Hitching Post of the Sky:Did Paleoindians Paint an Ancient Calendar on Stone along the Amazon River?

Painel do Pilão is an archaeological rock art site among the Serra da Paituna Mountains near the city of Monte
Alegre, along the Amazon River in Brazil. It is just one of many sites with ancient red-painted images in a region dated by
archaeological excavations to be as early as 11,200 to 10,500 years before the present era, at the end of the last Ice Age.
However, this location has more than just anthropomorphic images, handprints, and spiral designs. The main attraction here
is a large rectangular grid with categorical marks potentially representing a calendar-like system. A sky-marker perched at a
summit above the panel provides further evidence to support this theory. The reference marker is in the shape of a hitching
post that acts as a window to “capture” celestial objects as they move across the sky at a particular time, location, and day of
the year. Although originally considered as a lunar calendar, this article presents evidence to suggest a solar-solstice calendar
provides a more compelling case.