{
  "author": "ChronologiaOS editorial guides",
  "date": "2026-10-09",
  "department": "Deep Time & First Peoples",
  "department_id": "DEEPTIME",
  "epistemic_label": "Source guide",
  "epistemic_status": "SOURCE_GUIDE",
  "period": "Rock art; disputed early occupation claims",
  "place": "Piau\u00ed, northeastern Brazil",
  "public_sources": [
    {
      "publisher": "UNESCO World Heritage Centre",
      "title": "Serra da Capivara National Park",
      "type": "Heritage site record",
      "url": "https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/606/"
    }
  ],
  "publication_state": "PUBLIC",
  "read_time": "4 min read",
  "sections": [
    {
      "body": "UNESCO lists Serra da Capivara National Park for its more than 300 archaeological sites, mostly rock and wall paintings, and describes it as holding the largest ensemble of archaeological sites in the Americas and its oldest rock art. The Centre's own summary reports dates of roughly 50,000 to 30,000 years before present for the earliest material.",
      "heading": "Start with the park",
      "source": 0
    },
    {
      "body": "The research seed marks Pedra Furada as disputed and keeps two open questions: whether the deepest contexts are the work of humans at all, and which South American sites securely predate Monte Verde at about 14,500 years ago. The record asks that geological and fire processes, artifact criteria, and individual dated contexts be separated before any early date is accepted.",
      "heading": "Why the research record says 'disputed'"
    },
    {
      "body": "An institutional summary can report a claimed age without adjudicating it. When a number far exceeds the regional consensus, find the specific dated context and the argument that its material is human-made. The painting and the early hearth are different claims.",
      "heading": "Try the research habit"
    },
    {
      "body": "What would convince you that a broken stone from a deep layer is a tool rather than a product of natural breakage? List the criteria before reading either side.",
      "heading": "A question to carry forward"
    }
  ],
  "short_title": "How old is the oldest site in the Americas?",
  "slug": "serra-da-capivara-rock-art-and-the-oldest-dates-debate",
  "summary": "A Brazilian park holds hundreds of rock-art sites and a claim of occupation far older than the regional consensus. See how the research seed keeps that claim open rather than accepted.",
  "tags": [
    "Serra da Capivara",
    "Pedra Furada",
    "Rock art",
    "Peopling of the Americas",
    "Dispute"
  ],
  "title": "Serra da Capivara: rock art and the oldest-dates debate."
}