54. Possible Relatives in the Americas

Alice Boër site (São Paulo, Brazil)

by George Weber

black dot: the State capital, São Paulo red dot: Alice Boër site

The Alice Boer site is located northwest of Sao Paulo near the town of Rio Claro.

The Alice Boer archaeological site in Sao Paulo state, southern Brazil, was discovered in 1961and excavated from 1964, from 1974 and from 1981-1984 above all by M.C. de Beltrão.

The stratification of the Alice Boer site (adapted from L. Moreira da Cunha, 1994, "Le Site d'Alice Boër (Brésil", L'Anthropologie, 98, no. 1:110-127. "Suspected artefacts" are stones that may have been tools used by the earliest inhabitants of the site (such as the "broken ovoid" shown and discussed below). A few such tools have been found in the lowest levels opf Alice Boer and if these were indeed tools used by humans, they would be among the very oldest signs of a human presence in the Americas.

 

A "broken ovoid" stone from level V (W.R. Hurt, The Cultural Relationships of the Alice Boer site"). No scale supplied. This stone illustrates well the question that often arises at prehistoric sites everywhere in the world: is a stone an artefact (i.e. has it been partly or wholly formed by human agency and used as a tool) or has it acquired its form by natural forces? It is in the nature of things that this question arises mostly at archaeological sites that go back deep into prehistory. The question cannot often be answered with any degree of confidence. Sometimes microscopic investigation of a problematical stone's surface can help. The first stone tools used by pre-humans and humans were stones that happened to have been formed by natural forces into the size and shape that was needed at that moment for a particular task. Only later did homo start to collect such stones in anticipation of coming tasks and later still to shape such stones deliberately for a specific task.

A "keyhole-shaped" artefact from level IV of the Alice Boer site (W.R. Hurt, The Cultural Relationships of the Alice Boer site"). No scale supplied. This stone undoubtedly has been partly or wholly formed by human agency and used as a tool.

Some characteristic tools from the Alice Boer site (not to scale):

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Last change 20 August 2007