Minas Gerais
Prehistory and indigenous peoples

In the mid-19th century, Danish paleontologist Peter Wilhelm Lund discovered, in the Lagoa Santa region, human remains belonging to a population that lived there thousands of years ago, nicknamed the "Lagoa Santa People". The region of Minas Gerais was inhabited by indigenous peoples as long as 11,400 to 12,000 years ago, based on the estimated age of the Luzia woman, the name of the oldest human fossil found in the Americas. Luzia was found in 1974 in excavations in Lapa Vermelha, a cave between the municipalities of Lagoa Santa and Pedro Leopoldo, in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte.

Based on the analysis of Luzia and her people's cranial morphology, it was theorized that they had Australoid features, having belonged to a population that arrived in the Americas before the ancestors of Amerindians. However, with the analysis of the genetic material of the human remains of the Lagoa Santa People, it was found that this prehistoric population had completely Amerindian DNA, therefore ruling out any relationship with Australasian populations and the theory that the peopling of the Americas was due to a wave of individuals with Australoid traits and another of Mongoloid individuals. The indigenous peoples of Minas Gerais, as well as throughout Brazil and South America, are descendants of the groups who migrated there through North America.

In the region of the municipalities of Januária, Montalvânia, Itacarambi and Juvenília, in northern Minas Gerais, archaeological excavations have led to estimates that the initial settlement occurred at Luzia's time. Starting in this period, cultural characteristics emerged, such as the use of stone or bone, the creation of cemeteries and small grain silos, as well as cave paintings. Later, about four thousand years ago, it is speculated that vegetable cultivation occurred, in particular corn, and that two thousand years ago, ceramic products were already being manufactured.

More than a hundred indigenous groups inhabited the current territory of Minas Gerais at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese. In the valleys of the Doce, Jequitinhonha and Mucuri rivers, people generally known as " botocudos " lived, such as the Maxakalis, Maconis, Naquenuques, Aranãs, Krenaks and Pataxós. Northern Minas Gerais was dominated by the Kiriris and Xakriabás. Center, western and southern Minas Gerais were inhabited by the Cataguás, who were the most numerous indigenous group in Minas Gerais' territory in colonial times, so much so that the region was known as "Campos Gerais dos Cataguases" in the time of the bandeirantes. The regions of Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaíba were inhabited by the Kayapos and Araxás, while the Zona da Mata was populated by the Puri. The region of Minas Gerais close to the border with São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás was occupied by the Bororós.

However, during the first centuries of the colonization of Brazil, the indigenous people of this region were captured by the bandeirantes to be enslaved and the groups that revolted were exterminated, which caused a great reduction in the indigenous population, leaving currently only five groups: the Xakriabás, Krenaks, Maxakalis, Pataxós and Pankararus, the latter coming from Pernambuco 's hinterlands.
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