The Repercussions of the Human Skeletons from Lagoa Santa in the International Scenario

Abstract

The region of Lagoa Santa has been a centerpiece in the discussion of the settlement of the Americas since the mid of the nineteenth century. The Lagoa Santa Karst generated the largest collection to date of human skeleton remains dating to early Holocene and, as such, called the attention of different researchers interested in the discussions about the origins and dispersion of the first human groups of the New World. In particular, the study of the Lagoa Santa skulls has called the attention of generations of researchers due to its unique morphological characteristics when compared to most of the Native American groups studied so far. In this chapter, we review briefly the most important phases of study of the Lagoa Santa skeletal remains, which begins with the typological descriptions of the material during the nineteenth century and the role it played in discussing the antiquity of humans in the Americas and ends with modern studies that investigate the origin of the biological diversity of early Americans in the context of evolutionary theories. This review illustrates the difficulty of reconstructing the initial millennia of human presence in the Americas and shows how there is still no consensus about the origins of the high morphological diversity that is observed in the continent during the Holocene.