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People of the CoastalAtacama Desert

Living Between Sand Dunes andWaves of the Pacific Ocean

Calogero M. Santoro, Bernardo T. Arriaza,Vivien G. Standen, and Pablo A. Marquet

Introduction

When Europeans colonized the coast of the Atacama Desert region (188–278S) in

the sixteenth century they described the local people as skillful fishermen. In

particular, Bibar (1966 [1565]: 12) observed:

Those who kill sea lions do not kill other fish, as we have said, and those who kill

toninas [dolphin] do it routinely. In this way, each category of fisherman kills the type

of fish of his specialty and no other; and when they die, it is custom to place the skulls

[of marine mammals] and all the fishing tools such as nets, harpoons, and fishhooks

on top of the grave.

This specialized labor force was not linked to complex forms of social organization

as depicted in prehistoric cultures of the coasts of central Peru and northwestern

North America. For this reason, the Europeans were not able to appreciate the

cultural richness of the native populations that were settled along the coast of the

Atacama Desert. For the Spaniards, these Indians were dirty and poor, with a

simple way of life and modest possessions (Lozano-Machuca 1885 [1581]); thus,

the sixteenth century Hispanic records provide no information relating to other

cultural traits of this Amerindian population, such as funerary procedures, body

painting, or tool decoration, nor about their geoglyphs and petroglyphs.

The coastal way of life has deep roots in the cultural history of the American

continent, as it seems to be connected with the first people who immigrated into

South America, late in the Pleistocene epoch. Around 11,000–10,000 years ago,

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Veth / Desert Peoples Final Proof 19.10.2004 12:00pm page 243

Pablo A. Marquet

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En Desert Peoples: Archaeological Perspectives, editado por P. Veth and M. Smith, pp.243-260. Blackwell Publishers, U.K.

Pablo A. Marquet

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Pablo A. Marquet

Text Box

En Desert Peoples: Archaeological Perspectives, editado por P. Veth and M. Smith, pp.243-260. Blackwell Publishers, U.K.

people focused on the coast of the Atacama territories and over several millennia

they gradually transformed their culture. They created efficient technologies and

strategies to maximize the subsistence possibilities provided by the Pacific Ocean

and the desert coast (Llagostera 1992; Nunez 1983; Rivera and Rothhammer 1991;

Standen et al. in press). This allowed them to reduce risks of the uncertainties

typical of a desert environment as they lived between diverse habitats within a large

but narrow territory along the coast. Despite the fact that the hunter-gatherers and

fishermen of the coastal Atacama Desert inhabited a landscape with limited

terrestrial resources, their descendants were able to create and develop a complex

cultural system, with rather egalitarian political structures. However, the most

fascinating creation of these early people was the development of sophisticated

systems of artificial mummification, the ideological and social principles of which

were arguably crucial for the maintenance of social ties. As we show below, artificial

mummification, and its unknown cosmological world, was the most dynamic

feature of the cultural history of these coastal desert people (Arriaza and Standen

2002).

Lying adjacent to the littoral of the Pacific Ocean in western South America, the

Atacama Desert has a very limited range of edible plants and herded animals. This

contrasts sharply with the Australian deserts or the Kalahari and Namib Deserts of

southern Africa, which offer many (albeit patchy) terrestrial food resources for

hunter-gatherers. These larger desert territories, however, lack the abundance of

water seen in the Atacama in the form of permanent or seasonal streams originat-

ing in the high Andes, located around 100–150 km to the east (see Figure 13.1).

This supporting network of water sources and the Pacific Ocean, one of the richest

and most diverse marine biomasses in the world, creates unusual conditions

allowing for the permanent occupation of this area by hunter-gatherers and

fishermen. The first known inhabitants who arrived on the Pacific coastline of

this region initiated a subsistence system that after 2,000–3,000 years of experimen-

tation became strongly dependent on a wide variety of marine resources, hidden

under the waves of the Pacific (Bird 1943; Llagostera 1992; Nunez 1983; Schiappa-

casse and Niemeyer 1984). They complemented their maritime economy with

unpredictable and dispersed terrestrial resources, located along the quebradas

(narrow deep canyons with permanent or intermittent courses of water) and

oases touched by sand dunes swept by the desert winds.

The Selknam, hunter-gatherers of Tierra del Fuego, can serve as an analogy for

understanding early Atacama populations. They inhabited an extremely harsh

environment, but also developed a complex ideological system expressed in so-

phisticated ceremonies, which included body painting, masks, and performances

representing supernatural characters. These rituals helped them to maintain and

pass on their ideology and promoted social and biological reproduction. Similarly,

Australian desert Aborigines continue to exercise complex systems of thinking and

performance through a rich iconographic rock art and curation of tjuringa (sacred

boards with painted or incised motif), comprising ‘‘a semiotic system that medi-

ates social and territorial relations’’ (Rosenfeld and Smith 2002: 112), and body

painting with the ‘‘appearance of ancestral forces’’ (Morphy 1998: 23). In these

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Santoro , Arriaza , Standen , Marquet

cases we are dealing with highly abstract thought processes and complex aesthetic

expression which appears to have originated in the late Pleistocene (cf. Mulvaney

and Kamminga 1999).

In this chapter we present an analytical and comparative description of the

origin and cultural evolution of people in the Atacama Desert, bringing together

Northern Atacama

CentralAtacama

SouthernAtacama

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Figure 13.1 Relief map of the Atacama Desert obtained by interferometric C-band radar

from the space shuttle Endeavor (NASA/JPL/NIMA) showing principal hunter-gatherer

archaeological sites discussed in the text: (1) Quebrada Jaguay; (2) Ring Site; (3) Quebrada

Tacahuay; (4) Los Burros; (5) Acha and Chinchorro sites; (6) Camarones; (7) Punta

Pichalo; (8) Tiliviche and Aragon; (9) Patillo; (10) Las Conchas.

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People of the Coastal Atacama Desert

varied ecological and archaeological data to discuss the principal issues of the

natural and cultural history of the region, from the late Pleistocene to the late

Holocene (ca. 12,000–4,000 bp).

The Ecological Setting of the Atacama Desert

The Atacama/Peruvian Coastal Desert is one of the driest places on earth. Hyperar-

idity has been present in the central Atacama for at least the last 15 million years,

although recent studies have documented environmental changes (Betancourt et al.

2000; Grosjean and Nunez 1994; Latorre et al. 2002). These paleoecological changes

greatly affected the distribution of animals and plants as well as that of past human

populations in this region. This desertic landscape, located on the west coast of

South America, extends for more than 3,000 km along a narrow strip from northern

Peru (Lat. 58S) to northern Chile (Lat. 278S). It owes its existence to the drying effect

of the cold northward flowing Humboldt Current, the existence of air masses

associated with the sub-tropical high known as the South Pacific Anticyclone, and

to the rain-shadow effect of the Andean mountain ranges, which impedes the

penetration of moisture carried by the eastern trade winds. Although this desert is

continuous from Peru to Chile, it is usually broken into two main components.

The Peruvian Coastal Desert extends from Tumbes (ca. 58S) to Tacna in southern

Peru (ca. 188S), and the Atacama Desert from the area of Arica in northern Chile

(ca. 188S) to Copiapo (ca. 278S) (Marquet et al. 2002; Rauh 1985).

The northern part of the Peruvian Coastal Desert consists of a wide coastal plain

with shifting sands known as the Sechura Desert, some 100–150 km wide. During

the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene this coastal desert provided more favorable

living conditions in the form of spring water and shallow lagoons with fresh water,

as documented in Pampa de los Fosiles in the Cupisnique Desert, of northern Peru.

Further south in the Peruvian Coastal Desert, thick cloudbanks form over the

desert lands as a result of the cooling effect of the Humboldt Current, as similarly

occurs with the cold Bengela Current in the Namib Desert. When intercepted by

isolated mountains or steep coastal slopes, this cool moist air gives rise to a fog

zone known as garua in Peru and camanchaca in Chile. This moisture allows for

the development of isolated and diverse vegetation formations called lomas (small

hills), where plants are adapted to condense this humidity. The lomas, comprising

communities of annual and perennial plants (Herbaceae and Gramineae) and cacti

(Dillon 1997; Rauh 1985), grow vigorously during a short period in the winter of

the Southern Hemisphere, and attract a wide variety of animals and birds (came-

lids, rodents, foxes). These ephemeral ‘‘fog oases’’ (Lavallee 2000) were occupied

seasonally by hunter-gatherers whose base camps were located on the nearby coast

(Benfer 1999; Quilter 1991).

The Atacama Desert, located between 188S and 278S, can be divided in three

sections: north, central, and south (see Figure 13.1). The latter, being the driest, has

negligible archaeological data and thus is not described herein. Flanked to the east

by the high Coastal Cordillera, the littoral offers discrete bays and beaches for

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human habitation, experiencing a mild climate (see Figure 13.2). In contrast to

other Southern Hemisphere deserts (such as in Australia and southern Africa)

average yearly precipitation is near zero. Thus the supply of fresh water depends on

rain events outside the desert caused by convective air masses that cross the Andean

crest bringing moisture laden air across the altiplano from the Amazon Basin. This

phenomenon of the austral summer known as the invierno boliviano (the Bolivian

or altiplanic winter) is responsible for the radical fluctuation of superficial runoff

and groundwater that typically flows from the western slopes of the Andes to the

Pacific. In the northern Atacama the runoff creates narrow and deep quebradas

separated by 20–30 km of barren terrain with no vegetation at all. As rainfall

gradually declines toward the south the quebradas do not reach the ocean, but

rather discharge into inland basins, such as the Pampa del Tamarugal and Salar de

Atacama in the central Atacama. The southern Atacama (248–278S) is a territory

with no human habitation until recently, known as the despoblado (depopulate) de

Atacama. In sum, although terrestrial biomass production is scanty and sparse, the

existing water network, a distinctive feature of the Atacama Desert, offers a

predictable resource for hunter-gatherers and fishermen.

Figure 13.2 Typical landscape in the coast of the Atacama Desert flanked to the east by the

high Coastal Cordillera, leaving discrete bays and beaches for human habitation, with a

rather mild climate. The arrow shows shell middens of a permanent Holocene camp, south

of Camarones Valley.

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In contrast to limited terrestrial resources, the ocean offers a great variety and

quantity of fish, molluscs, sea mammals, sea birds, and algae. This high productivity

is triggered by a series of oceanographic, geographic, and climatic factors that

produce very high levels of biomass (Llagostera 1992; Nunez 1983; Schiappacasse

and Niemeyer 1984; Yesner 1980) crucial to the establishment of relatively perman-

ent human occupations along the coast of Peru and Chile appearing in the late

Pleistocene (Lavallee 2000; Llagostera 1992; Nunez 1983; Sandweiss et al. 1998, 1999;

Schiappacasse and Niemeyer 1984). The Atacama Desert would have had a com-

pletely different cultural history if human populations had depended exclusively on

terrestrial resources, as did many groups of the arid zone of interior Australia and the

Kalahari (Hank 2002a). The combination of coastal and terrestrial resources is also

observed in the Namib Desert, though the latter contains a much larger terrestrial

biomass in terms of edible plants and animals (Hank 2002b).

The northern section, known as the Fertile Coast, is characterized by five valleys

or quebradas that traverse the desert (see Figures 13.1 and 13.3). In the Peruvian

Desert to the north, more than 50 wider valleys reach the coast (Lavallee 2000). At

the mouth and upstream of these valleys one finds localized habitats in the form of

oases, which host fruit-bearing plants such as Prosopis (a mesquite-like tree found

Figure 13.3 Typical valley mouth in the northern Atacama Desert. Rich habitat for hunter-

gatherers and fishermen, who enjoyed marine and oasis resources and permanent, though

brackish, water (a key feature). The shell midden in the foreground of the picture corres-

ponds to Camerones 14, a permanent early Holocene camp.

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in patches), small game (such as Ctenomys, a gopher-like fosorial animal), and

camelids (guanaco – Lama guanicoe), abundant sea birds, small quantities of

freshwater fish and crayfish, roots of reed and tomatillo (Lycopersicon chilense),

and potable water. People also appear to have moved upstream to look for lithic

raw materials, a resource which is noticeably absent on the coast. Conditions in the

terminal Pleistocene appear to have been more lacustral than today, with fluctu-

ations of a magnitude that are seen to have had varying effects on human popula-

tions – an issue which is still under vigorous debate (Grosjean and Nunez 1994;

Latorre et al. in press; Nunez et al. 2002; Usselmann et al. 1999).

The central Atacama lacks the coastal oases, with fresh water restricted to

brackish springs. The landscape is essentially barren and vegetation is restricted

to lomas, the vegetation depending on the coastal fog which is reduced in extent

along the coast and the Pampa del Tamarugal. This is a large inland basin

connected to 15 to 20 quebradas, with Aroma, Tarapaca, Chacarilla, Guatacondo,

and Manı being the most important (Luis Briones pers. comm.), and a series of

salares (ancient dry lakes) located behind the Coastal Cordillera. These interior

basins experienced wetter conditions by the end of the Pleistocene and also

possibly the Holocene (Latorre et al. in press).

The Peopling of the Region and Possible Migratory Routes

Three human migratory routes have been proposed for the colonization of this

desert zone by the end of the Pleistocene, linked to colonists entering South

America through the Isthmus of Panama (ca. 13,000–12,000 bp). In the first

route, people are argued to have moved from the Amazonian Basin to the cold

territories of the high Andes. On the coast of the Atacama Desert these late

Pleistocene immigrants are argued to have become hunter-gatherers and fisher-

men. Recent mitochondrial DNA analyses from late Holocene human remains of

the Atacama (ca. 4,000 bp) illustrate a strong genetic link with current tropical

forest populations (Moraga et al. 2002; Rivera and Rothhammer 1986, 1991). This

does not necessarily mean, however, that all cultural traits found in the Pacific were

imported from the Amazon Basin.

The second migratory route assumes that specialized hunter-gatherers, with

sophisticated lithic industries, colonized the Andes from northern Colombia,

next to the Isthmus of Panama (Rothhammer et al. 1984). According to Grosjean

and Nunez (1994), during the mid-Holocene a period of drought affected the

highlands of the central Atacama Desert, causing the shrinking of lakes and the

reduction of biotic resources with a subsequent loss of hunting opportunities (but

see Latorre et al. 2002; in press, for a different paleoecological perspective).

Settlements are seen to have been abandoned, creating a silencio arqueologico

(‘‘archaeological silence’’) as residential groups became more mobile or people

concentrated in local refuges or moved to the coast (Nunez 1983).

Neither of these two hypothesized migratory scenarios is currently supported, as

recent archaeological data show that the first permanent settlements occurred

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slightly earlier on the coast (ca. 11,000 bp; Sandweiss et al. 1998) than within the

highlands, where occupation is dated to ca. 10,800–10,600 bp (Nunez et al. 2002).

A third route proposes a migration along the coast from North America, with a

population carrying an unspecialized lithic industry adjusted to coastal and marine

environments (Llagostera 1992). Lavallee (2000) suggests that people used water-

craft to cross the Pacific Ocean from Siberia to Alaska by the end of the Pleistocene.

This is plausible given that colonists of Australia used watercraft to cross a similar

distance from Southeast Asia along the Wallacean Islands some 40,000 years earlier

than the first Americans (cf. Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999). Although this is an

interesting and challenging hypothesis, it requires further archaeological testing

using dated sequences from both the coast and interior.

The First Coastal Squatters (11,000–10,000 bp)

Evidence for the earliest late Pleistocene inhabitants is difficult to find, since most

of the sites are now located on drowned landscapes. Richardson (1981) has

suggested investigating littoral zones with narrow continental shelves, where the

rising ocean caused less horizontal displacement of the shoreline (see Chapter 10,

this volume, for an extended discussion of this issue in the Australian context). It is

precisely this kind of context that has allowed the preservation above modern sea

level of the sites of Quebrada Jaguay, Quebrada Tacahuay, Ring Site, and Las

Conchas (see Figure 13.1). For areas with less steeply declining continental shelves

few archaeological sites are found along the coast before ca. 6,000 bp, when much

of the current coastline formed and was settled. The same phenomenon is de-

scribed for the coast of the Namib Desert (Hank 2002b) and accounts for the

appearance of later occupation of the Australian coast, as well as the coast of south

central Chile (Quiroz and Sanchez 2004).

The earliest known occupation of the Atacama Desert took place at the end of

the last glacial period, which was characterized by more humid conditions in the

highlands between 13,000 and 9,500 bp, thereby providing the coast with higher

discharges of freshwater. This process created exceptional estuarine habitats at the

mouths of major valleys and small quebradas, including the formation of shallow

freshwater lagoons, such as is found at the Ring Site (Sandweiss et al. 1989).

The earliest archaeological sites are dated to around 11,000–10,000 bp and

correspond to groups with ‘‘specialized fish-netting technology,’’ as recorded in

Quebrada Jahuay, the Ring Site, and Quebrada Tacahuay (Keefer et al. 1998;

Sandweiss et al. 1989, 1998). According to Sandweiss et al. (1998, 1999), site QJ

280 at Quebrada Jaguay is the only base camp dated to the late Pleistocene (ca.

11,105–11,088 bp), with evidence of post-holes representing an early form of

architecture (Daniel Sandweiss, pers. comm.). It is interesting to note that people

appear to have specialized their prey strategies in the capture of a single taxon of

fish from the family Sciaenidae (calculated to be 17 cm in length, based on the size

of the otoliths), and Mesodesma donacium, a species of mollusc bivalve normally

found in sandy beaches (Sandweiss et al. 1998, 1999). Site QJ 280 also presents

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abundant lithic debitage from the production of bifacial and unifacial artifacts,

including obsidian that was imported from outcrops located 130 km inland, at an

altitude of 2,850 m above sea level (asl) (Sandweiss et al. 1998). This suggests that

people operated within a large territorial range extending from the coast to the

Andes. At Tacahuay, a logistical camp with dates beginning ca. 10,800 bp, there is

also an extraordinary preference for small schooling fish of the same average size

and taxon (anchovies – Engrundis ringens, anchoas – Anchoa spp., shad, herring),

and sea birds such as cormorant and boobies (deFrance et al. 2001). The use of

fishing nets is inferred from the standardized size of the fish and the finding of a

net fragment at Quebrada Jaguay dated to the Holocene (Keefer et al. 1998).

In the Holocene there is evidence for people diving in the sub-tidal zone to

procure molluscs using an extraction tool known as chope used to pry molluscs

from rocks, for hunting with harpoons for large fish and marine mammals such as

sea lions (Otaria juvata and O. flavescens), for fishing with fishhook and fishing

lines, and for the collection of algae. The lack of similar evidence in the terminal

Pleistocene assemblages suggests that during the late Pleistocene and early Holo-

cene people employed different procurement strategies to access marine and

terrestrial resources.

Gifted Holocene Hunter-Gatherers (10,000–4,000 bp)

As deduced from several sites along the coast and the inland basin, by 10,000 years

ago, human groups in both the northern and central sectors of the Atacama Desert

employed a more specialized maritime economy, incorporating an integrated

transhumance system (Nunez 1983). The archaeological sites along the coast

comprise extended and more permanent open camps with shell middens that

cover several square kilometers and which have a depth of more than 4 m, such

as the Punta Pichalo site excavated by Bird in the 1940s (Bird 1943) (see Figure

13.4). Occupants employed a sophisticated tool kit that included fishhooks of

vegetal thorns, weights and composite sinker hooks made of bone, ring-necked

nets (chinguillo), and harpoon heads made of bone. They also manufactured a wide

variety of lithic tools used as projectile points, knives, and scrapers. Obsidian

implements and debitage are common at the coastal sites (Munoz 1993), indicating

that foraging included journeys to the interior highlands and/or that these and

other materials were obtained through exchange networks with peoples of these

interior areas. By the mid-Holocene (after ca. 7,000 bp) maritime technology

evolved to include fishhooks manufactured from Choromytilus chorus shell, awls,

polishers, lanceolates and double points, burins, knife blades made on thick bifacial

preforms, grinding stones, hand stones, choppers, multipurpose flaked tools made

out of chalcedony and basalt, wooden darts, bags stitched with fiber, cords, and

reed mats. Later in the Holocene (ca. 4,000 bp) the manufacture and use of shell

beads and pendants, fringed skirts, reed brushes, lithic artifacts with ocher, and

pelican skins appear in the archaeological record, pointing to the beginning of a

new cultural era.

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The lack of terrestrial animals appears to be ‘‘compensated’’ by the hunting of

sea lions which were hunted with harpoons while asleep on rocky foreshores

(Standen 2003). Molluscs were another source of protein, principally loco (Con-

cholepas concholepas), lapas (Fissurella spp.), and chorito maico (Perumytilus pur-

puratus) (Luis Briones pers. comm.). The size of these species corresponds to

individuals normally found in the intertidal and supratidal zones of rocky beaches.

The evidence for watercraft at this time is still uncertain and seems to have been a

later technological development.

Sites in the inland basin of Pampa del Tamarugal such as Tiliviche and Aragon

(see Figure 13.1), located 40 km from the littoral and about 950 m asl, appear to

have served as transitory logistical camps. It is thought that groups traveled there to

gather raw material for lithic artifacts, to collect reed fiber, to gather scanty

terrestrial plants, and to hunt small game. These camps were occupied from

9,000–4,500 bp when this region experienced wetter conditions (Latorre at al. in

press). At Tiliviche there is evidence for domestic structures consisting of simple

circular and shallow depressions surrounded by post-holes dug into the hard

ground of the terrace (Nunez 1983; see Figure 13.5). These kinds of wind shelters

were possibly covered with reed mats, fur, and branches. Domestic refuse was

dispersed around these enclosures, and after their abandonment, they were covered

Figure 13.4 Shell midden at Punta Pichalo in central Atacama Desert, which demonstrates

the permanent and intense occupation of the coast based on a hunting-gathering marine

economy, during the Holocene (picture taken by Junius Birds in 1939; reproduced courtesy

of the American Museum of Natural History). Grete Mostny, fomer Director of the Museo

Nacional de Historia Natural, is shown in the right corner.

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by refuse from nearby dwellings (see also Quiani 9, a middle Archaic camp, located

in the south of Arica; cf. Munoz 1993).

Social and Ideological Complexity in the Atacama Desert Coast

According to Arriaza and Standen (2002), one of the most remarkable aspects of

coastal Atacama Desert people were the processes they used to mummify their

dead. This cultural trait is labeled ‘‘Chinchorro’’ after the name of a beach, north of

Arica, where the first evidence was found by Max Uhle, early in the twentieth

century (Uhle 1919). Geographically this phenomenon has a rather narrow distri-

bution from Ilo in southern Peru, to Patillo south of Iquique, approximately

300 km in length (see Figure 13.1); to date there is no evidence of artificial

mummification away from the coast. The earliest evidence to date for mummifi-

cation was located at the mouth of the valley of Camarones (see Figures 13.1 and

13.3), where Virgilio Schiappacasse y Hans Niemeyer established the association of

domestic debris and Chinchorro inhumation. These findings in the Atacama

represent the most ancient (ca. 8,000–7,000 bp and 3,500 bp) artificial mummi-

fication known in the world, a typical trait of the northern and central Atacama

Figure 13.5 Open camp of Tiliviche, an inland oasis around 40 km from the coast. Post-

holes correspond to an early Holocene wind breaker (photo courtesy of Lautaro Nunez).

Note the shallow midden deposit compared with Punta Pichalo (Figure 13.3).

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Desert. South of Patillo, still in central Atacama and in the southern Atacama,

artificial mummification was not part of the Huentelauquen Tradition linked to

the Las Conchas site (see Figure 13.1) in Antofagasta (Costa-Junqueira 2001;

Llagostera et al. 2000). Although natural mummification was likely known to the

Chinchorro, they created their own unique artificial mummification methods.

These methods drastically transformed the bodies, halting decomposition, and

were seen to allow the dead to ‘‘participate’’ in a new social context of unknown

meanings within an egalitarian social system. It is important to note that the

highland and coastal hunter-gatherers of western South America developed a

wide variety of procedures to ‘‘manipulate’’ their dead. These practices become

associated with ceremonial centers linked to the elite of highly stratified societies of

the central Andes (Santoro et al. in press).

Arriaza and Standen (2002: 23) point out ‘‘societies with centralized socio-

political power and class differentiation would have richer and more sophisticated

mortuary rites allocated for elite members than hunter-gatherer societies.’’ They

created a ‘‘variety of techniques of artificial mummification that transformed the

bodies into gleaming black or red statues, a sharp contrast to the opaque shades of

the desert’’ that rivals those of complex societies. Arriaza (1995) classified the body

preparation procedures as black, red, bandaged, and mud-coated mummies. The

black, red, and bandaged mummies correspond to the category known as complex

preparation (Uhle 1919). This great variety of mummification methods changed

through time from black to red, and from red to mud-coated techniques.

The ‘‘black mummies’’ were the most elaborate, requiring more time and

knowledge of anatomy for their preparation. Examples of these mummies have

been radiocarbon dated from 7,000 to 4,800 bp. According to Arriaza and Standen

(2002), these bodies were completely skinned, disarticulated, and the organs and

muscles were removed. Subsequently, the skeleton was rearticulated and the bones

reinforced with sticks and reeds. The body cavities (head and trunk) were stuffed

with ashes or dry grasses. Later, they modeled the entire body with an ash paste,

recreating the original volume of the corpse. Following this process, the morticians

reattached the skin, possibly the body’s own or that of an animal (seal or sea lion)

and the head was adorned with a short, black haired wig. The Chinchorros also kept

and modeled some of the facial features and genitalia. As a final touch they painted

the mummy with a thin layer of black-blue manganese paste; hence the reason for

the title ‘‘black mummy’’ (Arriaza and Standen 2002: 29).

The ‘‘red mummies’’ were simpler than the black ones in their preparations,

characterized by incisions and sutures at the shoulders, groin, knees, and ankles

with the objective of removing the organs and part of the muscles. The head was

disconnected from the trunk and the brain removed. All the body cavities were

dried with glowing coals and ashes, a custom known also in the coast of central

Peru, where people added salt to treat their dead (Benfer 1999). Wooden poles were

slipped under the skin through the arms, legs, and spine of the deceased to provide

support and rigidity. The cavities were stuffed with feathers from sea birds

(pelicans, seagulls), different types of soils, and wool from camelids (llamas

(Lama glama), alpacas (Lama paco), guanacos, or vicunas (Vicugna vicugna), the

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other wild American camelid only found in the high Andes, >4,000 m asl). The

head was treated similarly – they added a long wig made from locks of human hair

and a paste of manganese paint for the face, modeling the facial characteristics, as

well as securing the wig to the head. Afterwards, the entire body except the face and

wig was painted with red ocher. This red style first appeared approximately 4,000

years bp and continued for almost 500 years (Arriaza and Standen 2002).

The ‘‘bandaged mummies’’ were basically a variation on the red mummies

except the skin was reattached in the form of bandages. The ‘‘mud-coated mum-

mies’’ were naturally dried bodies that were covered with a layer of mud, possibly

prepared with a mixture of earth, water, and an adhesive of unknown origin

(Arriaza and Standen 2002).

Why did these groups expend so much energy and engage in such complex

procedures to prepare their dead? Perhaps it was thought that the dead were going

to face an unknown world of supernatural metaphysical forces or perhaps, instead,

they would start a new life within their own community; therefore becoming a new

category of social actor. It may be that their function was to mitigate the impact

their death caused in their own social group. We do not know the reasons why

different mummification procedures were applied to members of the same group

and if the members who received greater attention enjoyed greater social prestige

during their lifetime and had certain privileges that they maintained even after

death. These questions warrant further investigation.

Arriaza and Standen (2002) suggest that through the act of mummification

groups produced inanimate beings with simultaneous spiritual bonds to the living,

their ancestors, and to the gods. Particularly, it might be possible that post-mortem

manipulation of the dead began due to beliefs that ‘‘the soul of the deceased runs

the risk of losing its existence if the body decomposes, or the living would lose

contact with the soul of the deceased should the body decompose’’ (Arriaza and

Standen 2002: 40–1).

Thus, these mortuary rituals may have been necessary to ensure the eternal

existence of the body and the soul of the deceased, as well as the continuity of the

group (Arriaza and Standen 2002: 40–1). What is certain, however, is that the

Chinchorro invested a considerable amount of time and energy in mummifying

their dead, which makes these mummies a unique phenomenon in the world, as

much for their antiquity as for the social context in which they were produced. The

technical knowledge and ideological concepts tied to mummification, as well as the

subsistence patterns which underpinned these, all required a system that allowed

for the preservation of a historic memory for several millennia. To ensure the

cultural continuity of such a legacy from one generation to the next, people

adopted a course of action which included mummification. This practice may

have served to preserve internal cohesion, reinforce social integrity, and perpetuate

a collective historic memory. The momentum created by the actual process of

mummifying a newly deceased member of the community may have created a self-

sustaining milieu for the Chinchorro people. Codes of social conduct could be

instilled during the process of mummification, as this practice may have created

the necessary conditions for cultural transmission and reproduction.

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Conclusion

The cultural history of the people in the Atacama Desert can be divided into three

major epochs, summarized as follows. The early epoch corresponds to immigrants

arriving on the coast of the Atacama no later than 11,000 bp at Quebrada Jaguay

and Quebrada Tacahuay, north of Arica. The available archaeological data show

that these people were equipped with simple and non-specialized technologies and

focused their procurement on a narrow spectrum of molluscs, sea birds, and fish.

There is, however, evidence for the possible use of nets for fishing, even at this early

stage. Populations also occupied the high Andes at altitudes of 3,000–4,500 m asl

on the margins of the desert from around 10,800 bp, but here they employed a

more technologically sophisticated lithic industry characterized by highly formal-

ized tools for the capture and butchering of large game (including camelids,

deer, and occasionally the American horse), as well as small rodents and birds

(Aldenderfer 1999; Nunez et al. 2002; Santoro and Nunez 1987). This different

adaptation may be linked to the arrival of two cultural ‘‘traditions’’ to the Atacama

Desert, which maintained their character through prehistory. While the modern

descendents of these original coastal peoples are hard to distinguish among the

current population of the coastal cities, the highland people have survived

the pressure of European invasion and the acculturation trends of the modern

republic and today they assert different forms of social and ethnic recognition.

The first populations detected archaeologically in the Atacama may be related to

earlier immigrants into the Americas, from 13,000–12,000 bp (or even earlier).

They may have moved rapidly through new lands, as Birdsell (1977) suggested for

Australia, leaving behind parties that started the more serious process of coloniza-

tion as seen in Quebrada Jaguay (site QJ 280) at around 11,000 years bp (Sandweiss

et al. 1989). This fast movement of the colonists is consistent with the tight

chronological sequence of the first Americans, given that there is no clear chrono-

logical gap between the earliest known settlements in North vs South America. In

fact, the earliest Paleo-Indian site in the South Americas is Monte Verde, south of

Chile, dated between 13,500 and 12,500 bp, with other early sites from Patagonia

(i.e., Cueva del Medio, Piedra Museo, and Los Toldos) dated to between 12,390 and

12,890 bp (Massone and Prieto 2004). The occurrence of later dates for the first

occupants of the Atacama Desert provides a challenge for future archaeologists to

investigate whether a cline in settlement of this desert has occurred (a lag effect) or

whether sites of comparable age have simply not been investigated yet or have not

survived due to taphonomic processes.

In the second epoch, dated to the Holocene, the coastal desert people show a

clear shift in their subsistence technology, as well as their social and ideological

strategies, which persevered, with only minor changes, for several millennia. The

material expressions of this new ideology seem to have been quite dynamic, as seen

in the wide variety of methods used for artificial mummification. Specialized

technological solutions for exploitation of marine resources were developed by

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the mid-Holocene, and remained in place with only minor changes until late

prehistory.

A distinctive feature of the hunter-gatherer-fishermen of the Atacama Desert was

the opportunity to engage in agriculture, afforded by the presence of valleys and

quebradas that cross-cut the desert in the northern section (see Figure 13.3). From

ca. 4,000–3,000 bp the introduction of agriculture is seen to complement a

maritime focused economy, thereby allowing desert people to establish permanent

settlements in the form of small hamlets, with simple architecture (wooden posts,

reed mats, and cane) of no more that 10 hectares in extension, as seen late in

prehistory. This kind of infrastructure is commonly found along the quebradas and

inland basins, such as Pampa del Tamarugal. Along the coast, people maintained

more simple open camps until the sixteenth century ad; the time of the European

invasion. This change in the way of life of the peoples of the coastal Atacama Desert

can be accommodated by the concept of the ‘‘Neolithic Revolution,’’ as coined by

the influential Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe, whose ideas were in-

corporated into the interpretation of Andean cultural history during the 1960s and

1970s. This ‘‘revolution’’ within the coastal economies of the Atacama did not

result in substantial change in staple foods, however, as these were still provided by

the ocean. Processes of social class differentiation and other cultural ‘‘sophistica-

tion’’ classified elsewhere as ‘‘civilization’’ took a different form here. The waves of

the ocean and the sand dunes of the desert witness a different human social

creation that we have attempted to shed some light on within this chapter.

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