The origins project and the first Americans' controversy

Abstract

The arrival of Man in the New World has long been occupied a prominent position in studies of the fields of archaeology and related sciences, such as biology and biological anthropology. The debates on the subject were intensified, however, since the discovery of the oldest cultural manifestations of the Americas, the Clovis points, in the late 1920s. In South America, the study of the human occupation of the Lagoa Santa region has generated controversy since the early works of Lund in the nineteenth century. Recently, the project "Origins" deepened the archaeological research in Lagoa Santa, focusing its actions in thematic axes that resulted in extensive scientific production about the origins of the first Native Americans.