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The Chinchorro culture of South America was a
preceramic Aceramic is defined as "not producing pottery". In archaeology, the term means "without pottery". Aceramic societies usually used bark, basketry, gourds and leather for containers. It is sometimes used to refer to a specific early Neolithic period ...
culture that lasted from 9,100 to 3,500 years BP (7,000 to 1,500 BCE). The people forming the Chinchorro culture were sedentary fishermen inhabiting the Pacific coastal region of current northern Chile and southern Peru. Presence of fresh water in the arid region on the coast facilitated human settlement in this area. The Chinchorro were famous for their detailed mummification and funerary practices. The area of the Chinchorro culture started to receive influences from the
Andean Plateau The Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechua and Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extensive high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. The plateau is located at the ...
around 4,000 BP, which led to the adoption of agriculture. Much later, it came under the influence of the Tiwanaku Empire. In 2021, the Chinchorro culture was included in the World Heritage List.


Etymology

The Chinchorro culture is named after Chinchorro Beach (Spanish: ''Playa Chinchorro''), near Arica, Chile, where the first mummies were discovered.


Geography

The culture was spread across the arid coastal regions of the Atacama Desert from
Ilo The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...
, southern Peru, to Antofagasta in northern Chile. But the cultural core of the Chinchorro seems to be the Chilean Arica-Camarones region, which stretches between the coastal towns of Arica and
Caleta Camarones Caleta Camarones is a town located in the extreme southwest of Arica and Parinacota Region, Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and t ...
to the south. There are many archaeological sites around Arica, and around Caleta Camarones.


Description

The Chinchorro were expert fishermen. They developed an extensive and sophisticated fishing tool assemblage. The people had efficient fishing gear, such as fishing hooks made of shells and cactuses, and stone weights for nets made of mesh fabrics. They became skilled weavers of baskets and mats. While most Chinchorro sites are located on the coast, some are also found inland and in the nearby highlands. Their lifestyle was predominantly supported by fish, shellfish and sea mammals. There are some large coastal
midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...
s that have been excavated. Analysis of the hair and human bones from the mummies indicates that about 90 percent of their diet consisted of maritime food and the remaining 10 percent of terrestrial animals and plants. The Chinchorro type site is located in Arica, Chile; it was discovered by German archaeologist
Max Uhle Friedrich Max Uhle (25 March 1856 – 11 May 1944) was a German archaeologist, whose work in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia at the turn of the Twentieth Century had a significant impact on the practice of archaeology of South America. Biograph ...
in the early 20th century.Bernardo Arriaza
Chile’s Chinchorro Mummies
nationalgeographic.com 1995
Many very early archaeological sites have been discovered along this coast. In Peru,
Quebrada Tacahuay Quebrada may refer to: Places Argentina * Quebrada de Las Flechas, a valley in the province of Salta in northern Argentina * Quebrada de Humahuaca, World Heritage, a valley in the province of Jujuy in northern Argentina * Quebrada de Luna, vill ...
and
Quebrada Jaguay Quebrada may refer to: Places Argentina * Quebrada de Las Flechas, a valley in the province of Salta in northern Argentina * Quebrada de Humahuaca, World Heritage, a valley in the province of Jujuy in northern Argentina * Quebrada de Luna, vill ...
have been studied by archaeologists. Further south there are also the Ring site and the
Quebrada Los Burros Quebrada may refer to: Places Argentina * Quebrada de Las Flechas, a valley in the province of Salta in northern Argentina * Quebrada de Humahuaca, World Heritage, a valley in the province of Jujuy in northern Argentina * Quebrada de Luna, vill ...
. These mostly date to
late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...
and early Holocene epochs (ca. 11,000–9000 BC). Inland in Chile there are also the sites of Achas and Las Conchas, Chile. Quebrada Jaguay is the northernmost of these sites and also the oldest, dated to 11,000 BC. Quebrada Tacahuay, further south, is somewhat younger. Some scholars argue that Chinchorro culture developed from these earlier settlements although the details are still being investigated. The site of Achas is where the earliest Chinchorro mummy (the Acha man) has been found. The well-known site of Monte Verde, which is also near the Chilean coastline, must also be mentioned in this context. Recently Monte Verde has been redated to as early as 18,500 BP (16,500 B.C.).


Chinchorro mummies

The Chinchorro mummies go back to 9,000 years Before Present, or 7,000 BC. The Chinchorro mummies were much older than those of the ancient Egyptians. Some of their DNA was recovered. The culture lasted for several thousand years, evolving and adapting over the period. The end of the Chinchorro culture is set around 3500 BP. Dr. Bernardo Arriaza is a Chilean physical anthropologist who contributed much to our current knowledge about the Chinchorro. In 1984, he published a study in the journal Chungara, his first work on the Chinchorro culture. Later, in 1994, Arriaza published a classification of the Chinchorro mummies, the typology that today is widely used by the scientific and general community. In 1995 he wrote an important article for National Geographic Magazine on the
Chinchorro mummies The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture, found in what is now northern Chile. They are the oldest examples of artificially mummified human remains, having been buried up to two thous ...
, which was translated into several languages helping to promote the ancient mummies at international level. His book "''Beyond Death: The Chinchorro Mummies of Ancient Chile''" was published by the
Smithsonian Institution Press The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
in
Washington, D.C ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
. This work was later translated into Spanish by Marlene Onate (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) and published in Chile by the Universidad de Chile together with the Editorial Universitaria Press. The mummies are found to be mostly independent of the age and social status of the deceased, although higher-ranking former members of the Chinchorros underwent more elaborate and complex mortuary treatment. High arsenic concentrations in the environment led to high infant mortality among some of the people, which is discussed as the cause of the development of mummification as a social and emotional processing. The technique of mummification varied over time. In particular, the color of the mummies changed, from a shimmering black produced by manganese to a later (around 2000 BC) red color of the mummies. After death, the flesh of the dead was removed and their exteriors were modeled using sticks and clay. The mummies were then embalmed with one of the above materials. Red and black face masks with characteristic holes for the mouth, nose and eyes were created by using color pigments and were presumably modeled after the faces of the deceased. The dead were then placed on cloths made of reeds and buried superficially in the desert soil.


Early tattoo

A Chinchorro male mummy bears the earliest tattoo found in the Americas. He has a mustache-like dotted line tattooed above his upper lip; the tattoo dates to c. 2300 BC.


Later developments

The Azapa Phase of local cultural development (4,000‐2,500 BP) was a transitional period between the end of the Chinchorro Phase and the start of the Alto Ramírez Phase. These developments took place in the Azapa Valley near the coast. Around 4,000 BP, the people of the Azapa Valley saw some cultural changes brought by immigrants from the Altiplano. These influences led to the adoption of agriculture c. 3,000 BP, as well as the introduction of ceramics. These later groups no longer mummified their dead. The influence of the early Andean cultures in northern Chile has been studied by several archaeologists. Especially the influence from the
Wankarani culture The Wankarani culture was a formative stage culture that existed from approximately 1500 BCE to 400 CE on the altiplano highlands of Bolivia's Oruro Department to the north and northeast of Lake Poopo. It is the earliest known sedentary culture ...
, and the early Pukara culture from the Lake Titicaca area may be relevant here. During a transitional phase, the Chinchorros may have coexisted with an emergent Andean Tradition along the coast.Carlos A. Baied
Review of: ''Historias del Desierto: Arqueología del Norte de Chile'', by Mario Rivera, Editorial del Norte, 2002, pp. 238, La Serena.
Volumen 39, N° 1, 2007. Páginas 135–136 Chungara, Revista de Antropología Chilena


See also

* Coastal migration *
Jon M. Erlandson Jon M. Erlandson is an archaeologist and Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, and the director of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Erlandson’ ...
*
Prehispanic history of Chile The precolonial history of Chile refers to the period from the first human populations in the territory of Chile until the first European exploration of the region, by Spaniard Diego de Almagro in 1535-36. There are numerous theories on the settle ...


References


Bibliography and further reading

* * * * *


External links

* K. Kris Hirst
Chinchorro Culture
– Introduction – archaeology.about.com
"Making the Dead Beautiful: Mummies as Art"
– Archaeology Magazine *Renato Aguirre Bianchi

{{pre-Columbian Andean preceramic Pre-Columbian cultures Prehistory of Chile History of Peru