grey area: Minas Gerais state
black dot: the State capital, Belo Horizonte.
red dot: Santano do Riocha site
54. Possible Relatives in the Americas
Santana do Riacho (Minas Gerais, Brazil)
by George Weber
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grey area: Minas Gerais state black dot: the State capital, Belo Horizonte. red dot: Santano do Riocha site |
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Detailed map of the region in which the site of Santana do Riocha rockshelter is located. |
The Santana do Riacho is a rockshelter that was formed by quartzite rocks being weathered and falling from the base of a cliff. The shelter, overall, is around 80 m long The shelter is of quartzite rock at the back and has two dejection cones of laterite at either end, forming a kind of partial amphitheatre. The site is sub-divided into 2 sections of which one is around 10 m lower than the other. The floor of the site consists of quartzite sand, laterite and fallen quartzite blocks.
Archaeological finds have shown that the shelter was occupied or at least used as temporary shelter by humans from 12,000 years ago until today. The Santano de Riacho had always been known the the local inhabitants because of the spectacular rock painting in and around the shelter. However, the site only received the full attention of of professional archaeologists when Annette Laming-Emperaire and Andre Prous first visited the site in 1976s. They found it largely undisturbed and excavation began later that same year and lasted until 1979.
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The Santana de Riacho site lies in the Serra de Cipo, a valley created by two parallel mountain ranges. |
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View of the little town of Santana de Riacho (pop. 4,000
in 2005). |
The archaeological site of Santana do Riacho is an important site, primarily bec ause of its many and very early human burials, but also for its rock paintings. The finds made at the site show that it belongs to the Lagoa Santa complex - but it is geologically on the fringes of that complex and geographically merely a near neighbour.
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The Santana de Riacho rock shelter with excavated areas S1, S2 and S3 marked pink. (adapted from Neves, W.A., Prous A., Gonzalez-José R., Kipnis R., Powell J. 2003. Journal of Human Evolution. vol. 45:19-42) |
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Profile of the ST1 excavation area of the Santana do Riacho rock shelter (adapted from Neves, W.A., Prous A., Gonzalez-José R., Kipnis R., Powell J. 2003. Journal of Human Evolution. vol. 45:19-42) The burial marked "a" on the left is burial XX, that of a man of undetermined age who died more than 9,000 years ago. This is also shown on the maps below.
The oldest date found the the site is a piece of charcoal 18,000 ±1,000 years ago. This could indeed have come from a human camp fire - or from a forest fire started by lifghting, for example. There is no way to tell the difference. Human burials: 1. burial XX Dates are all uncalibrated C14 years, i.e. the real age
of the remains is somewhat older than the number of years
indicate.
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The fallen rock shown on the map above. It broke offff the wall and lies on a ground dated around 4,340 years before the present, i.e. the drawings on the stone are at least this old. ((drawing adapted from Prous A. 1999. "Dating Rock Art in Brazil". In: Dating ther Earliest Known Rock Art, eds. M.Strecker and P. Bahn, Oxbow Books. Pages 29-34)
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Below are the two most complete skulls found at the ST1 part of the Santa do Riocha site:
Left the skull SR1 XXII of a young woman, at the time of death aged ca. 15-19 years; right the skull SR1 III of a mature man, at the time of death aged ca. 35-39 years. For the positions and locations in which they were found see map below.
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Burials found in just part of Stratum 3 at SR1of Santana
do Riacho. The roman numbers refer to buried individuals. By far the oldest date produced by a C14 analysis is that on burial Va. The excavators mentioned only that the radiocarbondate is older than expected. Whether the date is genuine or the result of some contamination remains open. Most of the human remains fall fairly relibla between 8,200 and 9,550 before the present. I. |
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Photograph of human remains foundat the site. |
Craniometric analysis of the many remains found at Santana de Riacho led to the following observations ( Neves W.A. et al, 2003):
The results obtained from the analyses of the Sanata de Riacho skeletons show that Luzia's peculiar morphology is not unique in the New World. As a matter of fact, all Palaeoindian skeletal samples assessed so far indicate that the first South Americans were markedly different in terms of cranial morphology when compared to late North Asians and Amerindians. Powell and Neves (1998) have also shown that their dentition cannot be classified as sinodont.
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Although the site of Santana do Riacho is important above all for its rare wealth of human remains and for its spectacular rock pantings, the site has also produced some stone tools like these scrapers made from rock crystal. (adapted from Prous A. 1990. "Le grand Abris de Santana do Riocha." Les Dossiers d'Archéologie, vol. 144:74-76). Unfortunately, no scale for these (smallish) tools has been available. |
Besides its human remains, the Santana do Riacho rockshelter can also boast a remarkable series of rock paintings and pictograms. Rock paintings are generally very difficult to date with C14 or other methods anywhere in the world. But at the Santana do Riacho site, buried pigments (some associated with graves, others probably destined for rock paintings) have been found and could be dated. Prof. Andre Prous, the archaeologist in charge, dated these pigments to a period ranging from 11,960 to 1,200 years before the present, i.e.over more than 10,000 years.
Other dating methods have been used at the site when painted rocks later broke off the rock wall and fell onto the cave floor. Organic material just below where the rock had come to rest could then be dated to give a "latest date" for the painting on the rock.
In some cases, two or more pictures were painted one on top of the other, indicating the sequence in which the pictures were painted over time, helping to indicate the sequence of styles, though not their direct age.
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Rock paintings at the site of Santano de Riacho. |
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Among web-sites with further information are:
- http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0102-311X1993000500010&script=sci_arttext
- http://veja.abril.com.br/250899/p_080.html
- http://www.geocities.com/latrinchera2000/articulos/America.html
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Last change 18 September 2007
