Oldest American Rock Art Found in Brazil

For the past 10 years or so, there’s been a surge of interest among archaeologists in the people who discovered the New World. Most of the buzz revolves around when, exactly, those nomads crossed the Bering land bridge into Alaska, with a focus on the distinctive stone tools they used. Nobody talks much about the artistic leanings of the first Americans, simply because examples of their cave paintings, jewelry or other symbolic creations are few and far between.But in July 2009, after seven years of excavation work, researchers found a humble stick figure engraved in bedrock in Lapa do Santo, in central Brazil. In their report, published yesterday in PLoS ONE, the scientists call it the “oldest, indisputable testimony of rock art in the Americas.”Read more at...Smithsonian's Surprising Science, February 2012.