In the Andes alpine discovered primitive people

In the Peruvian Andes, at an altitude of 4500 meters above sea level, found traces of prehistoric man - this is the highest point, which traveled primitive people, reported in the journal Science. Scientists do not yet imagine how the inhabitants of the sites in the Andes could survive in conditions of low oxygen, strong solar radiation and extreme cold.

The international team of archaeologists explored two parking: Kunkaycha grotto, where primitive men lived year round and located above the parking Pukuncho. Most likely, the area around Pukuncho hunted lamas vigogne. Migration of these highland animals are in a certain and predictable rhythm. Although hunters could theoretically stay there all year round, the rainy season and the danger of hypothermia, and the need to maintain contact with the tribe and gather edible plants periodically forced them down in other areas.

In the grotto Kunkaycha found blackened ceilings and cave paintings. There's also found numerous stone tools, used for hunting and butchering carcasses of dead animals - llamas, guanacos and vigogne.

Scientists do not yet understand whether life is demanded at a height of hunter-gatherers specific genetic mechanisms of adaptation, or the end of the Pleistocene climate of the Andes was much softer than previously thought. Anyway, people have adapted to extreme alpine conditions after only two thousand years after his appearance on the South American continent: that is, acclimatization biological standards occurred in a remarkably short time.