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Giant sloth bone pendants suggest humans were in Americas earlier than thought

An unprecedented discovery made by archaeologists working in Brazil is shaking up what we know about the first inhabitants of the Americas.

Three giant sloth bones found at Santa Elina rock shelter in central Brazil were likely perforated and polished by human hands in order to be used for personal adornment — probably as pendants, according to a new study. The pendants — thought to be between 25,000 and 27,000 years old — are the oldest known personal ornaments unearthed in the Americas and the only ones known to have been made from giant sloth bone in the archaeological record, according to paleontologist Thais Pansani, leadauthor of a new study on the artifacts. Senior study author Mírian Pacheco, a professor and researcher at the Laboratory of Paleobiology and Astrobiology at the Federal University of São Carlos, said that the artifacts “present a very suggestive shape of pendants, mainly due to the polishing and the location of the hole.”

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