Pedra Furada

Pedra Furada (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpɛdɾɐ fuˈɾadɐ], meaning pierced rock) is an important collection of over 800 archaeological sites in the state of Piauí, Brazil.

In 1973, a Brazilian and French team excavating a site located in the southeastern portion of what is now the Serra da Capivara National Park discovered the first finds.

[5] Guidon established 15 distinct levels, classified in three cultural phases, called Pedra Furada, that includes the oldest remains; and Serra Talhada, from 12,000 to 7,000 BP, with tools such as knives, scrapers, flakes used "as is" or with some retouch and lithic cores, all made of quartz or quartzite.

[13] The mainstream view of the peopling of the Americas, also known as the short chronology theory, is that the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurred no earlier than 15,000 – 17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants.

[14][15] Pedra Furada provides potential evidence for the proponents of the long chronology theory, which states that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at a much earlier date, possibly 21,000–40,000 years ago,[16][17] with a much later mass secondary wave of immigrants.

[20][21] A caribou bone used as a scraper, found at the Old Crow Flats site in Canada and thought to be 27,000 years old, in the 1970s was used to support the long chronology theory.

Wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) in Serra da Capivara National Park have been observed smashing stones against rocks embedded in the ground.

James Adovasio of Florida Atlantic University believes that the tools identified by Guidon as human made are rocks that fell from a cliff and broke when they hit the ground.

[23][24][25][26] This seems to be a dividing line on the debate among archaeologists disputing Guidon's theory that the site's artifacts prove pre-Clovis human settlement in the Americas.

[28][dead link‍] In a 2014 article in the New York Times Guidon claimed occupation of the Americas could go back 100,000 years and the first settlers 'might have come not overland from Asia but by boat from Africa'.

"[28] French palaeolithic archaeologist Jacques Pelegrin, believes there is a possibility for natural processes creating flaked stones that could mimic the Pedra Furada specimens because of their simplicity, but he finds this very unlikely in this case because of continuous human presence in the site.