment purchased with FAPESP funding was used in the two dating measurements performed in Brazil the researchers believe that they have gathered indirect evidence of human presence at least 20,000 years ago in what is today the semi-arid northeast region of Brazil which is well before the date that traditional archeology posits for the peopling of the Americas “The three dates line up,” says physicist Oswaldo Baffa coordinator of the Ribeirão Preto/USP group and one of the study’s authors we were careful to have the samples analyzed at three different places without knowing exactly what they were analyzing.” The classic view posits that the first Homo sapiens arrived on the continent approximately 13,000 years ago by crossing the Bering Strait The conclusions derived from the tests on the material collected in the semi-arid Northeast cave were published in an article in the Journal of Human Evolution in December 2014 “There was no collagen that could be used to directly date the human bones from the cave using carbon 14,” says archeologist Niède Guidon another author of the paper and president of the Museum of the American Man Foundation (Fumdham) “But the results of the dating of the deer teeth and the concretion layer point to very ancient human occupation of the region.” Fumdham manages the park in conjunction with the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) a government agency within the Ministry of the Environment Guidon and her collaborators have been conducting research in the vicinity of the park—a UNESCO World Heritage site—since the 1970s particularly in the fields of archeology and paleontology Her team has catalogued 1,400 prehistoric sites in the Capivara Mountains which has the largest concentration in the Americas; 900 of these sites have rock paintings created thousands of years ago including marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus) which is the species whose teeth were found at Toca do Serrote das Moendas Although there are numerous sites in the semi-arid state of Piauí those sites have never provided human remains that could be carbon dated which is the method that is generally employed to ascertain the age of organic matter (i.e. fabric) from as long ago as 50,000 years and in some cases even 100,000 the organic portion of the bones that is indispensable to this dating technique is a protein that is rarely preserved in the skeletons discovered in this region Because it was impossible to determine the age of the bones discovered at what are potentially the oldest of the Capivara Mountains sites Guidon has almost always endeavored to establish an acceptable timeline for the environment in which human bone fragments have been unearthed and for the artifacts and remains that may have been produced by human hands she has dated the remains of stone hearths and artifacts attributed to H which are still questioned by a significant portion of the scientific community suggest a human presence in the region between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago; the hypothesis is that man arrived this early by way of an Atlantic sea route The new study at Toca do Serrote das Moendas a site located approximately five kilometers from the park has afforded the archeologist additional data which can be applied to the controversial puzzle regarding when man first set foot in the Brazilian Northeast and Jonathan Wilkins/Wikimedia CommonsMarsh deer: animal depicted in the region’s rock paintingsJonathan Wilkins/Wikimedia Commons This prehistoric site generates new potential for analysis which measures 35 meters by 23 meters at its greatest width The two teeth of the marsh deer lay side by side 35 centimeters away from the fragments of the adult skeleton and located at the same depth This scenario is an indication—although not irrefutable proof—that man and animal may have co-existed during the same era Electron spin resonance (ESR)—also known as electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy—was used to date the teeth The technique measures the amount of ionizing radiation incident on a sample using the spin concentration prompted by energy deposited in the material the greater the dose deposited in it,” says physicist Angela Kinoshita of Sacred Heart University (USC) in Bauru and a post-doctoral researcher at the USP Department of Physics in Ribeirão Preto who examined one of the teeth using the technique in addition to recording the level of radiation stored in the tooth’s enamel and dentine scientists must consider the specific conditions at the site in which the material being analyzed was discovered (i.e. local levels of radiation emitted by elements such as uranium and potassium) as well as cosmic radiation A different technique was used to date the carbonate-rich concretion layer that practically sealed off the sediment stratum in which the teeth and human remains were found: optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) This method measures levels of this type of light in the quartz crystals of a geological layer the older the sample,” explains Sonia Tatumi the Unifesp physicist who analyzed two samples from the concretion layer at Toca do Serrote das Moendas “Quartz absorbs blue light and emits OSL in the ultraviolet region,” she says The data derived from a sample taken from the most central portion of the concretion were inconclusive examination of a more external piece of the layer provided the results that appear in the scientific article: an age of 21,000 years Project Advances in electron spin resonance dosimetry, archeological dating and biomaterials characterization (nº 2007/06720-4); Grant mechanism Regular Grant; Principal investigator Oswaldo Baffa (USP/Ribeirão Preto); Investment R$507,101.73 (FAPESP) Scientific article KINOSHITA, A. et al. Dating human occupation at Toca do Serrote das Moendas, São Raimundo Nonato, Piauí-Brazil by electron spin resonance and optically stimulated luminescence The foundation created by archaeologist Niède Guidon is set to inaugurate its Museum of Nature in December at Serra da Capivara National Park in Piauí Léo Ramos Chaves Fossils of giant sloths from the FUMDHAM collectionLéo Ramos Chaves Léo Ramos Chaves Construction inside the new museumLéo Ramos Chaves is viewed by students visiting the American Man MuseumLéo Ramos Chaves The Museum of Nature is one more bet to try to stimulate tourism in the region In order to be self-sustaining financially its organizers cannot make the wrong administrative decisions so the entrance fee and working hours at the new institution are the subject of internal debate at FUMDHAM The full-price entrance fee to the American Man Museum which operates at the foundation’s headquarters the Museum of Nature should charge a higher entry fee “The price will depend on the number of employees we have and the number of days and hours we’re open,” explains Buco One possibility is that the museum will only open for six hours a day and it wouldn’t be necessary to hire more than one employee for each job There is no running water at the Museum of Nature’s location A reservoir with a 500,000-liter capacity is being built next to the building and two hydrants will be connected to the well “The visitor center at Serra da Capivara National Park has a reservoir of 200,000 liters which covers the annual consumption there,” Rosa observes “We think half a million gallons will be enough for the museum.” These reservoirs rely on the rainy months from October through April to maintain their water supply By the time it begins operating the museum must have a functioning fire alarm system the Serra da Capivara will appear on televisions around the world But it won’t be exclusively because of its cave paintings or museums of archaeology and natural history A large European television network is producing a documentary about the region’s Capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) which were already using stone fragments 700 years ago to crack cashew nuts and extract their edible parts “This is the first known use of tools found at an ‘archaeological’ site produced by monkeys,” says biologist Tiago Falótico of the Institute of Psychology at the University of São Paulo (IP-USP) one of the authors of the study on these primates who is advising the onsite documentary team with the new museum and the publicity generated by the TV program about these monkeys interest in the Serra da Capivara may increase the individual was a contemporary of the oldest human groups in South America Léo Ramos Chaves / Revista Pesquisa FAPESP an ancient human skeleton found in the state of Piauí has already been the center of a few archaeological controversies Zuzu inhabited a region that is now a part of southeastern Piauí approximately 1,400 years more recently than was previously estimated it is among the oldest human specimens found in South America to date is regarding its sex: past studies have indicated the skeleton is from a woman while others suggest that it came from a man—an option favored by the most recent analyses—however with a physical makeup that suggests a female skeleton “The value obtained with the new dating of Zuzu is within expectations,” says Argentine archaeologist Lumila Menéndez a researcher from the universities of Bonn and lead author of the article published on May 12 in Scientific Reports “This value is similar to that obtained through direct dating for other ancient skeletons in South America None of them are much older than that.” French-Brazilian archaeologist Niède Guidon is coauthor of the current study and leader of almost five decades of research conducted in Serra da Capivara National Park where the Zuzu skeleton was found she has argued that Homo sapiens settled in the region tens of thousands of years ago based on analyses of bonfires and lithic material believed to be produced by human beings the value obtained in the new dating of Zuzu is the oldest for a human skeleton found in the region Determining when the oldest human specimens on the continent lived is fundamental to understanding how the occupation of the Americas came to pass dating of biological materials many thousands of years old is challenging in Brazil and acidic soils make it difficult to find well preserved bones and other tissues that contain genetic material and elements useful for determining the age of remains archaeologists try to obtain a specimen’s age indirectly by dating materials associated with the skeleton such as the layer of sediment from which it was taken It has now been possible to establish in what period Zuzu lived using direct dating of carbonate ions (CO3) from tooth enamel Radioactive isotopes of carbon found in two molars allowed scientists to affirm that the skeleton is between 9,526 and 9,681 years old It is possible that Zuzu is a few hundred years older as carbonate from environmental material more recent than the skeleton may have integrated into the teeth after death Rodrigo Cunha“The absence of direct dating of skeletons found in the Serra da Capivara National Park led foreign researchers studying the peopling of the Americas to disregard data from the region,” observes Argentine physical anthropologist Ana Solari coauthor of the work published in Scientific Reports and a researcher with the American Man Museum Foundation (FUMDHAM) the entity responsible for preserving the park’s cultural and natural heritage about 530 kilometers from the state capital Serra da Capivara National Park occupies an area of approximately 130,000 hectares of caatinga (semiarid scrublands) in the municipalities of São Raimundo Nonato The area features one of Brazil’s largest concentrations of archaeological sites from the early Holocene a geological epoch that lasted from 11,700 years ago to 8,200 years ago Twenty-seven of the sites contain human skeletons obtained by analyzing materials found next to the skeletons indicate that some are Zuzu’s contemporaries Zuzu’s bones were found in July 1997 by Guidon’s team during excavations conducted in a small rocky shelter known as Toca dos Coqueiros The site is a sloping rock wall covered by cave paintings which offered protection from the sun and rain—the climate in the region was wetter during that era with the left hand under the face and the right hand in front of the face After some attempts at direct dating the skeleton but impeded by the absence of collagen in the bones Guidon and bioarchaeologist Andrea Lessa managed to establish the age of a piece of charcoal embedded in the skeleton’s right heel The material was approximately 11,000 years old we try to prioritize the direct dating of skeletal remains which are capable of defining the period in which the individual lived,” explains bioanthropologist Mercedes Okumura who studies the prehistoric population of Brazil and did not participate in the current study FUMDHAMZuzu’s skeleton in the position it was originally found in at Toca dos Coqueiros in 1997FUMDHAM presented in an article published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology was closer to the age attributed to another famous human skeleton still considered the oldest in South America The Luzia skeleton was from an adult woman who died between 12.500 and 13,000 years ago in what is now the municipality of Lagoa Santa “With the exception of Luzia and one or two other cases almost all of the human material found in Lagoa Santa is between 9,000 and 10,000 years old the same age now given for Zuzu,” says bioanthropologist Walter Neves creator of the Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies at USP his lab conducted detailed analyses of Luzia’s skull and other skeletal remains from Lagoa Santa Lessa and Guidon proposed that Zuzu stood between 1.4 and 1.6 meters when alive and died at between 35 and 45 years of age Certain characteristics of the pelvis bones indicated that the skeleton was from a woman as did the results of analysis of DNA extracted from two bones from the right hand and one vertebra This was the beginning of another controversy to surround the Toca dos Coqueiros skeleton since the results from the team’s genetic analysis was met with skepticism by other archaeologists due to the known difficulty of finding preserved collagen in skeletons from the Capivara Mountains then a researcher with universities in Michigan and Wyoming reconstructed and reanalyzed Zuzu’s skull He also compared the structures of the pelvis with those of two other female skeletons found in the Serra da Capivara one almost contemporaneous with Zuzu and the other of more recent origin Another archaeological finding supported this idea the presence of two spearheads of chipped stone found next to the body since it is believed that this type of offering was only made for men again in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology based on the shape and measurements of skull structures that Zuzu would have had an appearance similar to Luzia and the other remnants of the people who inhabited the Lagoa Santa region approximately 10,000 years ago That conclusion was reinforced two years later by another analysis conducted by Neves and Brazilian bioanthropologist Mark Hubbe—now a professor at Ohio State University in the United States—in collaboration with Guidon they stated: “With regard to Zuzu’s sex our analyses support the idea put forward by Nelson in 2005 that this skeleton belongs to a gracile male.” Rodrigo CunhaWhen he analyzed the skulls of the people of Lagoa Santa in the late 1980s like other skeletons from the same period found in the Americas had features similar to those of Africans and the aborigines of Australia and Melanesia—as distinct from current indigenous groups Individuals from the group that Luzia and Zuzu most likely belonged to have a narrower skull which is longer in the anteroposterior direction with lower ocular orbits than the present-day indigenous people According to the model of continental occupation proposed in 1989 by Neves and Argentine bioanthropologist Héctor Pucciarelli they were descendants of the first human group to enter the Americas who came out of Asia and had Australo-Melanesian features This morphology continued to exist into recorded history in individuals of peoples such as the Botucudos were descendants of a second migratory wave composed of individuals with Asian characteristics but it was already expected that Zuzu would have had Australo-Melanesian features like the other Paleo-Indians as had previously been indicated,” says Neves He attributes the widespread presence of this trait during that era to human evolutionary history Because Homo sapiens emerged in Africa and most likely only recently underwent a process of morphological transformation of the skull these older features are widespread across the planet several groups around the world had this morphology which I call Pan-African,” the bioanthropologist says In addition to establishing a direct-dating value for Zuzu’s skeleton in the Scientific Reports study and collaborators analyzed ten measurements of the skull and compared them with those from another 108 skeletons found in different regions of Brazil 39 from individuals who lived in the early Holocene and 69 from the late Holocene (within the last 4,200 years) The results showed that Zuzu shows much more similarity with the skulls of the first group which consisted mostly of Paleoindians from Lagoa Santa than with those of individuals from more recent periods even those who live or have lived in locations geographically closer to the Serra da Capivara such as the Guajajara people of Maranhão By comparing the shape of Zuzu’s skull with those of individuals from both periods the researchers concluded that the skeleton was likely to be that of a woman When compared exclusively with skulls from the early Holocene “It’s possible that sexual dimorphism differences in external physiognomy between men and women These differences may have been less pronounced or these peoples may have had different morphological characteristics in the past,” says Menéndez “Perhaps that’s why we have difficulty knowing if it was a male or female skeleton.” Sexual dimorphism was well marked among the ancient inhabitants of Lagoa Santa First excavations in the Serra das Confusões [Confusões Hills] reveal a singular pattern of prehistoric paintings Fumdham archiveSerra das Confusões: 150 new prehistoric sitesFumdham archive The first exploratory work in the Serra das Confusões National Park suggests that this area of 526,000 hectares of semi-arid land may have a wealth of archeology that is as rich as its famous neighbor where more than 1,300 pre-historic sites have been discovered since the 1970’s Over a period of two years researchers from the American Museum of Man Foundation (Fumdham) excavated recently discovered pre-historic sites in the Serra das Confusões and found rock paintings and human graves some estimated as being as old as 6000 years with characteristics that are different from those found in the Serra da Capivara  “These are extraordinary results” who has been working for more than 30 years in Piauí and is the president of Fumdham “There’s work in the Serra das Confusões for at least two generations of researchers Many sites are being destroyed even before they’re discovered.”  A scientific entity with its headquarters in São Raimundo Nonato in Piaui Fumdham is responsible for preserving and protecting the archeological sites of the conservation unit in the Serra da Capivara while the Serra das Confusões’ unit is directly supported by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) Despite the fact that the distance between the two parks is relatively small the new research front seems to have the potential to reveal previously unknown details about the prehistoric people who lived in the region one of the sites explored in the Serra das Confusões researchers located two graves In the common grave they found 13 heaps of bones The skeletons of adults were found in the high part of the burial site and the children were lower down “Almost all the skeletons had a lot of ornaments and their chests were painted with ochre” who since the end of last year has been excavating at Toca do Enoque “I’ve never seen a burial pattern like this one at Capivara.” It’s not been possible to date the human remains using the carbon 14 method because there was not much collagen in the bones the protein that is essential for carrying out the test the dating of charcoal found close to the individual grave pointed to an age of approximately 6200 years an indication that the skeletons may also be from this time the work is concentrated on a sandstone cliff which has a crevice formed by erosion With the help of a ladder it is possible to enter this space and enter a cave that is some 12 meters long and 5 meters wide Close to the opening in the cliff the compartment is more or less the height of a person and close to the back it becomes lower and narrower Its walls and roof are covered with paintings done above all in straight lines and in some cases having circular shapes  “About 80% of the paintings are geometric and 20% involve human figures and animals” who is excavating the Toca do Alto do Capim “The pattern of these drawings is precisely the opposite of what we found in sites in the Serra da Capivara.” In a layer of sediment that is a little more than a meter thick formed by the sand that falls as the roof flakes the researchers also found the remains of fires (pieces of charcoal) pieces of human and animal bone and stone artifacts Dating of the charcoal found in the deepest part of the sediment which also contained fragments of human bones and a block of stone with engravings Fumdham archivePainting in the Toca do Alto do Capim: predominance of geometric shapesFumdham archive If this initial estimate is confirmed by more findings it is possible to speculate that human occupation in the Serra das Confusões occurred after the arrival of Homo sapiens in the Serra da Capivara where there are older records of human presence man first reached the Serra da Capivara and then the Serra das Confusões” who in the past has tried unsuccessfully to unify the area of the two parks But more data are necessary so that the archeologists can formulate a consistent hypothesis it is not possible to state with any degree of certainty whether even the prehistoric people who became established on one of the ranges of hills are the same as on the other The information obtained from the first sites that were explored in the Serra das Confusões suggests that there were different cultural aspects there from those normally found in the Serra da Capivara these particular aspects are not enough to prove the existence of two different groups of people in the region’s remote past people from the same culture may also produce drawings and carry out burials that have totally dissimilar features Arrival in the Americas Although controversial Niède Guidon’s studies in the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil defend the idea that prehistoric man set foot in the country tens of thousands of years ago sapiens left Africa and landed in Piauí by sea having crossed the Atlantic at an historic moment in time when a great drought on that particular continent led man to the sea in search of food As the level of the ocean was 140 meters lower than it is today there were many more islands and the distance between the two continents was less This set of factors made the crossing possible the researcher’s theory is controversial but if one day it is proved the whole history of the colonization of the Americas will change “These data were always accepted by the Europeans and by some North Americans” with the results obtained in Mexico by an English team the oldest settlement in the Americas has been proved beyond doubt.” But the traditional view still held by many North American researchers accepts the hypothesis that man arrived in the Americas around 13,000 years ago the topic generates heated discussions among researchers – and the historic sites in the Serra das Confusões are new pieces in this archeological jigsaw puzzle Parece que a página que você está procurando não está disponível