This was before (IMO) we had the Mongoloid race developed fully as it is today, and in any event those On The Boat would have looked more Caucasian to us, than Mongolian, and that is true of Lucia. I don't think science has a good answer, so I will just say that whoever might have been alive in that area of Asia at that time, that is who went to Chile. Some 39000 years ago.
Notice how both with her, and with Kennewick Man, the skull restorers both in features and in coloration, did their best to make what is really a fairly typical Caucasoid skull...seem to be dark skinned or possibly (Amerind looking in Kennewick) and (African looking in Luzia) to suit the present racial politics in the USA and Brazil respectively.
Kennewick Man, who lived some 9000 yrs ago, is so Europoid or Caucasian, that if he had been found in England like Cheddar Man, of the same vintage, the two could easily have been related.
A year or so ago I wrote on a thread that I think Kennewick Man might have been an explorer, an early Viking or Lewis-&-Clark type. European man has always been curious, and tends to like to see what was out there. Could easily have just been an old Norseman or Englishman.
Those would be the Jomon/Ainu, European origins via Siberia.
"This was before (IMO) we had the Mongoloid race developed fully as it is today, and in any event those On The Boat would have looked more Caucasian to us, than Mongolian, and that is true of Lucia."
I agree with you on the appearance of those on 'the boat' except for Luzia. The North Chinese had not had their population explosion yet. (They would become The American Indians about 6,000 year ago). The American Indians displaced the Joman/Ainu (Kennewick Man) in North America."
"A year or so ago I wrote on a thread that I think Kennewick Man might have been an explorer, an early Viking or Lewis-&-Clark type."
There are a number of Kennewick Man's relatives out there (Skeletons), he's just the most famous.
I think Luzia (and her group) came across the Atlantic.