By ALEX BELLOS February 14, 2000 SAO RAIMUNDO NONATO, Brazil -
In the most underdeveloped state of Brazil, Piaui, lies one of
the richest prehistoric archaeological sites in the world. Pedra
Furada is also one of the most controversial sites in the
Americas -- splitting archaeologists into two emotionally
charged camps and threatening to rewrite the history of the
continent's colonization. A thinly inhabited, semi-arid area of
sandstone rock shelters, 500 miles west of the coastal city
Recife, Pedra Furada contains more than 400 prehistoric sites,
including 340 stone walls full of ancient paintings. Researchers
are still finding new remains at the rate of 40 a year. But it
is not the vast number of archaeological discoveries that has
the academic world excited. It is their age. Brazilian
excavators, led by Niede Guidon, claim to have proved the
existence of the oldest Americans. Guidon claims that charcoal
she says is the remnant of camp fires has been carbon dated to
50,000 years ago. This makes it the most