Until now, we have had difficulty studying just 500 years of history of Patagonia and have achieved only a vague understanding of its boundaries in the face of a war of maps that continue to define historic demarcations between the republics of Argentina and Chile. What we are faced with now, is a huge gap in the history that awaits discovery.
Given the above, I believe we must change our focus and become receptive to the era that is upon us, with all its technology that will allow us to discover the course of history in this great region with the aid of DNA sampling and carbon dating and other modern techniques –all to serve just one objective; namely to discover our natural history and investigate who really inhabited Patagonia and when. In this way, we will be able to continue making advances and discover this fascinating region of South America. We need to relate our knowledge to reality so we can find the original and definitive boundaries of this indomitable region christened Patagonia by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520.
Archaeological delimits of Patagonia
The initial human habitation of Patagonia indicates a history of around 14,000 years and is characterized by a slow process resulting from the displacement of groups of people looking for new hunting territories for large mammals, such as the mylodon (giant ground sloth), which has been extinct for 10,000 years. In Chile, the presence of early mankind and an organized civilization has been discovered from Punta Arenas to Osorno, where sites such as Pilauco Bajo near Osorno and Monte Verde near Puerto Montt provide us with ample testimony to the facts.
There is a concensus regarding the importance of river courses in determining the location of settlements and the spread of human populations in Patagonia during the pre-Hispanic era, covering the Río Calle-Calle, Río Limay and Río Negro, up to the environs of the Río Chubut and the Río Santa Cruz. Given the above, it is therefore necessary to consider rivers and their waterways that flow from east to west, from the Andes to the sea, as the natural borders of the region under review.
“Equally, it should be made clear that the denomination of Araucania that was given to the region beyond the Andes and comprised the area between the Río Bío-Bío and Río Toltén originates with the Spanish and derives from the word ‘raucos,’ by which they knew the native Indians who lived to the south of Concepción, and who were famous for their resistance to Spanish rule...
It is very important, therefore, to keep in mind, especially, the difficulty of labeling ethnic groups –such as the Tehuelches, Poya, Puelches, etc.– who possibly never existed in reality, but rather were a creation of definitions imposed by others, in this case, the Spanish.”
Susana Bandieri, ‘Historia de la Patagonia’, second edition, Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 2009, pp 44.
In this quote, the historian Susana Bandieri defines the boundaries of Araucania according to ethnic settlements located in Chile between the Río Bío-Bío (Concepción) and the Río Toltén (Villarrica), locations that are generally agreed upon in Chile. Given that the concensus among historians is that waterways played an important role in the expansion of human settlements characteristic of the pre-Hispanic era in Patagonia, this is a different viewpoint. Therefore, the main rivers that empty into the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean constitute important ethnic boundaries, such as in this case, where the Río Toltén empties into the Pacific at Punta Nihue, to the north of the city of Valdivia. Furthermore, this coincides with the boundaries indicated by the French historian Frederic Lacroix in 1841, who stated that the northern limit of Chilean West Patagonia is to be found between the southern latitudes of 35° and 38°. Valdivia is actually positioned at the southern latitude of 39°, but this inconsistency can be explained by the fact that when Frederic Lacroix studied the strip of Araucania, he considered it an indefinite stretch, nominating it as the northern border of Patagonia reaching from 35° southern latitude, which corresponds to the north of the Río Bío-Bío, and 38° southern latitude, which corresponds to the north of the Río Calle-Calle at Valdivia.
This corridor defined by Lacroix in his writings on the boundaries of Western Patagonia is not precise, given the nature of cartography during his lifetime, but it gives us a useful approximation, and states that the northern limit of Patagonia should be positioned between the southern latitudes of 36° and 39°. That is to say, Lacroix’s first measurement for delineating the territory of Northern Patagonia, taken in 1841, was only out by one degree and his estimate is therefore quite exact, if we consider it as a first attempt.
In any case, the southern border of Araucania I state as being at 39° southern latitude, extends one degree further, as regards to Lacroix, and could be located 60 miles further north, thus coinciding with him. That is to say, around 96 km further north than the Río Calle-Calle, which would be near the mouths of the rivers that empty into the sea in the Los Ríos Region in Chile, and coincides with the ethnic context put forward by the Argentinean historian Susana Bandieri when she refers to the mouth of the Río Toltén.
Given all the supporting statements above, provided by Raúl Rey Balmaceda, Hans Steffen Hoffmann, Enrique Campos Menéndez, Frederic Lacroix, Luis Lliboutry and Susana Bandieri, as well as the archaeological and anthropological considerations, we shall therefore state in this work that the northern boundary for Chilean Patagonia is to be found within the Region of Los Ríos in Chile, whose provincial capital is Valdivia. And on the northern Argentine side, we shall claim concensus for the northern limit at the level of Neuquén Province, along the Río Colorado that empties into the Atlantic Ocean, together with the Río Negro, at Carmen de Patagones.
Furthermore, the discovery of Monte Verde in 1976, 30 km west of Puerto Montt, in Chile’s Region XIV, dates from 14,200 BC, and is widely acknowledged as the most important historical find relating to the earliest evidence of Patagon settlement in South America. The site is located near the Chinchiguapi stream, on the edge of the American Continental Shelf and at the beginning of the Patagonian insular plate of Chilean West Patagonia.
Map of Patagonia
Santiago, Friday November 10th, 2006
Patagonia is what we call the territorial extension that is located between latitude 39 through 59 South of the American continent, surrounded by the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, forming a CONE that is interrupted by the Strait of Magellan. Then it continues in Tierra del Fuego, ending in the dreaded Cape Horn, bathed by the Drake Passage. Further South is the Antarctic continent which extends its territory to the Southern Pole.
Enrique Campos Menéndez
Letter written by Enrique Campos Menéndez (RIP) on the borders for Patagonia.
In conclusion, further investigation is required since, up to 1976, it was believed that the region of Patagonia began to the south of Puerto Montt. But the historical, ethnological –and, much less, archaeological– sources that can truly and precisely confirm the northern boundary have yet to be unified into a single concensus.
Susana Bandieri’s work Historia de la Patagonia (History of Patagonia) permits us to relate her research to recent discoveries made by Chilean scientists at Monte Verde and add them to the studies made by historians and geographers already cited, whose work has been confirmed by other reliable sources, which I also confirmed during my own research in European libraries and at Monte