Discovery of Luzia

Luzia is the nickname of a skeleton of a young woman found at Lapa Vermelha, a rock shelter near Lagoa Santa in Minas Gerais, Brazil, by an expedition led by the French archaeologist Annette Laming-Emperaire. She lived roughly eleven thousand years ago, which makes her among the oldest human remains found in the Americas. The skull was studied by the Brazilian anthropologist Walter Neves, who argued that its shape resembled that of Africans and Australo-Melanesians and suggested an earlier migration into the Americas. Genetic work published in 2018 showed instead that she was closely related to modern Native Americans. The remains were kept at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, and the skull was recovered from the rubble after the museum fire of 2018.

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