Luzia

History of the discovery

The skeleton of Luzia was put at the day in the cave Lapa Vermelha in the area of Lagoa Santa located in the Minas Gerais (Brésil) in 1974-1975. It was about an almost complete skeleton which received the official scientific name of Hominidé 1 of Lapa Vermelha IV . It is there that the free-Brazilian archaeological Mission of Lagoa Santa, taken along by Annette Laming-Emperaire, identified seven sites with Lapa Vermelha, of which number IV (Lapa Vermelha IV), virgin of any exploration. A path through the forest leads to a broad rock face, where the locations began as of 1971.
Le Professor André Prous, who belonged to the free-Brazilian team and which directs today the Sector of archeology to the University of the Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, remembers the excavations perfectly. " We found traces of human occupation as of the first meters. As we found coals, we had good hope to find remainders human. And, in 1974, they were the first bones, follow-ups the year according to by cranium, a little low. Fossilized remainders, with 13m of depth, which were to prove to belong to the same person, a woman from 20 to 25 years, measuring 1,50m, which belonged to a group of gatherers and hunters, perhaps victim of an accident or an animal. .

In 1976, Mrs. Laming-Emperaire dies accidentally, without to have had time to publish many elements on her excavations consequently stopped. As for Andre Prous, it will excavate other nearby sites during several years, where it will put at the day of splendid parietal paintings gone back to 10.000 years.

It will have to be waited until 1995, so that study of the skeleton of Lapa Vermelha IV shows. Walter Firns, of the Laboratory of Human Studies of the Evolution of the University of São Paulo, noticed the absence on these skeletons of certain characteristics which define most modern: the cranium is narrow and oval, the advanced face and prognathe. He asked Richard Neves, specialist in anthropology and legal medicine at the University of Manchester, a reconstitution by data-processing tomography:
Ce skeleton, of so old appearance, was called Luzia or Lucia because of its seniority and the parallel with the discovery in 1974 in Africa of the skeleton of Lucy by Yves Coppens and a a whole Franco-American team archeologists. Presented in March 1999, the aspect of Luzia made the round the world tour: she resembles to the Africans or to the Australian Aboriginals. This new scientist subjected to American Association off Physical Anthropologists revolutionized the established theories of the first American settlements. According to Firns, the ancestors of Luzia could come from Africa, by taking account of the winds and currents on the few 2000 km only which separate the western horn from Africa and the extreme is Brazil. They could also come from Oceania. Then remain to explain how they covered the thousands of kilometers who separated them from America. The answer is perhaps in parietal paintings of Kimberley in Australia of North: Grahame Walsh, expert in rupestral art, found oldest painting in the world, from which the style goes back to at least 17 000 years, even 50 000 years… It appears a giant, unknown dugout of the current Aboriginals, with a crucial detail: a high prow, signs of a use in open sea, useless out of calm water.

The Paléoaméricains

the terminology " Paléoaméricains " from the French translation of the Anglo-American terminology " comes; Paleoamerican". This term indicates the populations non-mongoloïdes (non-paléoindiennes) having lived in North America and South America before or during the last glaciation.

the paléoaméricains lived in America during the last period of the Pléistocène is before the last glaciation and until the beginning of the traditional prehistoric period of the Holocène.

the morphological model of Paléoamericains is connected with the types Australoïde or Europoïde.
the human presence is attested in Brazil, there is some 60 000 years. The cave paintings of the cave of Pedra Furada in the National park of Tightened da Capivara located at the South-east of the State of Piaui (center of Brazil) indicate one period being between 60 000 years and 55 000 years. These paintings which decorate this cave, represent images of giant armadillos or let us glyptodons, which died out before the last glacial period. They also show the oldest painting of a boat in the world. This area is rich in prehistoric sites spreading out in the same dates.

the discovery of the skeleton of Luzia and 75 craniums updated near in the same site of excavation, allow, after many study international, to go back the oldest skeletons to South America in a fork of going time of 20 000 years with 35 000 years for oldest. The morphology of Luzia and its similar are connected at an origin of the African type or mélanésien. Other craniums were updated in Low-California on the various sites of Baja California and reveal an identical morphology. These paléoaméricains arrived well a long time before the last glaciation and the migrations of the people of the mongoloïde type (Amerindian paléoindiens and their descendants ).

the 250 skeletons and craniums discovered in the site of Cerca large located in the karst of Lagoa Santa in the Minas Gerais at the Brazil, assure to the origins non-mongoloïdes these first populations. The results of the comparative morphological analyzes based on nine craniums of Cerca large indicate a similarity with that of Luzia. The area of the Minas Gerais abounds in many archeological sites with an excellent conservation in the skeletons and artefacts of Pleistocene and the Holocene one. The stratigraphic analyzes made it possible to go back the human skeletons to Cerca large during the time hinge from Holocene and Pleistocene between 8 000 years and 12 000 years.

These scientific results revolutionize the generally acquired idea of the settlement of the South America (the skeleton of the Homme of Kennewick discovered in North America and that of the Femme of Peñon (agglomeration of Mexico City), more recent and of Caucasian type, give a new orientation on the various waves of settlements of the North America).

Sources

Fundação Museu makes Homem Americano (FUMDHAM); Fundação Seridó, boa average Viagem 5212, Anna Nery, 816. , Recife 51030-000; Brazil.

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