Monte Verde

History

The site was discovered in late 1975 when a veterinary student visited the area of Monte Verde, where severe erosion was occurring due to logging. Prior to the logging, the site itself had been preserved well due to the favorable conditions created by the Chinchihuapi creek banks. The student was shown a strange "cow bone" collected by nearby farmers who had found it exposed in the eroded Chinchihuapi Creek. Tom Dillehay, an American anthropologist and professor at the Universidad Austral de Chile at the time, started excavating Monte Verde in 1977. The site is situated on the banks of Chinchihuapi Creek, a tributary of the Maullín River located from the Pacific Ocean. One of the rare open-air prehistoric sites found so far in the Americas, Monte Verde was well preserved because it was located in an anaerobic bog environment near the creek. A short time after the site was originally occupied, the waters of the creek rose and a peat-filled bog formed that inhibited the bacterial decay of organic material and preserved many perishable artifacts and other items for millennia. Radiocarbon dating of bones and charcoal in 1982 gave the site an average age of 14,800 BP (calibrated), more than 1,000 years earlier than the oldest-known site of human habitation in the Americas at that time. In the initial excavation, two large hearths and many small ones were found. The remains of local animals were discovered, in addition to wooden posts from approximately twelve huts. Scraps of clothing made of hide were also found. This led archaeologists to estimate the population was around 20–30 inhabitants. A human footprint was also observed in the clay, probably from a adult. The area consists of four distinct sites, Monte Verde I, Monte Verde II, Chinchihuapi I, and Chinchihuapi…

Most-observed species

• Picazuro Pigeon

  Patagioenas picazuro (Temminck, 1813) · Aves
  1,519
• Great Kiskadee

  Pitangus sulphuratus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,505
• Saffron Finch

  Sicalis flaveola (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,495
• Rufous-collared Sparrow

  Zonotrichia capensis (P.L.S.Müller, 1776) · Aves
  1,360
• Maroon-bellied Parakeet

  Pyrrhura frontalis (Vieillot, 1818) · Aves
  1,274
• white-eyed conure

  Aratinga leucophthalma (Statius Muller, 1776) · Aves
  1,240
• Sayaca Tanager

  Thraupis sayaca (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,234
• Southern House Wren

  Troglodytes musculus J.F.Naumann, 1823 · Aves
  1,152