The paintings at sites like Lapa do Santo — a rock shelter that has become one of the most intensively studied early archaeological sites in South America — include red pigment images of human figures, animals, geometric forms, and scenes whose meaning is not always clear but whose existence is unambiguous evidence of a symbolic and expressive culture.

These were not simple opportunistic inhabitants of convenient caves.

They were people with a rich cultural life, with representational art, with the full range of human cognitive and social capacity.

The human remains themselves have been dated using a variety of methods, and the most reliably dated specimens are genuinely ancient by any standard.

Radiocarbon dates on skeletal material from Lagoa Santa have produced ages ranging from approximately 10,000 to 12,000 years before present — placing the people of Lagoa Santa among the earliest known human populations in South America.

Some dates are older; some are more recent.