Reconstruction of her face
is the name for the
skeleton of a
prehistoric woman found in a cave in
Brazil,
South America. Some archaeologists believe the young woman may have been part of the first wave of
immigrants to
South America. Nicknamed Luzia (her name pays homage to the famous African fossil "
Lucy," who lived 3.2 million years ago), the 11,500 year-old
skeleton was found in Lapa Vermelha, Brazil in 1975 by archaeologist
Annette Laming-Emperaire.
Dating
New dating of the bones have determined that Luzia is one of the most ancient American human skeletons ever discovered.
Forensics have determined that Luzia died in her early 20s. Although flint tools were found nearby, hers are the only
human remains in Vermelha Cave.
Her facial features include a narrow, oval
cranium, projecting face and pronounced chin, leading Brazilian anthropologists to theorize that Luzia's predecessors traveled across the
Bering Strait, perhaps following the coastline by
boat, from northeast
Asia, where her ancestors had lived for tens of thousands of years since
human migrations from
Africa. Dr.
Walter Neves, anthropologist at the University of São Paulo, suggests that Luzia belonged to these people who began arriving in the
New World as early as 15,000 years ago. Anthropologists have variously described her features as
African,
Australian aborigine,
Melanesian, or
Negrito. A facial reconstruction of Luzia's face was made by Richard Neave of Manchester University who stated that "I personally would stick my neck out and say it is conclusive support for his [Neve's] findings and demonstrates without any doubt at all" that Luzia was of non-Mongoloid origin. A later comparison in 2005 of the Lagoa Santa specimens with the recently extinct
Botocudos of the same region also showed strong affinities leading Walter Neves to classify the Botocudos as Paleo Indians.
Anthropometry
Luzia stood just under five feet tall—about one-third of her
skeleton has been recovered. Her remains seem to indicate that she died either in an
accident or as the result of an
animal attack. She was a member of a group of
hunter-gatherers who subsisted largely on
fruits and
berries, and probably an occasional piece of
meat.
Discovery
Luzia was originally discovered in 1975 in a
rock shelter by a joint French-Brazilian
expedition that was working not far from
Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The remains were not
articulated. The
skull itself was buried under more than forty feet of
mineral deposits and debris—separated from the rest of the skeleton—but in surprisingly good condition.
There were no other
human remains at the site; Luzia appeared to have died alone. But more than forty other skeletons from the same general period have been found in a nearby area called
Lagoa Santa. Brazilian scientists hope to be able to test Dr. Neves's migration theory by doing radiocarbon dating on some of these remains. Among these
bones was an unusual, and undated,
calotte (skullcap) that somehow simply disappeared.
See also
