Brazil

In Brazil, as in other countries during the 19th century, archaeology and anthropology were non-vocational. Contributions from scientists from different areas helped to promote the importance of the prehistoric and historical heritage. In the first half of the 20th century Brazil was a young republic constructing its own values. It was during this period of profound national change, along with the joint effort provided by the sciences and arts to preserve the nation’s heritage, that the first protection laws concerning archaeological sites were set up. Due to the small number of professionals and institutions in Brazil it was only during the

second half of the 20th century that the excavation, recovery and analysis of archaeological human remains were improved and finally became regulated. It was only during the 1970s that increased research, theoretical support and ethical principles really impacted on the control of research and curatorial activities. The first to describe archaeological human bones in the country was Peter Lund, a palaeon-

tologist working in Brazil in the first half of the 19th century (Lund 1950; Souza et al. 2006). His discoveries of the Lagoa Santa skeletons, one of the first discoveries of ancient fossils in the world, called attention to Brazil and the antiquity of settlement in our territory. Some internationally important names such as Rudolf Virchow exchanged letters and scientific opinions about the first mineralized bones from Lagoa Santa. Sören Hansen published scientific papers in 1883 on some of the skulls excavated by Lund, preserved in the Copenhagen museum. However, the real beginning of physical anthropology in Brazil was in the 19th century

when the Brazilian Emperor Peter II improved the scientific research at the Royal Museum. According to Schwarcz (1993), the strong links between Brazil and European countries helped to attract people such as Darwin and Broca to take part in the Museum committees as consultants. The first Brazilian Anthropological Exhibition including modern, as well as prehistoric skulls was opened in 1882. At this time, the person in charge of the Section of Anthropology, General Applied Zoology, Comparative Anatomy and Animal Palaeontology was João Baptista de Lacerda. Under the auspices of Peter II, Lacerda studied past and present Indian bones and discussed human evolution. He ran the first anthropology course in Brazil (Santos 2002). Many papers about the prehistoric human bones from Lagoa Santa and from the Brazilian shell

mounds, or sambaquis, were published (Lacerda 1876). These remains date to around 11,000 BP. It was in the same museum, not an Imperial Museum any more but the Museu Nacional (National Museum), that anthropological studies have developed most in Brazil. Other institutions contributed more and more to the study of past human remains, but it was the Museu Nacional, today belonging to the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, that contributed to the longest period of scientific investigation and collection of human remains in this country (Santos 2002; Faria 2000). According to Faria (2000), the history of physical anthropology in Brazil can be divided into

three distinct periods. The first period was the formation period, from the 19th century to 1910. In the second period researchers turned their attention to modern groups and discussions about race and nationality and therefore little osteological research was undertaken on past populations. The third period starts in the 1930s. A number of important contributions in this period included the publication of the first edition of Antropologia Física (‘Physical Anthropology’) in Portuguese, by José Bastos D’Ávila (Ávila 1958) from the National Museum; the creation of new disciplines of anthropology at Brazilian Universities and the increasing interest in heritage and scientific research in all the anthropological fields. Until the 1970s most of the osteological analysis, aimed at classifying human remains and

testing their biological affinities, was based on osteometrics (Alvim 1963; Alvim and Seyferth 1971). The fields of osteometrics and osteology were considered very important for prehistoric studies during the 1970s in Brazil. The first Brazilian Manual of Craniometry and Craniology (Pereira and Alvim 1979) was published during that time. Adapting the more important technical standards from the German and French literature, and adding craniometrics based on radiological techniques, this manual has been used for both living and skeletonized individuals for decades. The second volume by the same authors, describing post-cranial osteometrics and osteology, was still in draft form when Marilia Carvalho de Mello e Alvim suddenly died in 1995, and it was never published. The use of multivariate analysis in osteometrics only became popular in Brazil after the contribution of Walter Neves, who in the 1980s brought the craniometric methods proposed by Howells (1973) to the study of cranial variation in Man. At that time palaeopathology was still an isolated subject of interest to Ernesto de Mello

Salles Cunha, a professor of dental pathology (Cunha 1959), who dedicated himself to the study of ancient skulls for almost two decades. The initial development of the studies of the health of past populations in Brazil and other countries by Brazilian professionals progressed after the 1970s, with the contribution of the present author among others (Ferraz 1977; Souza 1993; Souza et al. 2003; Lessa and Souza 2004; Wesolowski et al. 2007; Souza et al. 2008). Studies in epigenetics, palaeodemography and other fields were also progressively incorporated into the bioarchaeology of human remains. The field of skeletal biology was improved and new methods and techniques were introduced by subsequent generations of professionals, who helped to establish a new international network of South American, European and North American professionals. In some of the papers of the same period it is possible to confirm how the first professionals progressively incorporated new research lines (Alvim and Soares 1984; Uchoa and Alvim 1989). A rapid improvement in the academic activities in Brazil, especially at the graduate level, was fundamental to explaining the increasing number of specialized professionals in the field of bioarchaeology, and the substantial amount of scientific contribution to this field in the last few years (Buikstra and Beck 2006). Currently there are two main groups of osteologists in Brazil. One is headed by Walter

Neves, from the Universidade de São Paulo (University of São Paulo), and is dedicated to multivariate analysis, microevolution and the investigation into the settlement of the Americas (Neves 1989; Neves et al. 1999; Neves et al. 2005; Neves et al. 2007). The other group, headed

by the present author and the team at the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, is dedicated to bone and teeth palaeopathology and different kinds of mummified samples. The study of other remains such as coprolites and microresidues of food is also carried out by another group of specialists headed by Dr Adauto Araújo, at Fiocruz. Palaeogenetics, palaeonutrition, mobility and other subjects have also been developed in recent times, complementary to the investigation of the relationship between lifestyle, health and disease in the past. Funerary archaeology, as an important part of the study of human remains, has also been improved in Brazil in the last years. A few special projects on bioarchaeology were conducted by both groups in the last few decades, promising more and better interpretation of human remains in the near future. The methodological changes of the last few decades have improved the study of human

remains. Future analyses of the scientific field will hopefully define other important transitions to explain the history of Brazilian Anthropology. Osteology, supported by scientific improvements and laws, is developing fast.