New Data on a Pleistocene Archaeological Sequence in South America: Toca do Sítio do Meio, Piauí, Brazil

Sitio do Meio, discovered in the 1990s, showed a sedimentary sequence clearly composed of two sets of deposits separated by a zone of large rockfall from the massive collapse of the shelter's overhang. The bottom set, slightly more than 60 cm thick, was trapped between the bedrock (upon which it rested) and the lower part of the roof fall (reaching more than 1 m in the excavation area), and yielded some charcoal without other archaeological material. New excavations, however, have revealed the presence of artifacts, additional charcoal, and an alignment of sandstone blocks providing clear boundaries for the artifact concentration. The typological and technological composition of the artifacts is classic, with tools made by shaping high-quality quartz pebbles and tools made on shaping chips or on chips obtained by bipolar percussion of quartz blocks. Quartzite was also used, but only in the manufacture of larger tools, of certain types. The toolkit is made of several convergent pieces, denticulates, rostre...