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Brazil

Indigenous father and son of the Amazon. Credit: gustavofrazao / Adobe Stock

400+ Indigenous Tribes Under Threat as Amazon Burns

The fires blazing across the Amazon rainforest in Brazil are devastating. They’re making international headlines and sparking sadness and outrage across the globe as people worry about how the planet...
A saber-toothed cat stands atop a boulder on a grassy plain. Credit: Daniel / Adobe Stock

Of Bunyips and Other Beasts: Evidence of Extinct Megafauna Displayed in Art and Stories

On many continents during the last ice age , typically from about 50,000 to 12,000 years ago, species of megafauna that had lived there for hundreds of thousands of years became extinct...
Was the Brazil Tablet left by early Transatlantic explorers?

The Brazil Tablet: Dropped in the Jungle by Early Transatlantic Explorers?

In 1310, Malian explorers led by Mansa (King) Abubakari set sail to discover new lands across the Atlantic. A mysterious statuette was left by these ancient explorers in the Brazilian jungle...
An uncontacted tribe in the jungle of Brazil

The Uncontacted Frontier: Tribes of the Amazon Want To Be Left Alone

The Amazon rainforest is home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else in the world. It is hard to imagine that even today, there are more than 100 tribes who have never seen anything outside...
Remains of The National Museum of Brazil.

20 Million Artifacts In Latin America’s Largest Museum - Gone - In Blazing Inferno

Saint Christopher's Palace in the Quinta da Boa Vista park, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil had served as residence for both the Portuguese and Brazilian royal families before becoming the...
Discovery of Brazil. Pedro Alvares Cabral sees the land that would later be known as Brazil for the first time

Pedro Alvares Cabral: The Lucky Lost Navigator Who Made Brazil Portuguese

Pedro Alvares Cabral was a Portuguese explorer and navigator who lived between the 15th and 16th centuries. He is generally given credit for being the first person from Europe to have ‘discovered’...
Araucaria over a Nothofagus forest, Araucania Region, Chile.

Critically Endangered South American Forests were Planted by Ancient Peoples

Critically endangered South American forests thought to be the result of climate change were actually spread by ancient communities, archaeologists have found. Huge swathes of land in Chile, Brazil...
Amazon jungle from above.

Lost Amazonian Tribes: Why the West Can’t Get Over Its Obsession with El Dorado

A number of ancient settlement sites were recently discovered in the Amazon’s Upper Tapajós Basin. This is no El Dorado – although you’d be forgiven for thinking so. The press coverage demonstrates a...
Archaeologists used satellite imagery to find archaeological sites in the Amazon’s upper Tapajós Basin.

Pre-Columbian Amazon Was Not So Virgin After All

Archaeologists are discovering that the Amazon region was not a pristine place before European contact. In fact, a new study suggests that there was quite a large population living there. What...
Detail of the Castelinho da Rua Apa.

Castelinho da Rua Apa: The Brazil’s Little Castle of Horror

In 2015, work began on Castelinho da Rua Apa, or Little Castle of Apa Street, to restore it to its original grandeur. This house originally resembled a medieval French castle, but due to years of...
 Sá and Seu Chiquinho sites featuring circular, square, and U-shaped earthworks.

Intertwining Human Life and the Environment: Understanding Ancient Geometric Earthworks in Southwestern Amazonia

The geometric earthworks of southwestern Amazonia have raised the interest within the scientific community as well as the media and the general public, and they have been explored recently by several...
Paleoindians hunting a Glyptodon. (c. 1920) by Heinrich Harder.

Evidence Mounts in Favor of Early Inhabitants of the Americas Over 20,000 Years Ago

A recent article in the journal Antiquity suggests that prehistoric people were hunting giant sloths in eastern Brazil about 23,000 years ago. This adds to an ever-growing body of research...
A mausoleum in the northern region of Mali.

Does a Mysterious Manuscript Describe a Forgotten Malian Mausoleum in Brazil?

Almost 300 years ago Brazilian bandits stumbled upon a ruined city. It was such an intriguing site that the city was eventually described in ink. This text became known as Manuscript 512 – a document...
Raft in the Stone Age.

Did Ancient Humans Acquire Nautical Knowledge by Sailing the Prehistoric Megalakes of Africa?

There is increasing evidence that anatomically modern humans (AMH) left Africa 100,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence indicates that AMH were in Arabia, China, Crete, and Brazil over 100,000...
Representational image of the Out-of-Africa event.

Did Mankind First Exit Africa 100,000 Years Ago?

Recent archaeological evidence indicates that between 130,000 to 100,000 years ago there was an exit of anatomically modern humans out of Africa into the Americas and Eastern Eurasia. This view is...
A fictional animal based on the glyptodon and a palaeoburrow (ichnofossil) found in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Scientists say that this mega-tunnel was created by a long extinct species.

What Giant Beasts Carved Out these South American Mega-Tunnels?

Immense tunnels found in the heart of the jungle in Brazil are thought to have been the den of a gruesome wild animal. Experts doubt that huge burrows were created by a natural geologic process and...
Map of the Americas circa 1619. Insert: Paleoamerican skull from Burial 1, Lapa do Santo site, Brazil.

Skull Analysis Concludes the Americas Were Settled by More than One Wave of Migrants

Has there ever been a more exciting adventure than when humans spread out across the globe with their primitive tools and not so much as a hand-drawn map? A new study of cranial shapes of prehistoric...
Hundreds of Amazonian Geoglyphs Resembling Stonehenge Challenge Perceptions of Human Intervention in the Rainforest

Hundreds of Amazonian Geoglyphs Resembling Stonehenge Challenge Perceptions of Human Intervention in the Rainforest

Hundreds of enormous and mysterious ancient earthworks bearing a resemblance to those at Stonehenge were built in the Amazon rainforest a couple thousand years ago, as scientists have discovered...
Megaliths Discovered in Brazil May Be an Amazonian Stonehenge Created By an Advanced Ancient Civilization

Megaliths Discovered in Brazil May Be an Amazonian Stonehenge Created By an Advanced Ancient Civilization

A group of scientists and researchers have found evidence that a highly advanced ancient civilization could have existed in Brazil. Almost 500 years before the European colonization of the Americas...
Evidence of Gruesome 9,500-Year-Old Funerary Rites Found in Brazil

Evidence of Gruesome 9,500-Year-Old Funerary Rites Found in Brazil

Evidence of complex and gruesome funeral rites found in the Lapa do Santo cave in Brazil have shocked researchers yet again. The researchers have discovered evidence of the mutilation of corpses,...
Pirate, Turncoat, Survivor: The Life and Times of Anthony Knivet, a Briton in 16th-Century Brazil

Pirate, Turncoat, Survivor: The Life and Times of Anthony Knivet, a Briton in 16th-Century Brazil

On a dark night, late in 1592, a group of Englishmen was massacred on the island of São Sebastião, off the southeast coast of Brazil. Most had deserted the infamous English privateer Thomas Cavendish...
Did the Portuguese Have Secret Knowledge about Brazil Before the Treaty of Tordesillas?

Did the Portuguese Have Secret Knowledge about Brazil Before the Treaty of Tordesillas?

Controversy surrounds the knowledge the Portuguese had about Brazil before they entered into the Treaty of Tordesillas. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, was a treaty between Castile (Spain...
Some of the forms of the monster Coco: as a dragon

Shape Changes, Fear Does Not: The Mythical Monster Coco

Coco is also known in folklore as Cuco, Coca, Cuca, Cucuy. It is a mythical dragon or a ghost monster which is said to appear in many different shapes and forms. There is no description of the beast...
Artistic representation of Teyujagua paradoxa.

Newly Discovered 250-Million-Year-Old Fierce Lizard Fossil is Named After Mythical Monster

Who knows if the people who lived in the Paraná Basin of southern Brazil years ago saw fossils of dinosaurs and came up with strange mythical beings because of them. Whatever connection there may be...

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