…It is not clear how the first maritime hunters or canoeist groups arrived in these lands in the extreme South of Chile. One theory suggests that the area was…
Economy
…The Tehuelche’s main prey was guanaco, and the people prized not only the meat but also the skins, which they used to make clothing, blankets, dwellings and other basic…
Beliefs and funerary practices
…a loincloth. Then there was the tattooing of the legs at eight years of age. Young people reaching puberty underwent the important rites of initiation into adulthood. According to chronicles…
Agriculturalists
…led to the development of a way of life that centered on these agricultural processes. Agriculturalist societies are characterized by their control over plant reproduction and growth, which also necessitated…
Kospi
…Kospi was admired by the Tehuelches for her beauty. One day, Karut (thunder, the Lord of the Mountains) kidnapped her and took her to the mountains, where he hid…
The Sacrificer
…war. An alternate explanation is tied to the belief that the deceased watch over agricultural fields and ensure a bountiful harvest. Just as the farmers cut the heads of the…
Polynesian horticultural-fisher-gatherers
…and clans that often came into conflict with each other, even to the point of inter-communal war. While their way of life flourished for some time, the frequent disputes, coupled…
The petroglyphs of Kalina
…are believed to have been hunters in the early stages of domesticating camelids, specifically through the capture and taming of wild guanacos, among other species. The large rock wall situated…
Sea lion skin rafts
…The sea lion skin raft appeared in Northern Chile in the first millennium of the Common Era (0–1000 CE). This watercraft consisted of two inflated sea lion skins…
The geoglyph of Cerro Sagrado
…some small llama corrals and large underground storehouses, a cemetery, farm fields and two freshwater springs that provided water for crop irrigation and consumption by the village’s 200 inhabitants. The…
The petroglyphs of Tamentica
…range of geometric figures including borders, crosses, spirals, circles, wavy and zigzag parallel lines, and other shapes. Notable among the petroglyphs are human figures with appendagesprotruding from their disproportionately large…
Marine hunter-gatherers of the southern zone
…The Southern Zone was the setting for the development of a hunter-gatherer culture with a strong maritime emphasis that dates back as early as 8000 B.C.These groups not…
Polynesian horticultural-fisher-gatherers
…classes and clans that often came into conflict with each other, even to the point of inter-communal war. While their way of life flourished for some time, the frequent disputes,…
Beliefs and Funerary Practices
…The Diaguitas have celebrated Catholic religious celebrations since colonial times, as this part of the Norte Chico was one of the first to be evangelized in the early colonial…
The pictographs of Tambillo
…The Tambillo pictographs are found on the walls of eight small rock shelters distributed along some 300 meters of the narrow, dry bed of the upper Quisma Ravine,…
Hunters of the Megafauna
…The Americas were first populated near the end of the Pleistocene, when environmental conditions were completely different from those presently in force, as the continent was in a…
Environment and Geography
…Valley. The zone of Huasco Alto is a foothills region with a semi-arid climate. Geographically it features steep, narrow valleys and high mountain peaks. The valley is watered by the…
History
…has determined that the area was first occupied around 8000 B.C. by hunting-gathering groups that made use of the ravines and salt flats. In the later pre-Hispanic period, between 900…
Story of the Forbidden Otter and the Great Flood
…Narrated by José Tonko Wide (Kstákso) Puerto Edén, 1975 A long time ago, while his father….was out hunting otters and birds, a young man went out after him to…
Beliefs and funerary practices
…to the people. The people make ritual “payments” to these entities to ensure an abundant supply of grass for livestock, water for irrigation and for animal and human consumption, and…
Economía
…These groups were farmers and herders who lived in the mountains, taking advantage of the mountain pastures as forage for their llama herds. They grew maize in fields watered…
Economía
…region’s resources in a sustainable way by moving on before any food species became extinct in a given spot. They moved around almost exclusively by water, using canoes made out…
History
…and perfected their ancestral way of life. The increasing complexity of the societies of the Atacameña area, which was closely tied to the traffic of goods with llama caravans, strongly…
Historia
…more sedentary way of life, including the use of boats to colonize nearby islands. Around the first century of our era a new horticultural way of life began to emerge,…