The prehistoric archaeology of South America is fascinating and constantly developing.Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Tom Dillehay to discuss how early humans navigated their migration from North to South America, adapting to diverse environments and leaving a rich archaeological record that challenges long-standing theories, including human footprints dating back 10,000 years.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The producer and audio editor is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music from Epidemic Sounds.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
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It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we're heading to prehistoric South America. A few months back, I received an email from an avid Ancients listener called Franco. Now Franco, he suggested that we start looking into the archaeology of South America, which is often overlooked compared to other areas of the world.
And we thought that that was a brilliant idea. And so today, we're bringing some of this fascinating archaeology into the spotlight. And we're going back more than 10,000 years. Now you might remember that we recently released an episode all about Ice Age North America and the story of the first people to reach this continent more than 10,000 years ago.
That episode with Dr. David Meltzer proved incredibly popular and do check it out if you haven't listened to it already after this one. But it also felt like it was only half of the story. We've done the first people in North America. But what has the archaeology revealed about the first people in South America? How long did it take for humans to go from north to south?
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Chapter 2: How did early humans migrate to South America?
Well, joining me to talk through what we know is a man who has been at the forefront of this research for the past 40 years, Dr. Tom Dillehay from Vanderbilt University. Tom has worked and written papers about several key archaeological sites along the Pacific coast of South America, in particular, the extraordinary site of Monteverde in Chile.
The incredible array of discoveries made there have completely revised what people thought about when the first humans settled in South America, who they were and how they lived. Tom explains all and much more as we delve into the story of the first South Americans. Tom, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today.
Well, thank you. I appreciate being here.
Now, the populating of South America, the first human settlement in South America. Tom, this feels like a massive topic. I hope you're ready. Now, is this quite an exciting time for the field with new developments and discoveries? Because we've recently done an interview with David Meltzer about the first humans in North America.
He was saying how it's very exciting at the moment with new scientific research and methods. Is it a similar case with the first South Americans too? Absolutely.
The two continents are connected because in South America, specialists see the peopling of the continent coming from North America, obviously, down through Central America, across Panama, into the continent.
What's really exciting is not only new discoveries going on up and down the Western Hemisphere, and particularly in recent years in South America and also in the Amazon and along the coastline as well, but also genetics, as my colleague David Meltzer probably talked about, has added a very new and exciting dimension to the discipline related to connections between different kinds of sites and geographic vectors of movement and so forth.
But also what's been found in recent years in South America is exciting because we have a number of South Americanists themselves from different countries who have been getting their degrees in the U.S. and South American universities, North America, going back and doing a lot more research on this topic. So everything's coming together and coalescing in a new, exciting movement.
A new, exciting movement. So it feels like the perfect time to have got you on the podcast. And I must admit, recently, we also did an interview, an episode on the ancient Amazon. And it's been a pleasure exploring the Americas thousands of years ago and the archaeology that is coming to light. For... The first humans, the populating of South America.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Monte Verde?
I mean, Tom, that was going to be my question. Do we think that it's only occupied through the past of the year, then they're moving elsewhere and kind of... almost semi-nomadic. But it's interesting what you're saying there. That almost seems to be consistent use of Monteverdi, which is staggering and astonishing when learning about these very early people in this area of South America.
Yeah. I mean, when you look at the plant remains, we had 73 different edible and medicinal plant remains there, including the seaweeds. And you look at the use of the woods for different functions, firewood, making tools. There's one tree species called maki, and it's very flexible. So when the wind blows, it kind of adapts to the wind and the structure would sway a little bit, probably.
The point being, these people had intimate knowledge of that forest in that setting. And that indicates that they were there for a long time before Monte Verde to learn where these resources were and how to use them.
And the fact that a lot of these resources come from the Indian mountains to the east and down toward the coast and out in a broad radius probably suggests there were other peoples around, obviously, and they were exchanging products with them.
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Well, this actually brings me on to another question because you mentioned earlier how so much of this material has survived in the peat, material that wouldn't usually survive. So as special as Monteverdi is, should we not be thinking of, you know, oh, we found this one site, as you say, And there mustn't be any other sites in the area.
It's just perhaps the soil preservation has allowed Monteverdi to survive. But we should be imagining, and perhaps they haven't survived, that nearby there would have been other settlements dating to a similar time, contemporary to Monteverdi too.
That's a very good point. And that is where we're moving toward today. There are other archaeologists beginning to examine and cut banks, peat lenses, and looking for other sites. There is one possible site north of Monte Verde, about 110 kilometers away, called Pilauco, that has... preserved animal bones embedded in a peat lens as well. So your point is well taken.
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Chapter 4: What discoveries have changed our understanding of early South Americans?
But if Monte Verde I, with these different depths of minute portions of evidence suggesting a human presence off and on for another 10, 12, 15,000 years, there exists the possibility of people there long before Monte Verde II at 14,500 years ago. It's just unproven as yet. And the problem is once you excavate Monte Verde II, it's like going from riches to rags.
Because there we have this pausity of information, you know, in the deeper levels. There are some sites in Brazil and elsewhere in South America that might date 16,000 to 20,000, 22,000 years ago. But they're controversial as well, as is Monte Verde 1. And they still need to be proven. So there's hints out across the continent of people being there earlier, as there are in North America as well.
Is there any evidence that people were coming back to that place for thousands of years after that? Or has the archaeology not revealed, I mean, kind of later layers almost from that area of the world yet?
At Monte Verde, no. We have no evidence that after 14,500 years ago that people were coming back. So let me quickly insert one thing here. What we found at the site was a very thin layer of ash covering the site.
about half a millimeter thickness to a millimeter in thickness in ash probably eruptions from the volcanoes to the east and i suspect and i haven't published on this because it's too much speculation but i'll say it now that perhaps they abandoned the site as a result of volcanic eruptions as people do today when there are volcanic eruptions and they did not come back to the site
But there probably are other sites in the area where they were visiting other places, as we talked about before.
I mean, that makes it even more extraordinary. What a fascinating snapshot this archaeology is revealing about people in this one site, some, you know, roughly 14,500 years ago. And I guess it's also exciting. You've been working there for so many years, Tom. What archaeologists might discover from that layer in the future?
Do you think there's still more out there from Monteverdi too, and probably from elsewhere nearby?
Well, there is. In fact, I'm going down, I'll be excavating there at Monte Verde one in March, and there likely are more sites. It just takes more time, more resources. And also, one thing I haven't mentioned is that the team working at Monte Verde because of the preservation of so many organic remains is composed of almost 70 specialists.
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Chapter 5: What was the Clovis theory and how has it evolved?
Well, it's very exciting, therefore, for the future as more archaeological work is done by yourself and many colleagues, both in North America and absolutely in South America too. I must admit, I knew next to nothing about Monteverdi. I'd never heard of Huaca Prieta before, before looking at your research, Tom. So this has been eye-opening for me. How big a task is it
to get this knowledge out into the world about prehistoric South America and the populating of South America?
It's been difficult, not only for me in some ways, but colleagues. South American colleagues, for their data to be evaluated and eventually accepted, much of it has to be published in English. There's a certain degree of
what I call academic imperialism that still operates in the world, where there seems to be this notion of, well, first of all, not a lot of North Americans read Portuguese or Spanish, so they're going to have to read things in English. But I think that It's a discipline that's growing very quickly. It's one of the hot topics in anthropology.
And getting this information out, archaeology, as I've hinted at, and as you well know, is a discipline that requires a lot of interdisciplinary research and a lot of resources. But these sites are not easy to find either. Monty Berthie found me. I didn't find Monty Berthie. It came to me vis-a-vis this student. And a lot of sites are like that. Farmers and fishermen find sites and so forth.
But I think there needs to be, and I say that, more systematic archaeological survey and reconnaissance by archaeologists out across well-defined paleo landscapes. Because when we look out there at that landscape, as you alluded to earlier, that is very different in the past 12, 14, 15,000 years or more ago than it is today. And we need to learn that landscape and learn how to research it.
But, you know, times are exciting. There's more interdisciplinary data coming into view. Genetics is exciting. New techniques with LIDAR technology.
That's penetrating beneath the thick tree cover, isn't it, LIDAR, Tom?
Yeah, exactly. And you get a better reading of what the landscape was like in addition to the archaeology. So I encourage young people to go into any discipline that relates to this theme or archaeology in general.
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