Satellite Detects Ruins of Ancient Civilization in Brazil, Finds Giant Geoglyphs

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In January 2010, analysing satellite imagery and aerial photographs, archaeologists  detected patterns of avenues, ditches and enclosures that have lain concealed for centuries under a dense tangle of trees. These structures, up to 200 in number and collectively known as geoglyphs, give the lie to the theory that there were no complex societies in the Amazon Basin until the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th century. 

Image source: Bradshaw Foundation.

They haven’t been precisely dated, but could be up to 2,000 years old. Spanning a distance of 155 miles, the earthworks are the remains of roads, bridges and squares that formed the basis for a lost civilization – the vestiges of a sophisticated pre-Columbian monument-building society.

The geoglyphs represent enourmous structures, with diameters ranging from 100 to 300 meters, connected by straight orthogonal roads. They are strategically located on plateaux tops above the river valleys. Their builders took advantage of the natural topography in order to construct spaces that were full of symbolic meaning. They were probably villages and ceremonial centres, indicating a society of a complex nature that allowed organization, planning, and large labor force. This suggests a substantial population was living in an area long believed to be too harsh to sustain permanent settlements.

However, this should not come as a great surprise; thermoluminescence and EPR dating of a calcite veneer which covers a rock painting at the Toca da Bastiana shelter in the Serra da Capivara National Park in the Piaui region of Brazil provides dates from 35 to 43 ka ago, implying that the painting is at least 36,000 years old.  Dating by the Texas A&M University puts the painting at about 2,500 to 3,700 years ago.

Image credit: Fundação Museu do Homen Americano 

The existence of rock art, and therefore a complex and sophisticated society, at such an early date fits perfectly with totally different and independent data obtained from the famous Pedra Furada rock shelter in the same region.

Controversy has reigned for years about the antiquity of an early human presence in Brazil. Work under the supervision of Niéde Guidon and the Fundação Museu do Homen Americano suggests that humankind was present in Brazil as early as 50,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years before humans were thought to have migrated into the Americas. Whereas charcoal and quartzite flakes found at the Pedra Furada site may possibly be linked to natural phenomena, dates on rock art have the advantage that they are most certainly associated with a human presence.

Currently, the Fundação Museu do Homen Americano has initiated research to locate proof of natural fire vestiges in the area surrounding Pedra Furada, but none has been found. Dates obtained by electron spin resonance (ESR) and thermoluminescence (TL) for the crystallization age of a ‘calcite’ accretion layer deposited over an ~20 cm tall red anthropomorphic pictograph in the Toca do Serrote da Bastiana shelter located in the state of Piaui further support the early arrival of humans in Brazil. The ESR and TL results suggest that the accretion was formed 30,000-40,000 years ago. Considering that the pictograph must have been produced prior to the ‘calcite’ deposition on top of it, this fascinating result would place the pictograph among the oldest dated rock paintings in the world.

Map by Rafael Nascimento

Sources:
Bradshaw Foundation.
Texas A&M University Analysis:  AMS Radiocarbon Ages of an Oxalate Accretion and Rock Paintings at Toca do Serrote da Bastiana, Brazil
Early rock art and settlement in Brazil
Martti P¨arssinen, Denise Schaan & Alceu Ranzi: Pre-Columbian geometric earthworks in the upper Pur´us: a complex society in western Amazonia