\u201cThe absence of direct dating of skeletons found in the Serra da Capivara National Park led foreign researchers studying the peopling of the Americas to disregard data from the region,\u201d observes Argentine physical anthropologist Ana Solari, coauthor of the work published in Scientific Reports,<\/em> and a researcher with the American Man Museum Foundation (FUMDHAM), the entity responsible for preserving the park’s cultural and natural heritage.<\/p>\n Located in southeastern Piau\u00ed, about 530 kilometers from the state capital, Teresina, Serra da Capivara National Park occupies an area of approximately 130,000 hectares of caatinga<\/em> (semiarid scrublands) in the municipalities of S\u00e3o Raimundo Nonato, Jo\u00e3o Costa, Brejo do Piau\u00ed, and Coronel Jos\u00e9 Dias. The area features one of Brazil’s largest concentrations of archaeological sites from the early Holocene, a geological epoch that lasted from 11,700 years ago to 8,200 years ago. Twenty-seven of the sites contain human skeletons, buried alone, like Zuzu, or in groups of up to 20 individuals. Ages acquired through indirect dating, obtained by analyzing materials found next to the skeletons, indicate that some are Zuzu’s contemporaries, while others may be even somewhat older.<\/p>\n Zuzu’s bones were found in July 1997 by Guidon’s team, during excavations conducted in a small rocky shelter known as Toca dos Coqueiros, in the municipality of Coronel Jos\u00e9 Dias. The site is a sloping rock wall covered by cave paintings, which offered protection from the sun and rain\u2014the climate in the region was wetter during that era. Zuzu was discovered in a fetal position, lying on the left side, with the left hand under the face and the right hand in front of the face.<\/p>\n After some attempts at direct dating the skeleton, but impeded by the absence of collagen in the bones, Guidon and bioarchaeologist Andrea Lessa managed to establish the age of a piece of charcoal embedded in the skeleton’s right heel. The material was approximately 11,000 years old, the first age attributed to the skeleton. \u201cWhenever possible, we try to prioritize the direct dating of skeletal remains, which are capable of defining the period in which the individual lived,\u201d explains bioanthropologist Mercedes Okumura, from the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP), who studies the prehistoric population of Brazil, and did not participate in the current study.<\/p>\n FUMDHAM<\/span>Zuzu’s skeleton in the position it was originally found in at Toca dos Coqueiros in 1997FUMDHAM<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n That first dating, presented in an article published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology,<\/em> was closer to the age attributed to another famous human skeleton, still considered the oldest in South America. The Luzia skeleton was from an adult woman who died between 12.500 and 13,000 years ago in what is now the municipality of Lagoa Santa, in the central region of Minas Gerais. \u201cWith the exception of Luzia and one or two other cases, almost all of the human material found in Lagoa Santa is between 9,000 and 10,000 years old, the same age now given for Zuzu,\u201d says bioanthropologist Walter Neves, creator of the Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies at USP. During the 1990s, his lab conducted detailed analyses of Luzia’s skull and other skeletal remains from Lagoa Santa.<\/p>\n In their 2002 study, Lessa and Guidon proposed that Zuzu stood between 1.4 and 1.6 meters when alive and died at between 35 and 45 years of age. Certain characteristics of the pelvis bones indicated that the skeleton was from a woman, as did the results of analysis of DNA extracted from two bones from the right hand and one vertebra.<\/p>\n This was the beginning of another controversy to surround the Toca dos Coqueiros skeleton, since the results from the team’s genetic analysis was met with skepticism by other archaeologists due to the known difficulty of finding preserved collagen in skeletons from the Capivara Mountains.<\/p>\n Years later, archaeologist Albert Russell Nelson, then a researcher with universities in Michigan and Wyoming, reconstructed and reanalyzed Zuzu’s skull, which was badly fractured when found. He also compared the structures of the pelvis with those of two other female skeletons found in the Serra da Capivara, one almost contemporaneous with Zuzu and the other of more recent origin.<\/p>\n Nelson concluded that Zuzu had been male, albeit with more delicate traits. Another archaeological finding supported this idea, namely, the presence of two spearheads of chipped stone found next to the body, since it is believed that this type of offering was only made for men. In a commentary published in 2005, again in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology<\/em>, he further suggested, based on the shape and measurements of skull structures, that Zuzu would have had an appearance similar to Luzia and the other remnants of the people who inhabited the Lagoa Santa region approximately 10,000 years ago. That conclusion was reinforced two years later by another analysis, published in the same journal, conducted by Neves and Brazilian bioanthropologist Mark Hubbe\u2014now a professor at Ohio State University, in the United States\u2014in collaboration with Guidon. In their paper, they stated: \u201cWith regard to Zuzu’s sex, our analyses support the idea put forward by Nelson in 2005 that this skeleton belongs to a gracile male.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/042-045_zuzu_317-1-1140.jpg\")
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Determining when the oldest human specimens on the continent lived is fundamental to understanding how the occupation of the Americas came to pass. However, dating of biological materials many thousands of years old is challenging in Brazil. The tropical climate, high humidity, and acidic soils make it difficult to find well preserved bones and other tissues that contain genetic material and elements useful for determining the age of remains. As an alternative, archaeologists try to obtain a specimen\u2019s age indirectly, by dating materials associated with the skeleton, such as the layer of sediment from which it was taken, or charcoal fragments found nearby.<\/p>\n
It has now been possible to establish in what period Zuzu lived using direct dating of carbonate ions (CO3<\/sub>) from tooth enamel. Radioactive isotopes of carbon found in two molars allowed scientists to affirm that the skeleton is between 9,526 and 9,681 years old. That, however, would be a minimum age, the researchers say. It is possible that Zuzu is a few hundred years older, as carbonate from environmental material more recent than the skeleton may have integrated into the teeth after death.<\/p>\n<\/div>![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/042-045_zuzu_317-0-desktop-true.png\")
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