Portuguese Explorer Diogo de Silves is credited for discovering the Azores Islands in 1427 as mentioned in the video ( Please scroll to 00:20 )
Genoese Cartographer Medici-Laurentian created the Medici-Laurentian Atlas Map in 1351 for a Florentine owner in Italy. As mentioned in the video, the Medici-Laurentian Atlas Map may have proven that the Azores Islands were already discovered by an earlier group of Portuguese colonizers and other groups as well possibly. ( Please scroll to 00:48 )
Some experts suggest that the Azores Islands were discovered by earlier explorers and colonizers a few centuries earlier than Diogo de Silves however more research is required. Possibly Portuguese or other seafaring groups? ( Please scroll to 00:56 )
Portuguese Explorer Diogo de Silves is credited for discovering the Azores Islands in 1427 as mentioned in the video ( Please scroll to 00:20 )
Genoese Cartographer Medici-Laurentian created the Medici-Laurentian Atlas Map in 1351 for a Florentine owner in Italy. As mentioned in the video, the Medici-Laurentian Atlas Map may have proven that the Azores Islands were already discovered by an earlier group of Portuguese colonizers and other groups as well possibly. ( Please scroll to 00:48 )
Some experts suggest that the Azores Islands were discovered by earlier explorers and colonizers a few centuries earlier than Diogo de Silves however more research is required. Possibly Portuguese or other seafaring groups? ( Please scroll to 00:56 )
Medici-Laurentian Atlas Map ( 1351 )
Video
Azores: Echoes of a Forgotten Past
Pico Pyramid ( Scroll to 06:36 )
Terceira Columbarium ( Scroll to 13:49 )
Water Temples with basins and stairs ( Scroll to 16:00 )
Video
Very Ancient Azores &....Atlantis?
Cart-Ruts on Terceira, Azores ( Scroll to 07:02 )
Video
Ancient Statue in the Azores Pointing Explorers to America
Video
The ancient sites shown in the videos suggest that the Azores Islands were already inhabited before Portuguese explorer Diogo de Silves discovered them in 1427. Maybe earlier Portuguese colonizers somehow manage to arrive there centuries earlier and construct them. Some of the structures on the Azores are rather ancient in appearance and are not found on Portugal. They resemble structures that belong to a much older time period. It's also possible that the early Portuguese colonizers did not leave any records on what they constructed on the Azores. However, it's also possible that another seafaring group were the actual builders who constructed them but they either interbred with the Portuguese colonizers or departed the islands altogether. They may have also arrived on the Azores and departed the islands before the arrival of the Portuguese colonizers.
Study Says Humans Were in Americas Thousands of Years Earlier Than Thought
Story by Aristos Georgiou
• 8mo • 6 min read
https://www.newsweek.com/stone-knives-discovered-ancient-maya-city-near-sacrifical-altar-1812025","perf":{}},"m.c":false,"c.hl":"Stone Knives Discovered In Ancient Maya City Near Sacrificial Altar"}">
The findings challenge mainstream thought on the peopling of the Americas—a hotly debated topic among experts.
One researcher who was not involved in the study told Newsweek that he was skeptical of the paper's claims. Another said the study was an "excellent" piece of work with "important" implications. These differing takes highlight the controversial nature of the debate.
It is currently well accepted that peopling of the Americas happened earlier than the Clovis culture, which can be traced back to approximately 13,500 years ago.
Some research has indicated that people reached the American continent during, or even earlier than, the last glacial maximum (LGM)—defined in the paper as a period about 19,000 to 26,000 years ago. (This was the time in Earth's history when ice sheets and glaciers reached their greatest extent during the last ice age.)
But skepticism persists about the evidence for human settlement of the Americas earlier than around 16,000 years ago.
In the latest study, the researchers say bones from a now extinct species of giant ground sloths found in the Santa Elina limestone rock shelter in central Brazil were modified by humans during their occupation of the site around 25,000 to 27,000 years ago. These ancient people likely used the artifacts as personal ornaments, according to the study.
The team said it found evidence of human modification on three of the giant sloth bones, including signs of polishing, scratches and deliberately made holes. The bones are among thousands of so-called osteoderms—bony plates found in the skin of some vertebrates, most commonly in reptiles—discovered in the rock shelter with the remains of giant sloths.
The osteoderms described in the study are not new discoveries. They had already been recorded by Agueda Vialou and Denis Vialou, two co-authors of the latest paper who have worked at Santa Elina for more than 30 years, and were previously thought to be personal ornaments.
"However, until now, no investigative work had been done on these osteoderms to provide robust evidence on the origin and timing of these modifications," Thaís Pansani, another author of the paper, who is at the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil, told Newsweek.
At first sight, the shape of the osteoderms was "very suggestive" of pendants, mainly due to the polishing and the location of the holes, according to Mírian Pacheco, another author of the study, who is with the Federal University of São Carlos.
"These speculations had a certain plausibility because of pendants and other adornments made from animal bones and teeth preserved in other archaeological sites," she said.
Using techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, the researchers identified marks and chemical signals indicating that the giant sloth bones were modified by humans around 25,000 years ago before they became fossilized.
The scientists also performed experimental studies on other fossil osteoderms from Santa Elina, in addition to osteoderms from modern armadillos, for comparison with the results of their analyses.
"Electron microscopy and photoluminescence data allowed us to distinguish different types of marks that helped us conclude that the marks attributed to human beings were made on fresh bones or at least before the burial of the carcass," Pacheco said.
"Our data are confirmed by the archaeological context as well," she continued. "Bones and hundreds of osteoderms of the ground sloth are in the same depositional context.
"In addition, the skeleton is in an archaeological context with other material elements of the culture, such as stone tools. If the osteoderms were not polished while fresh, they were at least polished as dry remains, which are different from remains that are mineralized by fossilization," she said.
The modified osteoderms are extremely polished and appear to have been reshaped, Pacheco said, making them look different from the rough, natural appearance of other osteoderms. This and other evidence led the researchers to conclude that they may have been used as pendants.
"One of them has extra polishment on one side that could be the result of skin contact during extensive use," Pacheco said.
The researchers said it is possible to date the osteoderms because of the archaeological layer in which they were found.
"The Santa Elina rock shelter has several layers with evidence of human occupation dating from 27,000 years ago to modern ages," Pansani said. "The modified osteoderms were found in the deepest and oldest layer of the shelter, along with other giant sloth bones and stone artifacts."
She went on: "This layer has been dated by three different techniques and on three different materials—bone, charcoal and quartz grain from the sediment—and all the results are consistent with the 25,000- to 27,000-year range."
The researchers said their findings, alongside other finds from recent years, strengthen the hypothesis about earlier human occupations in the Americas around the time of the LGM.
"The timing of the peopling of the Americas is still hotly debated in academia," Pansani said. "The most accepted age for human occupation of the continent is about 16,000 years. However, there are several archaeological sites in North and South America that suggest that humans were here long before."
Other researchers, however, have expressed skepticism about the latest findings. Ben Potter, a professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who was not involved in the research, said the study "does not provide good evidence" for the claim that humans occupied the site around the time of the LGM.
Potter told Newsweek that the modifications observed on the osteoderms are open to more than one interpretation.
"The perforations and scratches on osteoderms reported here are equivocal—many natural processes leave marks on bone, including carnivore ravaging," he said. "The problem of different processes leading to the same effect is very common in archaeology and must be overcome."
He added, "I suspect there are geochemical processes, weathering, etcetera that can also leave holes in osteoderms in clearly noncultural settings."
Potter said he would like to see controlled "taphonomic experiments"—designed to study how organisms decay and become fossilized or preserved—to prove that the marks could not have been caused by nonhuman-related processes.
Potter said he also questioned whether evidence of humans was present in the archaeological layers where the osteoderms were found.
"Earlier papers by the same authors on the site—but not this paper—report on limestone 'artifacts,'" he said. "These would need to be demonstrated to be actual artifacts, and the null hypothesis—that they are naturally produced geofacts [a natural stone object that is difficult to distinguish from a man-made artifact]—needs to be ruled out. No attempt was made in earlier papers. The 'tools' are unconvincing.
He continued: "The broken rocks interpreted to be artifacts are also limestone [like the rock shelter]. No geochemical analyses are present to indicate they are not from the rock shelter environs."
On the other hand, some researchers have praised the new study. Rita Scheel-Ybert, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Brazil and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who was also not involved in the research, told Newsweek the study was "excellent."
It also provided "solid" evidence of human-modified artifacts dated to 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, she said. "This is one of the more carefully and detailed excavated sites in the region, so I believe there is no question as to the association of these artifacts with the human occupation."
In Scheel-Ybert's view, the paper has "important implications"—making a strong case for pushing back the timeline for the arrival of people in the Americas.
"There are now several ancient dates from sites all over the Americas...which also present good evidence," she said. "The accumulated data [show] solid evidence of a much earlier arrival of humans in this continent than usually accepted."
She continued: "People undoubtedly arrived in this continent around or before 30,000 years ago. How did they actually arrive here? Has there been a single colonization path or several routes? How did they live? We have many questions waiting for answers, but in my opinion the antiquity of peopling in the Americas is no longer one of them."
