<< Other Photo Pages >> Monte Verde - Ancient Village or Settlement in Chile
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Multi-periodSite Name: Monte VerdeCountry: Chile
NOTE: This site is 81.623 km away from the location you searched for.
Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Puerto Montt, Chile
Latitude: 41.504S Longitude: 73.204W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Ancient Settlement in Los Lagos State, Chile. Discovered in 1976 from "cow bone" eroding out of a bank, Monte Verde is one of the best documented and most accepted “pre-Clovis” sites in the Americas. In the peat bog on both sides of Chinchihuapi Creek finds of stone tools, non-local plant remains, animal bones, and the wooden foundations of huts indicate a year round settlement of at least 30 individuals. Radio-carbon dating of objects within artifact bearing strata indicate dates to 13000 years ago, with indications of nomadic camping to 17000 years ago.
The people who lived at Monte Verde organized their homes in rows parallel to the creek, and set wooden planks in regular rectangular “foundations” and appear to have used both communal hearths and small clay “braziers” inside individual dwelling areas. A separate structure features a "U shaped" foundation of gravel.
The inhabitants appear to have lived by hunting both large and small animals and gathering a wide variety of plant foods, some carried to the site from many miles away. The organization of the site and a lack of “intrusions” into the sites or artifacts from later time periods imply that the Monte Verde site was build and occupied in a relatively short time period and vacated within a short time period, perhaps from flooding.
ENVIRONMENT
This area of Chile is temperate and humid with a mix of forests, open grass and dunes, and lakes. The creek bed where Monte Verde is sited is a tributary of the Maullin River. The site is approximately 50 km from the Pacific Ocean, but traveling due south, away from the creek, the Gulf of Reloncavi is only 20 km away.
13000 years ago forest cover was sporadic, broken by large areas of bogs, lakes, and freshwater marshes. Closer to the coast lines dunes and salt marshes would predominate. Animals would have included large game animals such as mastodon and paleo camelids, and well as many varieties of birds, fish, and small mammals.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECOVERY
A thin cap of peat bog covers Monte Verde and much of the site was found by either erosion from the creek and the area having been cleared of trees and brush to make a clear way for logging trucks. Mastodon bones washing into the creek lead to the site being brought to the attention of instructors at the Universidad Austral de Chile. Surveys eventually determined the site to show human activity.
Artifacts include the remains of the dwellings, which may have been tents erected over a wooden pole framework, with the edges held down by the wooden foundations. Some stakes have been found preserved in the bog, with thin lashings still attached. Stone tools (flaked and ground) a mortar, and a digging stick have been found within the wooden foundations. Spherical stones with a shaped groove may be bola stones. No highly worked stone points have been found.
Flotation techniques have revealed the remains of edible leafy vegetables, seeds, nuts, fruits and tubers. Additionally remains of reed plants found only in brackish coastal waters (Scirpus californicus) and seaweeds indicate wide ranging resource gathering.
Mastodon bones make up most of the bones found at Monte Verde, but other bones are from frogs, rodents, birds and camelid have been found along with fresh water mollusk shell. The mastodon bones are disarticulated and come from only portions of the animals – mainly ribs.
Radio carbon dating has been made of both culturally modified wood and charcoal from hearths. Adjusted ages from the tests yields dates 11,700 to 13,400 years ago. More recent finds from the site include “chaws” of seaweed and saltwater algae coating and imbedded in stone tools. The saltwater plants have been dated to 14,000 years ago.
IMPORTANCE
Monte Verde represents one of the most well documented and accepted sites that contradict the "Clovis First" theory of the human migration into the Americas. It’s controversy lies in the rigor of dating analysis. Although some critics (C.Vance Haynes, Stuart Fieldel) have complained that that the management of finds leaves doubts and confusion of their place among carbon dated finds, the chief researchers, Tom Dillehay and Mario Pina, and their associates counter that such doubt is either a willful misreading of the published research or an unfamiliarity with wet preservation of artifacts.
More intriguingly, the site as described is referred to as “Monte Verde II.” An earlier component, deeper than the tent settlement consists of less dramatic artifacts of broken cobbles and charcoal. This site, “Monte Verde I” has been dated to 33,000 years ago. It has not been extensively discussed or promoted by the Monte Verde researchers and reviewers indicate that the less obvious “human origin” leaves these older finds as definitely unproven as cultural finds.
The site is protected by the Chilean government.
REFERENCES
Dillehay, Tom D., Monte Verde – A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, Vol 1 and 2, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
Stuart Fiedel, "Artifact Provenience at Monte Verde: Confusions and Contradictions," Scientific American Discovering Archaeology, October 1999.
Mann, Charles C., 1491, Knopf, 2005. [Description of a not entirely successful review of the Monte Verde site by a congress of "greybeards".]
National Monuments Council Av. Vicuña Mackenna n°84, Providencia Santiago - Chile , “Monte Verde Archaeological Site” United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage List Submission, http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1873/
Price, T. Douglas, and Feinman, Gary M., “Monte Verde”, Images of the Past, Mayfield Publishing Company, 1993.
Note: New clues emerge about the earliest known Americans, see the latest comment on our page
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