Calçoene – the Brazilian Stonehenge?

Photo AFP/SECAM.

A loose translation of the news story at O Globo greatly assisted by Google because my Portuguese is awful.

Archaeologists have discovered in a remote region of Amapá what seems to be the biggest astronomical observatory in pre-Columbian Brazil. The observatory is formed by 127 granite megaliths, some up to 3 metres tall, distributed at regular intervals in a clearing 16km from Calçoene and 390km from Macapá.

The archaeologists say that only a society with a complex culture could have built the monument. For them the finding challenges the notion that no such societies ever developed in Amazônia.

For the time being, it is impossible to date the observatory. But, the researchers say, it is between 500 and 2000 years old. The estimate was based on found pottery fragments next to megaliths. However, only with the excavations starting now will it be possible to know the age of the observatory.

The archaeologist Mariana Petry Cabral, of the Institute of Scientific and Technological Research of the State of the Amapá (Iepa), said that the monument was known for the local population has many years, but never had been studied. The importance of the stones was recognized when technicians of the Iepa and the Secretariat of Industry, Commerce and Mining had been to carry out an economic survey of the area and noticed the alignment of the stones.

Mariana says that the place would have to be some sort of of temple and could have been used as astronomical observatory. Already they have found that the stones mark the winter solstice and that in December the Sun accurately rise over one of the stones.

It is thought the ancient peoples of Amazônia watched the position of the stars and the phases of the Moon to plant and to conduct religious rituals.

For the researchers of the Iepa, the monument of the Amapá is the Stonehenge of the Amazônia – an allusion to the megalithic complex of Stonehenge, in Salisbury, south of England. Stonehenge is a megalithic site and would have been built 5000 years ago. Even now its function is unknown nor who built it. The way the enormous rocks were brought to Stonehenge also remains a mystery.

The monument of Amazônia holds the same mysteries. The archaeologists do not know which people could have constructed it or from which age it dates. The technology used to cut and to carry the rocks to the site and place them in a circle is also unknown.

The researchers of Iepa assume that the rocks had been taken by boat and had arrived at the place by a branch of the river known as the Rego Grande.

Note: From the reports, also in English at the BBC, ABC and Yahoo!, it’s hard to tell if this is going to be a major find or not. Some parts of the story bother me. For instance if you have 127 stones evenly distributed in a circle then how likely is it that the sun will rise or set over one of them at a solstice of equinox? A plan of the site might tell you more about how deliberate the alignment is, but that work hasn’t been done yet. So a part of me is tetchy – if archaeologists released news on all the things they’re going to do then there’d be no space ever for the things that were actually done.

On the other hand Amazonia is an archaeologically neglected region. Some people do work there, but the vast bulk of attention goes to the glamourous sites in the Andes. I think one reason there’s little evidence of complex society is that the survey hasn’t been done. The Amazon rainforest is not an easy place to survey. Nevertheless when forest clearance finally removes it I think there will be plenty of surprises found. This site, even it turns out to be astronomically dull, could still be significant in overturning ideas about the development of societies in South America. There are hints that there were some amazing things there – Francisco de Orellana didn’t travel past savages – so it’s not possible to rule out that Calçoene, or other sites to be discovered, will have astonishingly complex architecture.

Update: The Peninsula adds -

In December, the path of the sun allows rays to pass through a hole in one of the blocks, possibly to calculate agricultural activity and religious rituals.

Combined with the photo above, or the one used at ABC, that makes the site more interesting. There is a problem of whether the stones have shifted since being set up, which requires excavation, but this would seem to give strength to an astronomical interpretation.
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