The 11,500-year-old skeleton was found in a cave in the Lapa Vermelha archeological site in Pedro Leopoldo, in the Greater Belo Horizonte region of Brazil, in 1974 by archaeologist Annette Laming-Emperaire.

[6][7][8] Luzia was originally discovered in 1974 in a rock shelter by a joint French-Brazilian expedition that was working not far from Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

The skull, which was separated from the rest of the skeleton but was in surprisingly good condition, was buried under more than forty feet (12 meters) of mineral deposits and debris.

[13] Her facial features included a narrow, oval cranium, projecting face and pronounced chin, strikingly dissimilar to most Native Americans and their indigenous Siberian forebears.

Walter Neves, an anthropologist at the University of São Paulo, suggested that Luzia's features most strongly resembled those of Australian Aboriginal peoples.

[21] Researchers recreated the skull of Luzia with 3D printers by studies resumed in a laboratory of the National Institute of Technology (INT) by master's and doctoral students of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

André Strauss of the Max Planck Institute, one of the authors of the Journal Science article remarked "However, skull shape isn't a reliable marker of ancestrality or geographic origin.

"The genetic results of the new study show categorically that there was no significant connection between the Lagoa Santa people and groups from Africa or Australia.