Although Wojciech and Michael already captured the essence of this site excellently after visits as recent as 2019 and 2020, I have a few observations to add after my 1.5-day stay in December 2022. They consider (1) the logistics, (2) the core zone, and (3) the criteria the site was inscribed on.

Logistics. Azul now has direct flights from Recife three times a week to Sao Raimundo Nonato, some 30 km from the main park entrance. Whether this connection is viable is questionable, as the park is mostly visited by school groups arriving by bus. Park admission is free, but you have to hire a local accredited guide beforehand (still 200 B$ a day, when you bring the car) and sign up at the gate. I teamed up with Antoniel (+55 89 8108-8706), by whatsapping him the night before my visit. I came to think of him as my personal trainer, as he walked quite fast and liked to climb (we hiked 8 and 6 km respectively per day). I think he would be happy to take you on one of the more strenuous hikes in the park! But he knows his rock art and birds well also. He only speaks Portuguese.

Core zone. Both the old and new official maps are unhelpful. Important to remember is that the park is huge and has four entrances + some isolated locations around it. The amount of sites and trails is overwhelming (there’s a great book available that describes them all), I let the guide choose and he did well I think. The main entrance is at Pedra Furada, where the two main rock art panels are found (Pedra Furada and Meio), both with archaeological excavations at the base of the rock shelter as well. But we also visited Invencao (behind a village), and on the second day, we entered the park via the Desfiladeiro trail. That gives you access to the sites of Pajaú, Paraguaio, Baixao da Vaca and Barro, and for me, that lifted the overall visit rating from a 3.5 star to a 4. The first three are the rock art sites that were among the earliest discoveries by Niède Guidon. Their condition is brilliant, and also very good for photos due to the light background they were painted on. The latter is in a former riverbed, and has rock art on pebbles! 

The museums related to the site -  one about its cultural history (Museu do Homem Americano), and the other about its nature – are probably in the core zone as well. Both are very modern, maybe geared a bit too much towards the school children which seem to be the main target group of visitors, but still commendable as they were designed to keep the findings from within the park close to their origins. If pressed for time, I’d skip the museums for more time on the ground in the park itself.

Criteria. In my opinion, this site was inscribed too early in its history of rediscovery to be valued fully: it happened in 1991, while most excavations and findings date from the 1970s at the earliest. The early dating of these findings was still controversial. Consequentially, the site was inscribed on one criterion only with a heavy focus on rock art.

Now it is considered a key site in the scientific study of the settlement of humans in the Americas. Much of what we know has been established as recently as 2004, and the debate is still going on with much controversy. Together with sites in Chile (Monte Verde) and Colombia (Chiribiquete), it seems to prove that waves of 'immigrants' populated mainly South America much earlier than previously thought (30,000 BP versus 13,000 BP, the so-called Pre-Clovis theory). Serra da Capivara has been excavated by Brazilian and French teams, and they seem to position themselves more or less deliberately opposite of archaeological theories from the USA. In the Museu do Homem Americano they advocate the even more farfetched idea that the oldest ‘immigrants’ came directly from Africa to South America, so not via the Bering Strait.

And then there’s the issue of disregarding the natural values – so little had been written about it in the original nomination that IUCN couldn’t make a recommendation (though it admitted that the park holds 40% of all rare caatinga vegetation). At a second try, in 2003, it was downright rejected. It still hopefully lingers on the Brazilian Tentative List, possibly as part of a serial nomination of caatinga sites.

PHOTOS (top to bottom left: fishing, river animal, pebble art; top to bottom right: extracting honey (holding a hand in front of your eyes), dancing around a tree, "the first American kiss")