Volume 31, Number 1 ■ January, 2016 Center for the Study of the First Americans Department of Anthropology Texas A&M University 4352 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-4352 www.centerfirstamericans.com

Human Life amid Desolation Carolina Salas of the University of Tarapacá supervises students in her Field Methods class as they excavate the Quebrada Maní 12 late-Pleistocene site in the great of , the driest place on Earth. In this wasteland that has been fossilized for 5 million years, hunter-gatherers exploited corridors of freshwater oases in search of food and toolstone. The Atacama is remarkable for its extraordinary state of preservation—artifacts of bone and wood survive for thousands of years, middens preserve evidence of paleoenvironments dating back 50,000 years, and the remains exist today of vegetation that was growing at the time of human occupation 12,000 years ago. For our story on Paleoamericans who colonized this extreme environment , see page 4. Photo by Calogero M. Santoro

he Center for the Study of the First Americans fosters research and public T interest in the Peopling of the Americas. The ­Center, an integral part of the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University, promotes­ interdisciplinary­ scholarly dialogue­ among physical, geological, biological and social ­scientists. The Mammoth Trumpet, news magazine of the Center, seeks to involve you in the peopling of the Americas by report- ing on developments in all pertinent areas of knowledge.­ 4 Volume 31 n Number 1

ers working on environmental and archaeological research in the deserts of the Southern Hemisphere. “In 2003, we had The Archaeology of our first Southern Deserts Con- ference, and we recently had our fourth in Mendoza, Argentina,” Mars-on-Earth Latorre says. At the first confer- ence he met archaeologist Calo- gero Santoro of the University of Tarapacá in , Chile. The irony doesn’t escape Latorre: “We’re both Chileans working on similar things, but we didn’t really talk until that conference in Australia.” Latorre showed his new col- Alluvial fan of Quebrada Chipana. Sediment colors identify different league the research he was mudflow events. Nearby is Chipana 1, a lithic quarry utilized for doing for his Ph.D. on develop- several thousand years. In the background is Challacollo Hill, which ing a paleoecological record of probably served as a landmark in this otherwise flat landscape and vegetation change in the Ata- was exploited for copper during colonial times. cama. What captured Santoro’s

P. SALGADO P. attention was rodent middens— nests made by rock-dwelling hen television producers of “Space Odyssey: rodents—and what they said about environmental context. The Voyage to the Planets” looked for locations to film rodents build their dens of plant fragments, animal dung, and W Mars scenes, they turned to the Atacama Desert of small rocks. Three factors slow the decay of midden materials: northern Chile. In June 2013 NASA sent a four-wheeled rover crystallized rodent urine, which binds together the aggregate; named Zoe to the Atacama to help scientists understand how the dry climate of the desert; and protection from the elements life survives in extreme environments, a study with implica- offered by rock overhangs or caves. tions for both Earth and Mars. The findings of the Zoe op- Materials incorporated into a midden, some dated to 50,000 eration are currently aiding scientists in determining years, can be analyzed to reconstruct past envi- how best to equip its next Mars rover, set to launch ronments. “These things get preserved over for the Red Planet in 2020. thousands of years, and they’re used for The Atacama, whose craggy terrain and salty paleoecological reconstruction in arid soils mimic the surface of Mars, boasts the dubi- environments,” Latorre explains, ous distinction of being the most arid wasteland on “and in South America Earth. Years can pass between one rainfall and the we have chinchilla rats next. Stretching from the Pacific Ocean up to 4000 (loosely related to the masl along the western Andean slope, the Atacama chinchilla). We use the spans more than 12 degrees of latitude. Its position be- middens to reconstruct tween two mountain chains, the and the Chilean past vegetation on the land- Coast Range, prevents moisture advection from both scape. It can be 10,000 or the Pacific and the Atlantic, thus creating a two-sided 20,000 years old, a snapshot of rain shadow. Geological research suggests that in some the landscape from that time.” parts of the Desert, such as in today’s Chile, hyperarid- ity has persisted for 10 to 15 million years—since the late The Atacama isn’t a barrier Miocene—making it the oldest continuously arid region on after all the planet. For decades, researchers assumed the Ata- cama stood as an obstacle to human settle- Middens useful in reconstructing paleo­environments ment and biotic dispersal. Scientists therefore Claudio Latorre Hidalgo, Quaternary paleoecologist at the excavated sites along the Pacific coast or in Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, first looked to the upper-elevation zones in the adjacent Andes other­wordly Atacama Desert 12 years ago when Mike Smith, a but ignored the hyperarid core. In recent years, pioneering desert archaeologist and honorary senior research however, new evidence has emerged that gives fellow at the National Museum of Australia, launched the clues for understanding the cultural complexity and diversity of Southern Desert Conference, which brings together research- the peopling of South America during the last Ice Age. Latorre January n 2016 5

and Santoro lead a at QM 12 reveal a diverse cultural pack of researchers assemblage of lithics, burnt and on this front. cut bones, marine gastropods, pig- It was while in- ments, plant fibers, and wooden vestigating mid- artifacts near a prepared fireplace. dens for evidence of Although they originally thought it past environments was just a single camp, now as they that they discov- do more archaeological studies ered lithic artifacts they find that people stayed there “strewn across the longer and performed many activi- desert.” After con- ties. “There are wooden and stone sidering the con- artifacts,” Latorre notes, “shells sequences of past from the coast, pigments and rocks climate change, they concluded Pleistocene wood: 18,000-year-old that the forbidding logs, preserved by the severely desert wasn’t a bar- ­desiccating environment, protruding rier to human oc- from a fluvial sequence.

cupation after all. j.rech Latorre recalls that they set out to search for sites first in the from the highlands for making lithic tools.” In fact, the lithic Precordillera, a mountain range that lies between the Andes technology shows that QM 12 occupants were highly skilled and the Intermediate Depression. Then Eugenia Gayó, a Ph.D. knappers who chiefly used bifacial reduction. High-quality tool- student of his, started developing paleo­ecological records stone was brought to the site from at least one remote source. from plant macrofossil beds discovered in the middle of Movement over vast territory the hyperarid core. “These “We have evidence that these people were were literally alluvial fans moving all over the place,” Latorre says. in the middle of a landscape Shells from the coast and obsidian and that looks like Mars today,” other volcanic rocks from the Andes point Latorre says, “and these fans to the mobility and resourcefulness of the had gallery forests and ripar- Quebrada Maní occupants. The problem ian vegetation growing late in now is to sort out migration routes that the Pleistocene. Even though linked the profusion of habitats. What, he this was a hyperarid land- asks, was the role of the Atacama vis-à-vis scape with no rainfall, the gallery forests were there be- Rech collecting geological samples from cause of groundwater moving ­Quebrada Sipuca, located in the hyperarid through the system, and that core of the Atacama south of the Maní basin. . UGALD E . was driving the availability of p these resource patches during the late Pleistocene.” He cred- the ecosystems of the Andes and the Pacific? “This enormous its discrete local oases, or “paleowetlands,” within the inland diversity of habitats and settlements shows up at the same time,” Atacama Desert with sustaining human populations during he tells us. He cites as examples Dan Sandweiss’s work on the this time. What he and Santoro found is that these ecosystems coast (MT 20-4, 21-1, “Early maritime adaptation in western were so extensive that this area of South America”) and work by Juan the hyperarid core contains some Albarracin, Jose Capriles, and Kurt of the largest concentrations of late- Rademaker in the Andes (MT 30-4, Pleistocene sites per square km in all this issue, “Reaching new heights of South America. in the Peruvian Andes”). “What were Their team discovered the key these migrational routes?” he won- site, Quebrada Maní 12 (QM 12), in a ders. “These are open questions.” hyper­arid drainage of the southern- Latorre and Santoro hypothesize most portion of the Pampa del Tama- that it wasn’t scarcity of resources rugal, one of the largest closed inland basins in northern Chile. This 12,000- Latorre photographing a seagull egg o to 13,000-year-old human occupation r found on Pampa del Tamarugal south to

lies 85 km from the Pacific Ocean at a n of the Quebrada Maní 12 basin, about

an elevation of 1240 m. Excavations S C . 60 km from the Pacific Ocean. 6 Volume 31 n Number 1

that drove populations to cross large expanses of territory, but systems for people. You had to move through the desert, which the urgent need to locate other people. Males needed to find led to colonizing the Atacama more than once.” Archaeological mates, for one thing. Santoro believes that an entirely selfish excavations and radiocarbon datings along the Quebrada Maní motive spurred these early settlers to seek human connections drainage identified at least two different periods of prehistoric and collaborate with other populations: to ensure survival. human occupation: a late-Pleistocene phase, 12,800–11,700 “They shared resources to share information,” he explains. calybp­ , discovered on the surface of a terrace labeled QM12, Information was very important because water was present in and a later occupation, dated from 2600 to 700 calybp, char- the Atacama Desert only in certain locations. Instead of fight- acterized by cultivated fields, irrigation canals, and ceramics ing for it, people looked for social ways to share the scarce re- on the lower Pleistocene terraces. These younger sites, aban- source and thus survive in this doned as recently as 680 years extreme environment. Santoro ago, were part of an occupation wonders whether lithic tech- coinciding with increased fluvial nologies and other knowledge output in Quebrada Maní during were also shared. If so, did the late Holocene. there exist a network of sites? Although these successive human occupations aren’t Santoro (left) and Rech examining clearly delineated, the surface specimens of Equisetum sp. of the Atacama is extremely (horsetail), Distichlis spicata stable. Late-Pleistocene occu- (desert saltgrass), and Gramineae pations were settled on sur- preserved in situ on the lower faces that date back to the late terraces of Quebrada Maní 12. Miocene. Latorre challenges These plants were growing at us to “imagine a landscape the time of human occupation that’s been fossilized for 5 mil- 11,400–12,000 years ago. lion years. What you have is a

c. SALAS c. surface that’s exposed to the And did this network promote human migration? These ques- atmosphere for a period of millions of years, and that’s the tions inform Latorre and Santoro’s research as they move from surface that these late-Pleistocene occupants came to settle an inductive approach to a more deductive methodology. on, to build their encampments.” You can find 12,000- or 13,000-year-old dates in the first 37 cm of surface, but below A way station in the desert that lies rock-hard gypsum salt, which forms a concrete crust; Human movement not only spanned long distances, it also nothing can be retrieved below that. Latorre explains that crossed distinct epochs. Quebrada Maní, for instance, was re- patches of the first 37 cm have been disturbed over and over peatedly abandoned for thousands of years at a time, only to be again, with the result that “the site stratigraphy is composed resettled again. Santoro observes that “people kept going back to of completely reworked material. It’s this thing that was used these inland locations over time because the desert lies between for a brief period of time and then abandoned. By brief period the Pacific Ocean and the high Andes, two major ecological I mean 900 years.”

Lithic tools found on the surface of QM12. A, thin ­elongated bifacial tool in advanced stage of reduc- tion; B, naturally broken bifacial tool reworked in one margin­ as a burin and sidescraper; C, triangular stemmed projectile points that resemble Las ­Cuevas– type points; D, “Parapatane” reworked projectile B D 0 15 point. A, B, and D are made of locally available rocks; cm projectile points C1–C3 are made of toolstone from extra-local (about 20 km distant) or unknown sources.

Points C and D, whose morphologies are normally 19e30 77s (2013) associated with highland early-­Archaic points, are the eview first specimens found on the lowlands of the Atacama R Desert. For the authors this could mean either that

“the surface of the site is compounded of a mixture of ryScience late-Pleistocene and early-Archaic materials” or that a ern

these typologies “are even more ancient than uat

we have supposed for years and actually originated 1 2 3 Q m

A C C C o

in the lowlands of the Atacama.” fr January n 2016 7

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Environmental versus cultural motives tive environment where there was plenty of water and food, but We know a site was occupied for, say, 900 years, but we don’t people managed to find quebradas from the Andes on down.” know whether the occupation was interrupted by climate The task of examining cultural aspects extends to the change or by human agency. Latorre believes that climate very artifacts found at Quebrada Maní. “They were very good was responsible for patterns of movement over time. He artists skilled at making beautiful lithic tools,” Santoro says, notes that “the youngest “and they were also skilled at making dates we have for these textiles, or processing fibers. We don’t sites is 11,700 ka, and know whether there were designated the last dates we have for people doing that, or whether everyone any paleo­ecological evi- had those abilities. My impression is dence, where there was that there were special people doing water, is 11,600 ka. So these things, since they were so good literally the groundwater at it. They concentrated on doing one table collapsed because specific task.” If he is correct, then the of lower infiltration and first settlers of the Atacama developed decreased recharge in professional specialization that we find the high Andes, which dried out the wetlands, Santoro showing the Quebrada Maní 12 forcing these guys to site to visitors.

move somewhere else.” SALGADO P. Santoro argues that cultural forces can also drive human in advanced societies today, where efficiency and skill are movement through time. “We think everything is related to or an closely intertwined. effect of environmental conditions,” he explains, “but there are How far did Paleoamericans of Chile travel to get high-qual- cultural conditions. People decide to go to one place or another ity toolstone? To answer that, Santoro’s team has been send- because of political or ideological reasons, and these may work ing found obsidian to Michael Glascock at the Archaeometry in tandem with ecological constraints. The Pacific was an attrac- Laboratory, Research Reactor Center, University of Missouri, 8 Volume 31 n Number 1

for analysis, and they eagerly anticipate the arrival of lithics record we find lithics and bone, but here we have a lot more expert Nicholas Tripsevich of the University of California, cultural material that we can use to identify how people lived.” Berkeley, with a portable x-ray machine to analyze obsidian Rech describes ramifications of the remarkable capacity samples from different sites in northern Chile and compare of the Atacama to preserve organic materials. “In most other their chemical signatures with samples from southern locations you’ve had 10,000–15,000 years of erosion, but in and (MT 24-2, “Following the obsidian trail”). These the Atacama sites are only covered by 5–15 cm of sediment,” studies, says Santoro, “will help us understand the mobility of he explains. “Logs 17,000 years old still lie on the landscape these people, to see how far they went to get their raw materials surface. In fact, in the Atacama in the 19th and 20th centu- and bring them to camp.” Tracking just how far these people ries people mined these Pleistocene trees to use them for traveled to procure toolstone of the desired quality and color is charcoal in the heyday of the saltpeter industry. It’s not just also a way of gauging their esthetic motives. an isolated tree out there; you go into these alluvial fans Not only were their toolmakers highly skilled, they were and floodplains that drain out of the Andes to find trunks or also imaginative. To maximize the use obtained from imported large portions of these trees that were buried by sediment, toolstone, they modified existing artifacts to create new tools. and they’re mining out these ancient trees to use as firewood This resourceful innovation appears in Paleoamerican occupa- today. That’s the kind of preservation we’re dealing with tions and in later occupations as well. there.” For centuries international interests have tapped the rich Amazing preservation mineral reserves of the Atacama. The desert has deposits Set down a stone artifact in the Atacama, or even one made of of copper and other metals, and the world’s largest natural bone or wood, and it will remain there for thousands of years. supply of , which was mined on a huge scale Thanks to the remarkable preservation in the hyperarid and carried by fleets of square-riggers around Cape Horn desert, we can get answers to sophisticated questions about to ports in the eastern U.S. and Europe. In the 19th century human subsistence patterns in the Atacama. Geologist Jason the Atacama border dispute between Chile and Bolivia over Rech of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who has been these resources led to the . It’s interesting working in the Atacama since the late ’90s, joined forces with to note that in the film “The Motorcycle Diaries,” it was in this Latorre and Santoro to help area that young Che Guevara answer some of the geologi- met a group of abused miners, cal questions on site forma- who kindled his first political tion and landscape evolution. stirrings. The Atacama, he tells us, is unlike other deserts: “The QM12 as a biogeographic margins of the desert have corridor fluctuated, but its core—un- Thanks to amazing preserva- like the Mojave or other des- tion, researchers have been erts that were relatively wet able to date lithic debitage, or- during the Pleistocene—has ganic material, and other arti- remained dry for millions of facts at Quebrada Maní while reconstructing an environ- Surveying in Quebrada Sipuca mental backdrop across past (left–right) Universidad de Chile climate changes. Site QM12, anthropologist Donald Jackson, adjacent to Quebrada Maní, Santoro, Latorre, and Rech. lies on an inactive alluvial fan

P. UGALD E P. (about 7 million years old) de- years. If you look at soils in the Atacama they’re filled with fined as Terrace 1. According to Rech, the site is located on an sulfates, nitrates, and chloride salts, which we don’t get in old landscape surface that sits above the modern floodplain and most deserts, and these are incredibly soluble salts that only the late-Pleistocene floodplain. accumulate when you have hyperaridity.” This surface, which lacks vegetation, is covered by desert The combination of salts in the soil—known locally as cali- pavement and blanketed by a well-developed sulfate soil com- che—as well as the dry climate of the Atacama contribute to posed of anhydrite and gypsum. Although the local environ- exceptional preservation and landscape stability. A majority ment remained hyperarid in the Pleistocene, there appeared of these salts are anhydrous; if there is any water, the material a network of freshwater oases, which served as biogeographic soaks it up. Thus ancient materials are essentially embalmed. corridors for groups of hunter-gatherers who traversed the oth- At the late-Pleistocene occupation at QM12 were found dung, erwise barren landscape. Rech is certain that Paleoamericans animal fibers, and two sticks that had been stuck into the soil traveled along these biogeographical corridors, where water and were still erect—probably used to roast meat. “You just was plentiful. “The majority of the perennial water wetland don’t get that at 12,000-year-old sites in North America,” Rech deposits are older than the site of QM12,” he says, “but it ap- emphasizes. “So often when we look at the archaeological pears there was an active floodplain there, so there was prob- January n 2016 9

ably seasonal or perennial water in the streams.” Although few But Latorre and colleagues prefer to keep their eyes on streams make it from the Andes to the Pacific ocean today, he’s Earth, looking to the past as they move towards the future. confident that water recharge in the Andes made water avail- Further research is supported by grants from conicyt (the able during the late Pleistocene. Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technologi- QM12 overlooks late-Pleistocene wetland and overbank cal Research) and their own universities. A geomorphologist deposits. Around 16,000–17,000 years ago it was a wetland recently proposed a collaborative investigation of paleoshore- with abundant standing or flowing water; around 12,000 years lines to find further evidence of earlier occupations. Their ago it was a vegetative work bears on several overlapping floodplain. For Rech, this time frames of different lengths. means that the water ta- There’s the exploratory phase, when ble is close to the surface humans first appeared in the Ata- here. “When people talk cama, and the colonization phase, about earlier human ar- exemplified by the occupation of rivals we have very con- site QM12. Overlaying these efforts ducive environments for is their search for the answer to the humans 15,000–17,000 questions, How old is the Atacama, years ago. If humans and when did the landscape become were there at that time, hyperarid? “We are indeed looking we should find the sites. for older sites,” says Latorre, “but We should find evidence o for it.” In that earlier pe- r Santoro’s team excavating at the late- to

riod it would have been a n Pleistocene Quebrada Maní 32 site.

a pleasant place to live. S C . QM12 overlooks the Andes and the coast, and plentiful water also tying this into the climate evolution of the Atacama using and shade trees made the surroundings green and fresh. Rech evidence from past shorelines and other relicts left behind from admits that “today it’s hard to be there because it’s hot and past climate change.” He complains happily, “There’s almost windy, but in those days it was an attractive place to stay.” too much going on!” –Katy Dycus The spark of inquiry By integrating paleoclimate and landscape evolution with How to contact the principals of this article: archaeological survey work, researchers have documented Claudio Latorre Hidalgo instances of human adaptation to an extreme environment in Department of Ecology terminal-Pleistocene South America. The hyperarid core of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile Atacama is no longer seen as an obstacle to human settlement Casilla 114-D, Santiago, Chile and dispersal. Instead, we now know that biogeographical cor- e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] ridors created a favorable environment for people at different Jason Rech moments in prehistory. Department of Geology The Atacama, our closest analog to Mars, gives us a glimpse Miami University into the origins of human history. It’s also an ideal platform Oxford, OH 45056 for probing the deepest questions about our cosmic origins: e-mail: [email protected] Because of its high altitude, nearly non-existent cloud cover, and absence of pollution, the Atacama is one of the best places Calogero M. Santoro in the world to conduct astronomical observations. The Ata- Instituto de Alta Investigación cama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) under Tarapacá University construction will be the highest astronomical observatory on Antofagasta 1520, Casilla 6-D, Arica 1000000, Chile Earth and the largest astronomical project in existence. e-mail: [email protected]

Suggested Readings Perennial stream discharge in the hyperarid Atacama Desert of Gayó, E. M., C. Latorre, T. E. Jordan, P. L. Nester, S. E Estay, K. F. northern Chile during the latest Pleistocene. Proceedings of the Ojeda, and C. M. Santoro 2012 Late Quaternary hydrological National Academy of Sciences USA 104 (50):19724–29. and ecological change in the hyperarid core of the northern Ata- Osorio, D., D. Jackson, P. C. Ugalde, C. Latorre, R. De Pol-Holz, and cama Desert (~21˚S). Earth-Science Reviews 113:120–40. C. M. Santoro 2011 Hakenasa Cave and its relevance for the peo- Latorre, C., C. M. Santoro, P. C. Ugalde, E. M. Gayo, D. Osorio, C. pling of the southern Andean Altiplano. Antiquity 85:1194–1208. Salas-Egaña, R. De Pol-Holz, D. Joly, and J. A. Rech 2013 Late Ugalde, P. C., C. M. Santoro, E. M. Gayo, C. Latorre, S. Maldonado, R. De Pleistocene human occupation of the hyperarid core in the Atac- Pol-Holz, and D. Jackson 2015 How do surficial lithic assemblages ama Desert, northern Chile. Quaternary Science Reviews 77:19–30. weather in arid environments? A case study from the Atacama Desert, Nester, P. L., E. M. Gayó, C. Latorre, T. E. Jordan, and N. Blanco 2007 northern Chile. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 30:352–68.