Monte Verde

Monte Verde is an archaeological site in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Southern Chile, which has been dated to 14,800 years BP. This dating adds to the evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but in recent years the evidence has become more widely accepted in some archaeological circles, although vocal "Clovis First" advocates remain. Coastal migration is a widely accepted model explaining the inhabitance of Monte Verde. Archaeological evidence shows that people arrived at Monte Verde about 1,800 years before the time that the Bering Land Bridge between Alaska and Siberia would have become passable in 13,000 BP. This leaves traveling down the western coast of the Americas as the most plausible explanation for the earliest inhabitants of Chile. Paleoecological evidence of the coastal landscape's ability to sustain human life further supports this model. However, no archaeological evidence has been found of pre-Clovis humans using a coastal migration route.