A fresh investigation led by archaeologist Todd Surovell from the University of Wyoming, alongside a team of collaborators from Chile, Austria, and the U.S. Geological Survey, has brought into question a foundational pillar of the early American settlement theory.
The study, featured in the journal Science, posits that the renowned Monte Verde archaeological site, situated in southern Chile, is not 14,500 years old, as previous research conducted from the 1970s through the 1990s suggested, but rather was occupied only between 8,200 and 4,200 years ago.
This chronological revision directly impacts the widely accepted hypothesis suggesting Monte Verde inhabitants lived concurrently with, or even predating, the Clovis culture in North America. This challenges the paradigm where the first Americans were big-game hunters who migrated from Asia via the Bering Land Bridge approximately 14,200 years ago, spreading southward between the two massive ice sheets covering much of the continent.
Fieldwork was intensely carried out over four years by Surovell, in partnership with Claudio Latorre of the Pontifical Catholic University of Santiago, Chile, along with fellow researchers from the same institution, César Méndez and Juan-Luis García. This research constitutes the first independent examination conducted at Monte Verde since its discovery almost half a century ago, without the involvement of the original excavators. The site is located on the bank of the Chinchihuapi stream, a tributary of the Maulín River, positioning it 58 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean.
Monte Verde’s significance in archaeological debates dates back to 1997, when a panel of independent experts validated the site’s archaeological nature and antiquity—an event Surovell characterizes as pivotal for a paradigm shift. “Thanks to the independent confirmation of Monte Verde 29 years ago, our understanding of the timing of human arrival in the Americas fundamentally changed,” Surovell explains.
“We are now making adjustments and demonstrating that the site is considerably younger than initially believed. With the colonization of the Americas no longer anchored to Monte Verde, our revised chronology supports a later arrival date for humans in the Americas,” the study’s authors contend.
Their methodology involved sampling and dating nine alluvial deposits along the Chinchihuapi stream banks. The core finding is that previously dated materials pegged at 14,500 years old can be attributed to erosion or “re-deposition” processes along the stream.
The analysis of the sediments shows a substantial presence of Pleistocene-era wood incorporated into younger archaeological layers. This phenomenon accounts for how radiocarbon dates exceeding 14,000 years could be obtained at a site occupied less than 9,000 years ago. Scientifically, directly dating wood present at a location does not yield the occupation date, just as dating the stone used for a tool doesn’t indicate when the tool was manufactured.
The researchers also identified a key regional stratigraphic marker: a layer of volcanic ash dated to 11,000 years ago. The position of this layer is inconsistent with a human presence at the site 14,500 years ago. If people had been at Monte Verde during that earlier period, the ash layer should reside above the occupation level.
However, the stratigraphic evidence demonstrates the opposite. In fact, Surovell and his team assert that the surface upon which the archaeological materials rest at Monte Verde did not exist 14,500 years ago but formed sometime after 8,600 years Before Present.
This re-evaluation of the stratigraphy disqualifies Monte Verde as the keystone site for the theory of coastal colonization of the Americas. For years, its acceptance as pre-Clovis in age led many researchers to dismiss the possibility of migration through the ice-free corridor as the initial entry route, favoring the hypothesis of migration along the Pacific coast down to South America.
“While our findings do not rule out the possibility of earlier initial entry dates into the Americas, they validate the hypothesis of initial migration deep into continental North America as a viable colonization scenario,” the authors conclude.
This new research builds upon Surovell’s prior analysis, which suggested that misinterpretation of archaeological data at certain sites across North and South America may have been the cause for theories dating back well before 13,000 or 14,200 years ago.
The analysis revealed that while the stratigraphic integrity of the earliest archaeological sites in Alaska remains high, offering solid evidence for definitive human presence, sites further south that suggest earlier human occupation have shown signs of artifact mixing from various time periods.
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