On May 9th 2008, a team from Science, the journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), announced they had identified nine new species of marine algae recovered from homes and other areas around the Monte Verde site. These algae samples were dated as being 14,220 years old, confirming that the date for human settlement identified at the MV-II archaeological site was reliable(2).
The Monte Verde Foundation established by the Government of Chile, Municipality of Puerto Montt and the scientist that discovered the archaeological site at Chinchihuapi creek plan to construct a museum to safeguard and protect the archaeological finds and provide an appropriate setting for their public display, as well as for the promotion of research, study, publication and discussion of said findings.
These discoveries, so recently achieved, and only published three years prior to this book, pave the way for science to begin a new chapter, which must be written using the new background information supplied by scientists from their future investigations. Their new research will enable us to connect with the past in ways that will create an amazing new challenge to the facts known up to date on the history of humanity. Analysing those layers of historical information to formulate a new approach to the methods and routes used for the earliest arrival of mankind on the American Continent is a great challenge for contemporary society, not least because it contradicts the traditional view that human settlement of the Americas occurred via the initial incursions of peoples representing the Clovis Culture into the northern continent during their emigration made possible by the last Ice Age, dated at 80,000 BC, when glaciation created a terrestial connection that later disappeared in the post-glacial era beginning around 10,000 BC. This theory and others have initiated much speculation, and now, at the very least, we see a new dimension opening for historical research and the opportunity for the global scientific community to take the lead in this history.
Discovered in the heart of Patagonia, this terra incognita is a challenge. For, according to the numerous studies and information emanating from publications on Monte Verde, the artefacts and human traces found there, as well as the customs of the inhabitants, indicate that these human beings resemble the indigenous Patagones we know as Tehuelches, Huilliches, Kaweskars, or Alacaluf, who once lived in Western Patagonia; and, by virtue of being their ancestors, we can deduce they were the earliest human inhabitants of the American Continent.
Until now, only the Patagons have been identified, in that first encounter in 1520. They were tall and well-built. The Spanish only reached up to their waists, according to the early chroniclers, who estimated their height at being between 1.85 m and 3 m. Those giant Patagons were the first human beings known to inhabit the American Continent. The traces recently discovered at Monte Verde, however, are the key to extremely valuable information to be analysed and studied by the scientific world in the near future. History and science has advanced hand in hand, studying human development, decyphering human origins, and the nature of the ethnic groups that once lived in both Insular and Continental Patagonia, in this vast region of South America.
Contemporary historians also face a challenge from now on, giving them the opportunity to develop a new historical framework, incorporating the new discoveries and taking advantage of current scientific advances to apply them to their own field of study and order the flow of information gathered on this great territory.
The most notable feature of human development noted so far among the indigenous inhabitants of Patagonia, is their adaptation to nature, and the manner in which they chose to locate their settlements at sites that seemed to offer the most safety. By siting their camps near the rivers flowing down from the Andes Mountains, they facilitated hunting, fishing and gathering, while also ensuring the fresh water supply necessary for their survival. Another distinctive practice identified for the earliest inhabitants, is their common tendency to spend long periods of time near the coast during winter, to avoid the biting cold on the hillsides and mountains of the Andes.
Human settlements can be found in the valleys of Patagonia, where the indigenous populations established themselves in the most temperate regions, alongside riverbeds and creeks. Later, during spring, they migrated east, to the headwaters of the rivers in the Andes, reaching their highest summits during the summer, when the snowline retreated, which provided them with camp grounds at the lakes and by the native forests, where an abundance of flora and fauna could be found. That virgin paradise was the great universe they inhabited, enabling the nomadic and sea-kayaking peoples of Patagonia to become highly skilled hunters and gatherers during their eternal wanderings along the rivers connecting the Andean Mountains with the Pacific Ocean.
One assumes that those Patagons who succeeded in crossing to the other side of the Andean Cordillera during the summers, reaching Eastern Patagonia, became isolated over time, from those that inhabited the environs of the Pacific Ocean on the western side of Patagonia. By means of distancing themselves from the great mountain range and travelling towards the valleys and great plains spreading towards the Atlantic Ocean, these groups left the coldest zones found in the Andes behind them. As the Patagons encountered the Argentine Pampa, with its pastures stretching towards the endless horizon and flat plateaus descending towards the Atlantic Ocean, and a more temperate climate, they followed the most natural routes dictated by their continuous hunt for guanacos.
The development of weapons, such as boleadoras, along with the use of wild horses, enabled the hunter-gatherers to move across those vast territories with great ease, which marks a significant step in their evolution. It is also fair to say that these more temperate eastern regions had a distinct flora and fauna –for example with far less trees– that gave rise to distinct customs, forms of expression and communication. All this allowed for the evolution of a distinct race of people –different but related– who did not have to live with the challenge of the Andes Mountains and could develop their nomadic lifestyle unimpeded.
From the Pampa to the Amazon, those tribes mixed with other peoples from the north, such as the Guaraní, and later also with the Araucanian tribes. In contrast, the Western Patagonian tribes remained more homogeneous and isolated as a result of the accidental geographical environment created by the Andean Cordillera, the Pacific Ocean, and the great rivers, such as the Río Calle-Calle in the province of Valdivia, all the way to the south, to the narrow fjords and the Straits of Magellan. This tremendous transformation of the inhabitants of Patagonia occurred over a gradual evolutionary period that took over 14,000 years to develop.
The Argentinean historian Susana Bandieri has written in her book already mentioned that:
According to the experts, it is possible to distinguish, at the very least, three phases in the socio-cultural history of Patagonia, prior to the arrival of the Europeans... The first of these phases extends roughly from 13,000 to 7,000 years prior to the present day, when small groups of hunters and gatherers used refuges built of stone to protect them from the elements while they followed various routes in their search for food and water. What were possibly permanent settlements have been found in Northern Patagonia, especially at the Monte Verde site, 35 km south-west of Puerto Montt, in the Republic of Chile, which dates from over 13,000 years prior to the present day(3).
The classification of Northern Patagonia made by Susana Bandieri in relation to the territory of Monte Verde near Puerto Montt is a clear example of the acknowledgement of the key role the recent discovery of Tehuelche traces of such antiquity (dating back to 14,220 BC, according to the records on Monte Verde), and of the historic facts that cannot possibly be ignored.
The 2009 edition of her book, ‘Historia de la Patagonia’ (The History of Patagonia), has been updated to take account of the later archaeological discoveries at Monte Verde. Those later discoveries also allowed the archaeologist Tom Dillehay and others to publish their conclusions in numerous publications