Researchers have discovered an extremely old anthropomorphic figure engraved in rock in Brazil, according to a report published Feb. 22 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The petroglyph, which dates to between 9,000 and 12,000 years old, is the oldest reliably dated instance of such rock art yet found in the Americas.
Art from this time period in the New World is quite rare, so little is known about the diversity of symbolic thinking of the early American settlers. The authors of this study, led by Walter Neves of the University of Sao Paulo, write that their findings suggest symbolic thought in South America was very diverse at that time, supporting the hypothesis that humans settled the New World relatively early."
The figure was pecked in the bedrock and consisted of a small anthropomorphic filiform petroglyph with tri-digits, a c-like head, and an oversized phallus. The figure is 30 cm long (from head to feet) and 20 cm wide. Similar filiform figures can be observed in a niche on the wall of the rock-shelter.
"We discovered this petroglyph in the final moments of excavation at the site," said researcher Walter Alves Neves, an archaeologist and biological anthropologist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
The oversized phallus is about 2 inches (5 cm) long, or about as long as the man's left arm.
"We named the figure 'the little horny man,'" Neves said
More at Live Science
http://www.livescience.com/18602-horny-man-rock-carving-giant-phallus.html
and read the original paper at PLoS ONE
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0032228
Another an intriguing sounding paper
DeOliveira, Strauss A, DaGloria P, Inglez M, Neves WA. 2012.
Secondary ritual or peri-mortem body manipulation during early Holocene in South America: the case of Burial 21 from the site of Lapa do Santo, Lagoa Santa region, Brazil: Implications for the settlement of the New World
American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
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