February 28, 2020

On March 1, 1870, 150 years ago this Sunday, Paraguay’s President Francisco Solano López was killed by Brazilian troops in the Cerro Corá valley of northeastern Paraguay. López’s death marked the end of the War of the Triple Alliance (also called the Paraguayan War), the bloodiest war in Latin American history. The conflict had begun in 1864 and pitted Paraguay against the nearby nations of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay—the “Triple Alliance.” Paraguay lost the war, its population was decimated, and much of the country was destroyed.

This is the last known photograph of Paraguayan President Francisco Solano López. He was killed 150 years ago this Sunday on March 1, 1870. credit: Public Domain

It is a grim anniversary, but the War of the Triple Alliance still calls forth nationalistic pride in many Paraguayans. The country is marking the sesquicentennial of the end of the war with concerts, book launches, and conferences in Asunción, the capital, as well as special commemorations in the capital and at López’s death site along the Aquidabán Niguí River.

In 1862, as the United States struggled through a bloody Civil War, Paraguay’s first president, Carlos Antonio López, died after 21 years in power. His son, Francisco Solano López, then took over as a president with dictatorial powers. Francisco believed that Argentina and Brazil wished to occupy Paraguay and Uruguay, so he signed a defense treaty with Uruguay. In 1864, Paraguay went to war against Brazil to defend Uruguay’s government. After Argentina refused to let Paraguayan troops cross its territory to attack Brazil, López declared war on Argentina as well. In 1865, Brazil helped a new government take hold in Uruguay, which joined with Argentina and Brazil to form the Triple Alliance against Paraguay.

Paraguay fought the nearby countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay (to the southeast, not on the map) in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870). credit: World Book map; map data (c) MapQuest.com, Inc.

After initial Paraguayan victories, the turning point of the war came at the 1866 Battle of Tuyutí in southwestern Paraguay. In the bloodiest battle ever in South America, some 17,000 soldiers were killed at Tuyutí—most of them Paraguayan. A series of desperate battles followed as the Alliance armies gained the upper hand. By January 1869, Alliance troops had captured Asunción and controlled much of Paraguay, but López and a stalwart group of soldiers continued fighting a guerrilla campaign in the mountains. (Guerrilla warfare is conducted by roving bands of fighters who stage ambushes, sudden raids, and other small-scale attacks.) Brazilian troops eventually caught up with López and his remaining forces in the Cerro Corá valley, where the war ended with López’s death on the battlefield in 1870.

The war left Paraguay in ruins. Some historians estimate that the country lost about 60 percent of its prewar population, including nearly 90 percent of its men. In total, an estimated 400,000 people died in the conflict. Paraguay also lost a fourth of its territory. After the war, power struggles among rival political groups plagued the country. More than 30 presidents headed Paraguay’s government from 1870 to 1932.

October 28, 2019

In September, scientists from the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., announced the discovery of a new type of electric eel that has the strongest shock of all bioelectric animals: Electrophorus voltai. A native of South America’s Amazon River, E. voltai generates a powerful 860 volts, more than seven times the voltage of a typical American wall socket (120 volts). The eel is named after Alessandro Volta, the Italian physicist who invented the battery.

Electrophorus voltai, seen here, is one of two new electric eel species recently discovered in the Amazon. Credit: © L. Sousa

From 2014 to 2017, the Smithsonian team studied Amazonian electric eels with researchers from Brazil’s University of São Paulo. They tested the eels’ voltages and studied their muscle structures, body shapes, and DNA. To their surprise, the Amazon electric eel—long thought to be a single species, Electrophorus electricus—turned out to be three distinct species. E. electricus remained as the main type, but the team named E. voltai and another electric eel, Electrophorus varii, as new species. The three species differ in voltage as well as in head shape, sense organs, and distribution. E. electricus lives in northern Amazon basin waters, while E. voltai inhabits waters further south. E. varii swims among the slow-flowing lowland Amazon basin waters.

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The Amazon River, the world’s second longest river, is 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) long. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The new findings reemphasize the incredible diversity of the Amazon River and rain forest, much of which is still unknown to science, as well as the importance of conservation and saving the region from deforestation, logging, and fires.

The electric eel stuns its enemies and prey with a powerful electric shock. The electricity-producing organs take up most of the body. The other inner organs lie just behind the head. Credit: © Andre Seale, Alamy Images

Electric eels are a long, narrow fish that produce strong electric discharges, or shocks. The animals are not true eels, but rather a type of knifefish.  An electric eel discharge can kill a fish and stun such potential predators as caimans (large reptiles) or humans. However, electric eels rarely harm people in the wild.

October 4, 2019

Since the beginning of winter in South America (summer in the Northern Hemisphere), more than 200,000 wildfires have struck the Amazon rain forest of Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. Some 30 million acres (12 million hectares) of wilderness have been lost in the fires, causing incalculable damage to the environment. The unusually severe fire season was blamed on winds and high temperatures as well as the ancestral practice of chaqueo (slash-and-burn farming). But many fires were thought to have been illegally set to clear land for large corporate agriculture, logging, and mining interests. Blame also fell on lax policing and the weakening of the environmental protection system in Brazil, where most of the fires occurred.

On Aug. 27, 2019, smoke rises above charred trees in the Amazon rain forest of northern Brazil. Credit: © Joao Laet, AFP/Getty Images

Forest fires are common in the Amazon during the dry season, from July to October. The fires are sometimes caused naturally by lightning strikes and exacerbated by drought, but most of the recent fires were probably started by people wanting to clear the land for other uses. There has been a vast increase in large, intense, and persistent fires along major roads in the Amazon, for example, something inconsistent with the randomness of lighting strikes. Climate change too is making the fires worse, as dry seasons in the Amazon become ever dryer, hotter, and longer.

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The Amazon rain forest covers much of northern South America. About two-thirds of the rain forest lies in Brazil. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The fires (and the fire starters) have received divided attention in the Palácio do Planalto, the official workplace of the president of Brazil in Brasília, the capital. There, President Jair Bolsonaro has decreased environmental protections since taking office in January 2019, allowing an increase in deforestation—both legal and illegal, and always a problem—in the Amazon. Bolsonaro too has refused much international aid to help fight the fires, which continue to burn and destroy large portions of the rain forest. Bolsonaro eventually deployed some 44,000 soldiers to help the understaffed firefighters in the rain forest, and he agreed to coordinate firefighting efforts with other Amazonian countries. At the end of August, after the fires had raged for months, Bolsonaro also announced a 60-day ban on the legal setting of fires to clear land.

Deforestation results in the loss of vast areas of tropical rain forest each year. This photograph shows an area of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil that has been destroyed as part of slash-and-burn agriculture. In this method, farmers cut down trees and burn them. The ashes enrich the soil for only a brief period before the nutrients are depleted. The farmers then clear another area of forest. Credit: © Julio Etchart, Alamy Images

All seven Brazilian states that include parts of the Amazon have experienced sharp increases in fire activity in 2019. Numerous wildfires are also consuming alarming amounts of rain forest in the Amazonian regions of Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. The massive number of wildfires has greatly increased emissions of toxic carbon monoxide and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a leading contributor to global warming. Smoke from the fires has obscured skies and aggravated such health problems as asthma, bronchitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in people throughout the region.

December 10, 2018

Last month, on November 20, an innovative school complex in Brazil called Children Village (Moradias Infantis in Portuguese) won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Prize. The biennial International Prize goes to a new building that “exemplifies design excellence and architectural ambition and delivers meaningful social impact.” RIBA, a professional body for the advancement of architecture, was founded in London, England, in 1834.

Children Village, a new school complex on the edge of the rain forest in northern Brazil, was awarded the RIBA International Prize in November 2018. Credit: © Cristobal Palma/Estudio Palma/RIBA

Brazil’s Aleph Zero and Rosenbaum architectural groups collaborated to create Children Village in the remote village of Canuanã on the edge of the Amazon rain forest in northern Tocantins state. While designing and building the school, the architects and designers had to consider the area’s steamy climate, and they worked closely with the students who would be living in the complex as well as with the children’s families and local trades workers. Children Village is one of 40 rural schools funded by the Bradesco Foundation, a charitable arm of Brazil’s Banco Bradesco.

Children Village boarding school serves 540 students aged 13 to 18 in a remote agricultural region near the municipality of Formoso do Araguaia. Opened in 2017, the school is made almost entirely from locally sourced brick and timber. A giant canopy shades the 251,000 square foot (23,300 square meter) complex’s two open-sided levels, each supported by wooden beams and perforated, breathable walls that allow for ample cross-ventilation. No air conditioning is needed, even in 113 °F (45 °C) heat. Central classrooms and activity spaces open onto balconies, courtyards, walkways, and two large dormitories.

In 2016, the inaugural RIBA International Prize was awarded to Ireland’s Grafton Architects for their outstanding university building, UTEC (Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología) in Lima, Peru.

July 30, 2018

Portuguese, the official language of Portugal in western Europe, ranks among the most spoken languages in the world. Some 220 million people speak Portuguese as their native tongue. Interestingly, a large majority of lusófonos (Lusophones)—that is, speakers of Portuguese—live outside the language’s country of origin, which has a population of about 9.75 million. The largest number of Portuguese speakers, some 209 million of them, are found in the South American nation of Brazil.

The Portuguese flag once flew over a vast empire. The legacy of the empire lives on in the millions of Portuguese speakers around the world. Credit: © Mehmet Buma, Shutterstock

In addition to Portugal and Brazil, other countries where Portuguese has official-language status include Angola, Cabo Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Portuguese also is a co-official language of Macau, an administrative region of China. Portuguese speakers can be found in many other countries as well, including hundreds of thousands in Canada and the United States.

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Portugal. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Like French, Italian, and Spanish, Portuguese is a Romance language. Such languages developed from the Latin spoken by the ancient Romans. The Romans conquered many lands, including the Iberian Peninsula that is home to Portugal and Spain. The Romans called the Portuguese portion of Iberia Lusitania, which is why Portuguese speakers are called Lusophones. The Spanish language, a sort of older sibling to Portuguese, developed from Latin first. Portuguese then evolved from the Galician-Portuguese dialect of Spanish in the 1100’s and became a separate tongue.

The Brazilian flag flies over more than 200 million Portuguese speakers. The white band stretching across the circle bears the motto Order and Progress in Portuguese, Brazil’s official language. Credit: © Lukasz Stefanski, Shutterstock

Portuguese explorers and colonizers carried their language to other parts of the world beginning in the 1400’s. Portugal’s empire extended into Africa, Asia, and South America. In Brazil, a possession of Portugal from 1500 to 1822, Portuguese absorbed words from the languages of the indigenous people and African slaves. Today, Brazilian Portuguese has as similar relation to European Portuguese as American English has to British English. The two forms are very similar but vary in pronunciation and have some differences in grammar, spelling, and vocabulary.

Like other Romance languages and English, Portuguese is written using a Roman alphabet. The Portuguese alphabet has 26 letters. Small marks called diacritics show how to pronounce certain letters and which syllables to stress.

More than a collection of 26 symbols, the Portuguese language is part of a rich musical and literary culture. Popular music forms from Lusophone countries include Brazilian samba and bossa nova, and Portuguese fado, which is characterized by melancholy lyrics and guitar accompaniment. Two styles of Portuguese music—fado and cante alentejano—are on UNESCO’s Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cante alentejano, named after the Alentejo region of southern Portugal, is a traditional style of unaccompanied singing. Important Portuguese authors since the 1400’s include the poets Luís de Camões and Fernando Pessoa, as well as the novelists José Maria de Eça de Queirós and José Saramago. Saramago in 1998 won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Instituto Camões in Lisbon, Portugal, and the International Institute of the Portuguese Language in Praia, Cabo Verde, promote Portuguese language and culture.

November 28, 2017

One year ago today, on Nov. 28, 2016, LaMia Flight 2933 crashed in the mountains of northwestern Colombia, killing 71 people. The dead included nearly the entire Chapecoense soccer team from Chapecó, Brazil. The disaster broke the hearts of family, friends, and fans alike. Today, soccer stadiums throughout South America went silent to remember the dead on the crash’s first anniversary.

On Dec. 3, 2016, Brazilian air force members carry the coffin of a Chapecoense player during a memorial service for the team’s players, coaches, and staff killed in the crash of Flight 2933. Brazilian President Michel Temer was among the more than 20,000 mourners at the rain-soaked service at Chapecó’s Arena Condá. Credit: © Buda Mendes, Getty Images

Brazilians refer to soccer as o jogo bonito (the beautiful game). The phrase was popularized by Brazilian soccer superstar Pelé, who played for Santos FC (Football Club) in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Santos, located in a suburb of São Paolo, has long been one of the best teams in Brazil’s top league, the Campeonato Brasileiro (Brazilian Championship). Chapecoense is a league rival of Santos, but low-budget Chapecoense is virtually starless and has earned few honors. In 2016, however, the team—often called Chape—had a fine season and made an unlikely run through the Copa Sudamericana, an annual tournament among the best professional soccer clubs of South America. In November, Chape was preparing to play for the Copa championship for the first time in team history. The club and its fans were understandably excited as the team left home for the opening match against Atlético Nacional at its home park in Medellín, Colombia. Chape took a commercial flight from São Paolo to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, where the team picked up a charter flight to Medellín with LaMia, a small local airline. That flight never made it to José María Córdova International Airport, however; the plane crashed in the mountains short of its destination on the night of Nov. 28, 2016. The crash killed 71 of the 77 people on board. The flight roster included players, coaches and staff, aircrew, journalists, and guests.

The crash wiped out nearly the entire Chape team and devastated the families and fans back in Chapecó. The disaster also rattled the entire soccer world, where teams regularly fly to distant matches and—like most people who travel routinely—take flight safety for granted. Teams all around the world honored Chapecoense by observing a minute of silence before matches, and many teams in South America added Chape patches to their own team uniforms. Atlético Nacional—Chape’s would-be opponents in the Copa final—insisted that Chapecoense be named that year’s tournament champion, and on December 5, it was. Like Chape, Nacional had never won the Copa Sudamericana.

LaMia Flight 2933 took off from Santa Cruz de la Sierra at 6:18 p.m. local time—it was running a bit late. To make up time, the pilot scrubbed a scheduled refueling stop at Cobija on Bolivia’s northern border. A Bolivian aviation official urged the pilot to keep the original flight plan because the 4 hour and 22 minute nonstop journey to Medellín was the same length as the plane’s maximum flight range. The pilot ignored the official, as well as an international rule requiring aircraft to carry enough fuel for 30 minutes of flight beyond the destination.

As Flight 2933 neared Medellín, its scheduled touchdown was delayed to allow another flight to make an emergency landing. Just minutes after entering a holding pattern, the pilot began requesting help from air traffic controllers. In distress, he reported that the plane was “in total failure, total electrical failure, without fuel.” Contact with Flight 2933 was then lost.

At 9:59 p.m. local time—4 hours and 41 minutes after takeoff—Flight 2933 crashed into Cerro Gordo mountain near La Unión, a town just southeast of Medellín. Rescuers arrived soon after, finding wreckage strewn over an area 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter. The plane had split in two upon impact, but it did not explode or burn: there was no remaining fuel. Ironically, the empty fuel tanks allowed six people to survive the crash: three players, two aircrew (a flight attendant and a flight technician), and one journalist. Blame for the crash fell on the pilot of LaMia Flight 2933, who was also a part owner in the charter airline. Bolivia suspended LaMia’s operating certificate after the crash, and legal action was taken against several LaMia executives.

On December 3, more than 20,000 people attended a memorial service at Chapecó’s Arena Condá, Chapecoense’s home stadium. In a steady downpour, coffins containing the bodies of the Chape players, coaches, and staff killed in the crash were carried into the stadium and placed upon a platform beneath a banner reading “Força Chape” (Strength to Chape). The mourners, most bedecked in Chape’s green and white colors, then formed an immense line that wound through the stadium as people paid final, close-up tributes to the players who had meant so much to them.

On Jan. 21, 2017, a reconstituted Chapecoense returned to the pitch to begin a new season. The team received its Copa Sudamericana champions medals at an emotional ceremony that also remembered the dead of Flight 2933. Chape crash survivors Alan Ruschel (recovered from spinal surgery) and Hélio Neto (who suffered severe trauma to his lungs, skull, and thorax) have since rejoined the team. Goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, who lost a leg in the crash, hopes to represent Brazil in paralympic soccer.

August 17, 2017

Tomorrow, August 18, marks the 150^th birthday of British explorer Percy Fawcett. Fawcett gained fame in the early 1900’s for exploring parts of the Amazon rain forest of South America. Fawcett’s fame was reignited earlier this year with the release of The Lost City of Z, a film about Fawcett’s intriguing adventures. Fawcett believed that the ruins of an advanced ancient civilization—an unknown city he called “Z”—lay deep in the jungle wilderness of Brazil. Fawcett disappeared looking for Z in 1925.

Colonel Percy Fawcett in 1911. Credit: Public Domain

Percival Harrison Fawcett was born on Aug. 18, 1867, in Torquay, Devon, England. He was an officer in the British Army and an expert surveyor. In 1906, the Royal Geographical Society, a British organization that sponsors scientific expeditions, invited Fawcett to survey the frontier shared by Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. He spent 18 months in the jungle, in the Mato Grosso area, where he learned much about the peoples of the jungle.

After fighting in Belgian Flanders during World War I (1914-1918), Fawcett returned to Brazil. He was fascinated by stories of a magnificent city in the Amazon jungle. Historians believe he may have heard of this hidden city from Manuscript 512, a document written by Portuguese explorers in the late 1700′s. The document describes the ruins of an ancient city built of stone in the jungles of Brazil. However, the document does not specify the city’s location. Fawcett planned an expedition into the interior Amazon Basin to discover this lost city, which he called “Z.” In 1925, with his son Jack and Jack’s friend Raleigh Rimell, he departed into the jungle. Nothing was heard of the party again.

Many scholars believe Fawcett and his companions were killed by hostile indigenous (native) people or perhaps died of disease or starvation as they searched for the “lost city of Z.” In the years after Fawcett vanished, several expeditions attempted to find him, and as many as 100 people died while searching for traces of his expedition. The fate of the Fawcett expedition remains an unsolved mystery today. Percy Fawcett’s younger son, Brian, wrote of the expedition in Exploration Fawcett (1953). The 2017 film The Lost City of Z was based on a 2009 book of the same name by U.S. journalist David Grann.

March 7, 2017

Off the coast of Brazil, where the Amazon River spills into the Atlantic Ocean, scientists are taking the first up-close and personal look at the recently discovered Amazon Reef. Existence of the large coral reef was not confirmed until an oceanographic survey of the area in 2012. The survey’s findings were published in 2016, and in late January 2017, scientists began exploring the reef two-by-two in a small submarine, the exploration craft of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza.

The Greenpeace ship Esperanza recovers its two-person research submarine from a dive to the Amazon Reef in February 2017. Scientists are just beginning to explore the recently discovered reef off the coast of Brazil. Credit: © Marizilda Cruppe, Greenpeace

In the late 1950’s, a ship collected sponges—animals that often inhabit coral reefs—from the floor of the Amazon Delta. Because of the area’s oxygen-poor, murky-brown mix of freshwater and ocean saltwater, however, the possibility of a reef there was largely discounted. Coral reefs typically grow in clear saltwater that allows enough sunlight to support photosynthesis in their algae and plants. Photosynthesis is the process in which organisms use energy from sunlight to make food. In the following decades, colorful reef fish were spotted in the same part of the Amazon Delta, and speculation grew that a reef existed beneath the waves.

Fish swim above the corals and sponges of the Amazon Reef off the coast of Brazil. This photograph is one of the first taken from a submarine launched by the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. Credit: © Greenpeace

Finally, in 2012, a team of oceanographers led by Rodrigo Moura of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, began studying the Amazon Delta’s sea floor. Using acoustic sampling, the researchers mapped the area, and subsequent dredging brought corals, sponges, and other reef species to the surface, proving the reef’s existence. After further study, the team published its findings in the journal Science Advances in April 2016.

The Amazon Reef stretches 600 miles (970 kilometers) along the Brazilian coast and covers an area of 3,600 square miles (9,300 square kilometers) with a depth range of 100 to 400 feet (30 to 120 meters). Since their first dive in late January 2017, oceanographers have turned the submarine’s lights on a wide variety of sea life, including three new fish species, rare manatees, yellow-spotted river turtles, and giant river otters. Given the Amazon Reef’s singular nature as the only known reef at the mouth of a major river, it may harbor many more undiscovered animals or plants as well. Further dives will help scientists learn how the reef functions and further define the ecology of the vast Amazon River Basin.

At a time when most reef systems are rapidly declining because of overfishing, pollution, and climate change, the discovery of a thriving reef in an unlikely place is encouraging. The reef is likely already in trouble, however, as oil companies are scouting the area and preparing to drill for oil. Drilling could severely harm the reef, as could any oil leaked into the delta waters.

September 13, 2016

Beginning last week, on September 7, the Summer Paralympic Games took center stage in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, just a couple weeks after the close of the Olympic Games. The Paralympic Games are a multisport international competition for athletes who have physical or mental disabilities. Like the Olympic Games, the Paralympics are divided into Summer Games and Winter Games. Since 1988, the Paralympics have been held after the Olympic Games and at the same site as the Olympics. The Paralympic Games are a separate competition from the Special Olympics, which are restricted to athletes with intellectual disabilities. The Summer Paralympic Games attract about 4,000 athletes from some 150 countries.

U.S. sprinter David Brown, left, runs with his guide, Jerome Avery, in the 100-meter T11 race at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janero, Brazil, on Sept. 11, 2016. Credit: © Jason Cairnduff, Reuters

Team USA track and field stars won big over the past weekend. Sprinter David Brown (with guide Jerome Avery) won his first gold medal in the 100-meter T11 race. (T11 athletes are nearly or totally blind.) Tatyana McFadden won her second-consecutive Paralympic gold in the women’s 400-meter T54 race, and Gianfranco Iannotta topped the men’s 100-meter T52. (T54 and T52 athletes are confined to wheelchairs.) Deja Young won gold in the women’s 100-meter T47 race. (T47 athletes have upper limb impairment.) In the women’s triathlon, Team USA’s Grace Norman claimed PT4 gold and Allysa Seely, Hailey Danisewicz, and Melissa Stockwell won gold, silver, and bronze respectively in the PT2 competition. (PT2 and PT4 athletes have different mobility impairments.) Team USA swimmers Elizabeth Marks, Roy Perkins, Becca Meyers, and Brad Snyder won gold in their respective events. As of today (the games continue through Sunday), Team USA Paralympians have won 46 medals, including 16 golds. China has the most medals (118), and the United Kingdom (63) and Ukraine (61) have the second- and third-most medals.

Participation in the Paralympic Games is organized into five major disability categories: athletes who are amputees; athletes with brain damage; athletes with significant intellectual disability; athletes confined to wheelchairs; and athletes with visual impairment. Other athletes have such physical conditions as dwarfism, multiple sclerosis, or deformities of the limbs. The summer games consist of 20 different sports, including the unique sports of boccia (a lawn bowling sport), goalball (a blind team sport), and wheelchair dance. The Paralympic Games began in 1948 with a sports competition that involved veterans of World War II (1939-1945) who had spinal injuries.

August 24, 2016

Monkeys in the Amazon rain forest likely entered their own Stone Age more than 700 years ago, according to scientists investigating a fascinating site at Serra da Capivara National Park in northeastern Brazil. At the site, scientists from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and from Brazil’s University of São Paulo observed bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) using rocks as hammers to crush hard-shelled nuts atop flat stone anvils. The scientists discovered dozens of discarded stone hammers and anvils once they began shallow excavations at a site regularly visited by the monkeys. The scientists determined that monkeys have been using simple stone tools at that site for more than 700 years. The findings were described in the July 2016 issue of the journal Current Biology.

A capuchin monkey uses stones to crack a cashew nut in Serra da Capivara National Park in northeast Brazil. Credit: © Michael Haslam, Primate Archaeology Project/University of Oxford

Stone Age is a term used to designate the period when prehistoric people used stone, rather than metal, tools. For humans, the Stone Age began about 3.3 million years ago, when small stones were first made into crude chopping tools by prehuman ancestors called Australopithecines. It ended in the Near East about 3000 B.C., when bronze replaced stone as the chief material from which tools were made.

In dry northeastern Brazil, hard-shelled fruits and seeds are more common than the fruit and succulent leaves that capuchins prefer. Centuries ago, a clever capuchin figured out how to pound open a nut using a heavy stone as a hammer on a heavier flat stone anvil, thereby opening up an entirely new and abundant source of food. The scientists observed that the monkeys will carefully select hammer stones and bring them to trees bearing nuts and fruits. The monkeys then stash the stones in hidden spots around the trees for later use. The research site in Brazil is littered with such stones that have accumulated over centuries.

For many years, scientists considered humans to be the only species that made extensive use of tools. In the 1960’s, however, naturalist Jane Goodall discovered that wild chimpanzees in Africa make and use simple tools. Goodall observed them stripping tree twigs and using the twigs as tools for catching termites. She also observed chimpanzees using rocks to break open hard-shelled palm nuts in the forest.

Earlier in 2016, some of the scientists involved in the Brazil research published observations of monkeys called macaques using stones to break open shellfish and nuts in Thailand. Now, with the Brazilian study, there seems little doubt that some species of nonhuman primates have long since entered their own Stone Age. The site in Brazil provides scientists with a unique opportunity to study the ecological, social, and cognitive (mental) factors that likely played a role in the development of technology and culture millions of years ago at the dawn of humankind.