Caverna da Pedra Pintada

Caverna da Pedra Pintada (Painted Rock Cave), is an archaeological site in northern Brazil with evidence of human presence dating ca. 11,200 years ago. This find has challenged previous thinking about patterns of human settlement in South America. Anna C. Roosevelt, an American archaeologist and primary researcher here since 1990, believes that findings from the cave show there were Paleoindians this far south and with an independent culture that existed at the same time as other early Native Americans were active on the Great Plains of North America.

Formerly, researchers believed that Amazonian settlements arose later than those in the Andes, and were developed by migrants from the highlands.