Monte Verde

Monte Verde is a Paleolithicarchaeological site in the Llanquihue Province in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Los Lagos Region. The site is primarily known for Monte Verde II, generally suggested to date to 14,500 years ago, which has been largely accepted (though not without dissent) as showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by at least 1,000 years, contrary to the now discredited "Clovis first" paradigm. The site also contains an older, much more controversial layer (Monte Verde I) suggested to date to 18,500 cal BP (16,500 BC), that lacks the general acceptance of Monte Verde II.

Monte Verde II represents a campsite with wooden tent-like structures that was later covered by a bog, sealing the site under a layer of anaerobic peat. The occupants of the site made rope and utilized animal skins, and consumed a variety of plant foods, including seaweed (despite the site being 60 kilometres (37 mi) from the ocean at the time), tubers, seeds, fruits and nuts. Remains at the site suggest that the occupants also butchered now extinct megafauna, including the gomphothere (elephant-relative) Notiomastodon and the llama Palaeolama. Surovell et al. (2026) argued that the campsite itself is middle Holocene (no older than 8,200 years BP), and that Pleistocene elements found within the site had been redeposited. The conclusions of this study have been contested by other scholars. Other sites have been reported elsewhere in the Americas of similar and generally accepted pre-Clovis age to Monte Verde II, including Paisley Caves and Cooper's Ferry.

Paleoecological evidence of the coastal landscape's ability to sustain human life has been used to support a "coastal migration" model for the initial peopling of the Americas. Dating of rock surfaces and animal bones suggests the coastal corridor was deglaciated and became habitable after 17,000 years BP. Although testing coastal migration theories can be difficult due to sea level rise since the Last Glacial Maximum, archaeologists are increasingly willing to accept the possibility that the initial settlement of the Americas occurred via coastlines.