Until quite recently Both Americas were considered to have no prehistoric art monuments dated earlier than the Neolithic and Bronze age. During last years, however, there came some publications, asserting that some paintings and petroglyphs, situates not far from Sao Raimundo Nonatu village, in the south-east of Piaui state are dated by the period, synchronous to the European Upper Palaeolithic. The local population knew them long ago but nobody knew their real age.
In 1963 The mayor of Sao Raimundo Nonatu visited the university museum of Sant-Paulo and, seeing the exhibition, devoted to the archaeology of Brazil, told the director of the museum that there are different depictions on some rocks in his places, and even showed some photos. The first expedition took place in 1970. It turned out that in the north-east of Brazil near Sao Raimundu Nonatu and in the distance from it, on the area of 40000 km a large number of pre-historic art monuments, representing both paintings and drawings, is concentrated. Paintings are at the foots of shore vertical rocks and on the slopes of valleys, in caves.