Cradle of Brazilian Paleontology
The Danish palaeontologist Peter Wilhelm Lund, known as the father of Brazilian paleontology, discovered a cave filled with human bones (15 skeletons) and megafauna (very large mammals) dating to the Pleistocene era. Eugen Warming assisted Lund 1863-1866, and described the flora of the area and the adaptations of the plants to the hazards of cerrado – drought and fire – in a work that still stands as a paradigm of ecological study ('Lagoa Santa').
A century later, in the 1970s, French archeologist Annette Laming-Emperaire carried out excavations in the area and discovered the oldest human fossil in Brazil, over 11 thousand years old, given the nickname Luzia.
Read more about this topic: Lagoa Santa
Famous quotes containing the words cradle of, cradle and/or brazilian:
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any FIRST AND FOREMOST object but one—to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for HIMSELF.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.”
—Sting [Gordon Matthew Sumner] (b. 1951)