Luzia (fossil)

Skeletal remains of "Luzia" in the Brazilian National Museum

Photogrammetry of all sides of Luzia's skull.

Luzia is the name for the skeleton of a woman that was found in a cave in Brazil and is dated to an age of approximately 11,000 to 11,500 years. Archaeologists believe that the woman was one of the first immigrants to South America . The name Luzia is to be regarded as an homage to Lucy , a partial skeleton more than three million years old of an individual of the species Australopithecus afarensis , which was interpreted as female and which was found in Africa . This probably best-known skeleton in America was kept in the Museu Nacional do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro until the fire in the Brazilian National Museum in August 2018 and bears the scientific name Lapa Vermelha IV Hominid 1 .

discovery

Luzia's skeleton was found in 1975 by a Franco-Brazilian expedition led by the French archaeologist Annette Laming-Emperaire (1917–1977). The bones were found in a cave-like depression near Lapa Vermelha north of Belo Horizonte in Brazil. The skeleton lay under rubble and mineral deposits up to 12 meters high, with the skull separated from the rest of the skeleton. The bones found were in astonishingly good condition.

examination

New research on the skeleton found it to be one of the oldest Native American skeletons ever found. Forensic researchers found that Luzia was around 20 to 25 years old.

The woman's skull is quite small and oval. The face is shaped by a protruding chin. This led leading Brazilian anthropologists to believe that Luzia's ancestors via the Beringia -called land bridge (located at the same place today the Bering Strait ) immigrated. Possibly they followed the coastline in boats from Asia. The Brazilian anthropologist of the University of São Paulo , Walter Neves , presented the theory on that Luzia was a descendant of those people who arrived 15,000 years ago via Beringia in North America.

Although only a third of her skeleton has been found, anthropologists believe that Luzia could not have been taller than five feet. They also found evidence that the woman died as a result of an accident or an animal attack. Further investigation revealed that she belonged to a group of hunters and gatherers .

Luzia probably died alone as no other skeletons could be found in the vicinity. However, more than 40 other skeletons, the aforementioned bodocudos, from the same age were found in Lagoa Santa . Brazilian scientists are trying to use radiocarbon dating to prove Walter Neves' immigration theory.

Anthropologists initially described Luzia's appearance as African, Melanesian , Negrito or Australian ( Aborigines ) , primarily because of her skull . A facial reconstruction was performed by Richard Neave of the University of Manchester , who was convinced that Luzia had no Asian ancestors. A comparison with skeletons that came from members of the extinct Botocudos who lived in the same region revealed such striking similarities that Walter Neves classified the Botocudos as prehistoric Indians.

In November 2018, scientists from the University of São Paulo and Harvard University published a study that included 49 aDNA samples from skeletons from Central and South America that are between 9,000 and 11,000 years old. According to this, all former owners of the aDNA samples can be traced back to common ancestors who immigrated from North America and previously from Beringia ( Clovis culture ). Although Luzia was not included in this study, the researchers assume that Luzia can also be assigned to this origin; the characteristics of a skull are not as reliable markers for the origin of an individual as the DNA of the populations living in the neighborhood at the time.

The fossil after the fire in 2018

The Luzia fossil was initially believed to have been destroyed when the National Museum burned down on the night of September 2, 2018, but firefighters later discovered a human skull in the destroyed museum. On October 19, 2018, it was announced that Luzia's skull had actually been found, but in a fragmented state. 80% of the fragments were identified as part of the frontal side bones (forehead and nose), which are more resistant than other areas, and the fragment of their femur, which was also part of the fossil and was stored. Part of the box that contained Luzia's skull was also found. The reassembly of the bones has not yet been carried out.

See also

• Colonization of America
• Spread of man

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Major fire devastates the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. On: faz.net of September 3, 2018
   "Luzia died in the fire": Brazil's first human a 'priceless' loss from Rio museum blaze. On: thenational.ae of September 4, 2018
2. ^ Walter A. Neves: Lapa Vermelha IV Hominid 1: Morphological Affinities of the Earliest Known American. In: Genetics and Molecular Biology. Volume 22, 1999, pp. 461-469; Full text (PDF file; 66 kB)
3. ^ Adventure Archeology 1/2004: Luzia and the story of the first Americans. ( Memento from February 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 335 kB)
4. ^ Cosimo Posth et al .: Reconstructing the Deep Population History of Central and South America. In: Cell . Volume 175, No. 5, 2018, pp. 1185–1197, doi: 10.1016 / j.cell.2018.10.027 .
5. ^ The new face of South American people. On: eurekalert.org of November 9, 2018.
6. ↑ Brazil's First Human "Luzia" Destroyed In Rio De Janeiro's Museum Fire . In: NDTV.com . 
7. ↑ Especialista compara perda do Fossil Luzia com destruição as Mona Lisa . In: R7 . 
8. ^ Brazil Museum Fire Leaves Ashes, Recrimination and Little Else . In: The New York Times . 
9. ^ Skull of ancient human possibly found in the burned Brazilian museum , Reuters. September 4, 2018. Retrieved September 7, 2018. 
10. ^ Recovery of famous treasures raises hopes of more finds in Brazilian museum's ashes. On: sciencemag.org of October 23, 2018 (with a picture of the remains)
11. ↑ Murilo Salviano, Patrícia Teixeira: Crânio de Luzia é found nos escombros do Museu Nacional, dizem pesquisadores. In: g1.globo.com. G1, October 19, 2018, accessed November 26, 2019 (Brazilian Portuguese).