Patagonia. James Button
at Monte Verde, near the city of Puerto Montt, in Chilean Patagonia. Discovered by local farmers in 1970, Monte Verde is a major archaeological site that was exposed following the farmers’ intervention in the course of a creek to facilitate the transit of their teams of oxen. They used shovels to dig out a new watercourse, and the erosion caused during the following winter exposed large mastondon bones.
The bones discovered by the farmers were given to the student Felix Werner during his visit in 1976, and he, in turn, handed them to Mauricio van de Maele (RIP), a scientist working at the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia. He then visited the site and examined the bones that remained visible in the substrata of the Chinchihuapi Creek and it was this work that led to the discovery of Monte Verde in 1977, subsequently identified as the oldest verifiable archaeological site showing evidence of human habitation in the Americas.
The scientific research was led by Tom Dillehay, an American anthropologist, working alongside the Chilean geologist Mario Pino from the Universidad Austral de Chile (Valdivia). Together with four of their students, they studied an exploratory deep trench. Dillehay confirmed they had found a settlement that was significantly different to any other acknowledged site and that this location indicated a camp for semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers. We can take it from this fact, therefore, that we are dealing with the original ancestors of Chilean Patagonia.
Monte Verde represents a human settlement from the Late Pleistocene where –14,200 BC– a group of humans arrived to inhabit the environs of what is now the city of Puerto Montt. The archaeological site is near the Río Maullin that rises in the extreme south-east of Lake Llanquihue and empties into the Pacific Ocean after a long and sinuous route gently descending towards the coast at the Golfo de Coronados, facing Isla Doña Sebastiana across the Canal de Chacao (Chacao channel). Given the cold waters, and the fact that the river rose to cover the site shortly after it was inhabited, the archaeological remains found in the peat-filled bog were exceptionally well-preserved.
The discovery of Monte Verde constituted a serious challenge to the theory that was developed from work at Clovis (New México) that postulated the oldest human settlements on the American Continent date from 11,500 BC, and also that it was the Clovis Culture that populated the American Continent during the last Ice Age.
The glacial formations are believed to have lowered sea levels to such a degree that land formerly submerged was exposed to connect the areas that are today known as Alaska and Siberia, thus enabling groups of humans to cross the Bering Strait from Siberia to North America via a mile-wide corridor. The region from Alaska to Canada was covered by ice, and geological sources confirm that the glacial corridor allowed these groups to settle in Clovis, in the American State of New México, from where they migrated throughout the American territory and as far as the southern continent.
Patagonian Mastodon
At Monte Verde, perfectly preserved remains of mastodon bone and pelt have been found, as well as cords, stakes, wood, and a large quantity of food items and a human footprint. This high level of conservation was the result, as already indicated, of a rise in the water level of the little Chinchihuapi Creek that transformed the riverbed and the floor level of the Monte Verde site into a swamp with an abundant presence of peat. The evolution of this bog developed with a great quantity of iron coming from the Patagonian volcanoes and created a second layer, whose oxidating iron formed a protective cap, preserving the objects underneath. Using carbon dating, later investigations of Monte Verde have established that this human settlement could be around 33,000 years old.
Substantially modified section with brushed sides. The trunk is supported by branches in an inverted V-position to stabilise it in a working condition.
Mastodon defensive tusk fragment exhibiting severe abrasion and scoring on its sides as a result of use.
Among the wood artifacts, traces of the earliest architecture discovered in the Americas were found. The conservation conditions of the site allowed a large tent-like dwelling to be identified, whose structure was characterized by poles covered with animal hides and which is very similar to the homes of groups of Tehuelches in Patagonia and also to the Kawesquar tents found along the Patagonian channels. This type of early architecture suggests the existence of a community that already had a well-defined division of labour between hunting and gathering food sources, as well as the presence of fire.
The archaeologists have been able to conclude that the inhabitants of Monte Verde had knowledge of the seasons, of fluctuating weather patterns, and also that they had social interaction with other groups of human settlements.
The discoveries at Monte Verde and other anthropological sites in the Americas, such as Piedra Museo in Argentina, Pedra Furada in Brazil, and Topper in the United States, have completely changed the predominant theory on how the American Continent was populated –a theory based upon and formulated as a result of work on the Clovis Culture. That theory has been challenged by the new discoveries at Monte Verde, which demonstrate that the presence of human settlements on the American Continent date from 14,200 BC; that is to say, they are 2,700 years ealier than the date postulated by the theory based on the Clovis Culture. Thus the first human migrations occurred in the south of our American Continent, and not in the north. It is for this reason that this new thesis modifies the theories regarding the migration routes for mankind and for its spread throughout the American Continent.
Given these discoveries, it is very difficult to assert the origins of the early human inhabitants of Patagonia, and it is only possible to provide very wide ranges of time. The necessary archaeological investigations in the region around Puerto Montt will provide greater precision in future, both for the arrival dates of mankind on the American Continent, and for the true antecedents of its inhabitants. Furthermore, it will reveal how early human settlement occurred and consolidate the new historical and archaeological theories in the face of those that already exist, thus providing us with a better understanding of their relationship to other continents, eras, and civilizations.
This is why Monte Verde must be considered of great archaeological significance for the American Continent, alongside the discoveries in the north, in México, as well as in Perú and Bolivia, among others.
Analysis of the discovery of the oldest archaeological remains in Patagonia
The historic achievement of 1976 was the discovery of an archaeological site at Monte Verde, located 30 km to the south-west of Puerto Montt, which rendered current theories regarding the immigration of mankind to the Americas obsolete and made Patagonia central to theories regarding the earliest human settlements. As a result of the investigations carried out at Monte Verde, an abundance of petrified pieces of meat and animal hide have been discovered, as well as wild potato specimens, non-native plants, and architectural elements such as pieces made of wood, the majority of which are related to domestic dwelling structures; over 650 Paleolithic cultural items were also found, made of bones and mastodon molars, as well as of other giant animals. Hearths and brazier pits were found in distinct areas, and also string fragments and cord made of reeds, which indicate the presence of human activity. These remains comprise a collection gathered at the Historical and Anthropological Museum of the Universidad Austral de Chile, located in the city of Valdivia, in Chile’s Los Ríos Region.
The excavations carried out at Monte Verde (1 and 2), later known as MV-I and MV-II, were led by the American anthropologist Tom Dillehay and the Chilean geologist Mario Pino, alongside their colleagues C. Ramírez, M. Collins and J. Rossen. This group of scientists continue to investigate the site and has been able to date the artefacts and bones found here to 13,500 BC at MV-I, and to 14,200 BC at MV-II.
These facts challenge and make obsolete the theory based on the Clovis Culture regarding the arrival of mankind on the American Continent via the northern hemisphere