[1] Back in Europe in 1829, he achieved a doctoral degree at the University of Kiel, traveled to Italy and later established himself in Paris, where he came under the influence of Georges Cuvier, professor of comparative anatomy at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle and the most influential naturalist and zoologist of the time.

[2] In his Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe (1825), Cuvier theorized that the extinction of species was caused by natural catastrophes in certain regions of the world.

[4] In 1835, Lund was traveling inland through the province of Minas Gerais, and in Lagoa, an area characterised by a peculiar Karst geology, discovered several caves full of fossilized bones from extinct Ice Age megafauna species.

He eventually settled in the small town of Lagoa Santa, and dedicated the next eight years to excavating, collecting, classifying and studying more than 20,000 bones of extinct species, including mastodons and ground sloths.

His exploration took place mainly in the region of Lagoa Santa, which is rich in caves and karst formations and nowadays comprises the northern part of Greater Belo Horizonte.

These individuals were found among the remains of long-extinct species, leading him to realize that humans and prehistoric animals had co-existed, something which was in frontal opposition to Cuvier's catastrophic theory.

Only a year after his ground-breaking finds of human remains, Lund suddenly stopped the work in the caves, citing lack of resources to finance the excavations.

[citation needed] The cave where Lund made his discovery of "Lagoa Santa Man" is now protected by the 2,004 hectares (4,950 acres) Sumidouro State Park, created in 1980.