Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino

Cultures > Southern > Southern Maritime Hunters or Canoe Hunters

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These were highly mobile groups that spent most of their lives in their canoes. On land they repeatedly occupied the same sheltered beaches, where over time large middens built up, full of sea shells from their food waste. In some locations they dug out shallow pits in these middens to build their shelters, making walls from the shells. In general, their dwellings were made from a frame of tree branches covered with animal skins to protect those inside from the cold and the southern winds.