On the Pleistocene Antiquity of Monte Verde, Southern Chile

Abstract

The potential importance of the Monte Verde site for the peopling of the New World prompted a detailed examination of the collections from that locality, as well as a site visit in January 1997 by a group of Paleoindian specialists. It is the consensus of that group that the MV-II occupation at the site is both archaeological and 12,500 years old, as T. Dillehay has argued. The status of the potentially even older material at the site (MV-1, ∼ 33,000 B.P.) remains unresolved.