The First Record of Tigre and Pay Paso Paleoamerican Points in Southern Brazil: Implications for the Early Holocene Settlement of South America

Summary

The early occupation of Southeastern South America (including Uruguay and Southern Brazil) is an issue that has generated interest in American archaeology. Recent research in Uruguay indicates to the presence of two different designs of projectile points manufactured during the early settlement: Tigre (ca. 12,000-11,100 cal BP) and Pay Paso (ca 11,080-10,200 cal BP), recovered in archaeological sites with chronological and stratigraphic control in the Uruguay River. Given the potential use of such points as chronological markers, as well as the importance of a greater integration of archaeological data from Uruguay and Southern Brazil, we aimed to identify the presence of these artifacts in the Brazilian territory using a database including measurements and photos of over 3,000 prehistoric points mainly from Southern and Southeastern Brazil. Pay Paso points were found only in the Southern states (Parana, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul), while Tigre points seem to present a much wider distribution. This work is the first attempt to record the presence of such points in archaeological sites from Southern and Southeastern Brazil, in order to better understand questions related to the mobility of human groups during the Pleistocene- Holocene boundary in Southeastern South America.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20077