Lagoa Santa human remains and the early population of Brazil

Record summary

The Lagoa Santa region contains nineteenth-century and later archaeological collections of human remains that became important to twentieth-century debates about the biological history and antiquity of South American populations. During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers revisited cave contexts, skeletal morphology, and associated dates while comparing them with archaeological evidence elsewhere in Brazil. The lead matters for distinguishing migration hypotheses based on biology from those based on artifacts. Many specimens have uncertain provenience, and early racial or “population” interpretations do not map neatly onto modern genetic or archaeological categories.