Sumidouro State Park
| Sumidouro State Park | |
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| Parque Estadual do Sumidouro | |
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IUCN category II (national park)
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Column in the Gruta da Lapinha
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| Nearest city | Lagoa Santa, Minas Gerais |
| Coordinates | 19°32′55″S 43°57′04″W / 19.548594°S 43.951241°WCoordinates: 19°32′55″S 43°57′04″W / 19.548594°S 43.951241°W |
| Area | 2,004 hectares (4,950 acres) |
| Designation | State park |
| Created | 3 January 1980 |
| Administrator | Instituto Estadual de Florestas MG |
| Website | pesumidouro |
The Sumidouro State Park (Portuguese: Parque Estadual do Sumidouro) is a state park in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The remains of the first human inhabitants of Brazil were found in the park area in the early 19th century, along with bones of now-extinct megafauna. The main attraction is the Gruta da Lapinha, a large limestone cave.
The Sumidouro State Park is in the municipalities of Lagoa Santa (56%) and Pedro Leopoldo (44%) to the north of the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. It is 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Belo Horizonte. The park is in the federal Carste de Lagoa Santa Environmental Protection Area. It has an area of 2,004 hectares (4,950 acres). The unit was named after its lagoon, Sumidouro ("sink"). The lagoon is drained by a network of galleries through which the water penetrates underground into the limestone basin.
The Danish naturalist Peter Wilhelm Lund conducted research in the area now covered by the park in the first half of the 19th century. He found remains of Lagoa Santa Man, the first inhabitants of Brazil, along with extinct megafauna. This coexistence of man with extinct species was quoted by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. The skeleton of "Luzia" found in Lagoa Santa in the 1970s was dated to 11,500 years ago, changing views of when the continent had been occupied. There are traces of stone age people who lived outside the caves in what may be the oldest open-air site of paleoindians.
The Sumidouro State Park was created by state governor Francelino Pereira by decree 20.375 of 3 January 1980. It was originally called the Ecological Park of the Sumidouro Valley (Portuguese: Parque Ecológico do Vale do Sumidouro). Little was done to implement the park until 2006, when environmental compensation funding became available from the green line between Belo Horizonte and the Tancredo Neves International Airport in Confins.
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