Calçoene

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 02°29′52″N 50°56′56″W / 2.49778°N 50.94889°W / 2.49778; -50.94889 Calçoene (RudderCalcium) is a municipality located in the eastern of the state of Amapá in Brazil. This is in the Amazon River basin near French Guiana. Its population is 7,208 and its area is 14,269 km². There was a Russian émigré colony in its area in the first decades of 20th century. The city has the highest rainfall of any in Brazil, with an annual average of 4165 millimeters of rain. [1]

In May 2006, archeologists announced they had found a pre-colonial astronomical observatory, possibly 500 to 2,000 years old, near Calçoene. The age is based on pottery sherds on site that have been dated to 2,000 years old. The site is on a hill and has 127 large stones blocks of granite, each 3 meters (10 ft) high, and dug firmly into the ground. Archaeologist Mariana Petry Cabral of the Amapa Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (IEPA) said that the observatory has been designed to align with the winter solstice. Other agricultural societies also developed sophisticated ways to track important times in the solar calendar. At one time, researchers did not think any cultures in the Amazon Basin had developed such complexity as to build such a site. This has altered their thinking.[2]

See also

  • List of archaeoastronomical sites sorted by country

References

  1. ↑ "Embrapa identifica cidade mais chuvosa do Brasil" (in Portuguese). Notícias Terra. 2006-09-30. Retrieved 2009-01-31. 
  2. ↑ Steve Kingstone, "Brazilian Stonehenge discovered", BBC News, 13 May 2006

External links

Capital: Macapá
Amapá
Macapá
Mazagão
Oiapoque
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.