Peter Wilhelm Lund

Lund excavated hundreds of limestone caves in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais during the 1830s, uncovering fossils of extinct Ice Age mammals including giant ground sloths and saber-toothed cats. Crucially, he reported finding these extinct animal remains alongside human bones, providing some of the earliest evidence for human coexistence with Pleistocene megafauna in the Americas.

Lund worked primarily in the Lagoa Santa region of Minas Gerais state, where extensive limestone cave systems preserved abundant fossils. He settled in Lagoa Santa and lived there for the remainder of his life.

Lund's cave excavations were foundational to the study of South American Pleistocene fauna and produced some of the first scientific descriptions of extinct species such as Smilodon populator. His observation that humans and extinct animals coexisted was decades ahead of broader scientific consensus.

Lund eventually donated his extensive collections to the king of Denmark and they were shipped to Copenhagen, where they are still housed at the Zoological Museum. He reportedly ceased his scientific work in the mid-1840s and lived reclusively in Lagoa Santa until his death in 1880.