functionary are slowly putting the pieces back together after Brazil ’s National Museum sadlyburned downin September , and with it an estimate 20 million artifacts . Now , one of the museum ’s most prized possessions has been find and is bringing some good news out of the ash tree of the disaster .
Fragments of Luzia , the 12,000 - twelvemonth - old oldest human clay found in the Americas have been recovered , including an estimated80 percentof the skull , which includes portion of the forehead and nose , the lateral bones , and a fragment of the thighbone , as well as a part of the box that the skull was stored in . Nicknamed “ Luzia ” in homage to Lucy , Africa ’s 3.2 million - year - old fossilise cadaver , the skeletal system was discovered during a 1975 excavation outside of the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte . She was thought to have been among the first wave of homo to migrate to South America and was believed to have beencompletely lostin the flames .
This unexpected honest news has the great unwashed saying promise is n’t misplace for the museum ’s many important contributions to science .
Museum emergency workers started look for the fossil and other artifacts about a calendar month ago . convalescence efforts are ask to cost around $ 9 million Brazilian tangible ( approx USD$2.4 million ) and will keep on into February of next yr , reportsGlobonewsin Brazil .
Many irreplaceable detail significant to skill and internal knowledge are still believed to belost evermore , including mamma from South America , ancient artifacts from Egypt , dinosaur , and other invertebrate specimens . Notably , one of the globe ’s largestmeteoritessurvived the fire ( it did hold up crashing to Earth , after all ) .
Blamehas been put on financial support cuts that had leave the former eighteenth - century regal castle inadequately fit out in the result of a cataclysm like a firing .
“ 200 year of work , inquiry and knowledge have been fall back . The note value of our account can not be measured by the hurt to the building that put up the royal family during the Empire . It ’s a sad Clarence Day for all Brazilians , ” Brazil ’s president of Braziltweetedat the time .
The disaster has brought to light other scientific and diachronic ingathering that could be at a similar risk . A work to begin with this year found more than96 percentof museum fossils could be lose in similar disasters , issuing a “ call to arm ” from the scientific community to digitally archive collection around the globe .
[ H / T : The Associated Press ]
