A. ee rived in South Americz After humans ar spread into some of its most rom the mouth ofa cave high in the Andes, Kurt Rademaker surveysthe plateau below Avanaltitude of 4500 metres, thereare no trees in sight, just beige soil dotted with tuis of dry grass, green cushion plants and a few clustets of vicuas and other camel rela TThe landscape looks bleak, but Rademaker views it through the ees the people whoa a fire in the rock shelter, named Cuncaicha, about 12,400 years ago These hunter-gatherers ‘were some ofthe earliest known residents o South America and they chose to live at this extreme altitude — higher than any Io encampment found thus far in the New World Despite the thinair and sub freezing night-time temperatures, this plain would have seemed a hospitable neighbourhood to those people. says Rademaker, an archaeologist tthe University fof Mainein Orono, “The basin has fresh water, camelids, stone fortoolmaking, combustible fuel for fires and rock shelters for living in he says, “Basically, everything you need toliveis here. Thisis one ofthe richest basins [ve seen, and it probably was then, too! Rademaker is one of a growing number of young archacologists investigating how they quickly remote corners. Fbunter-gatheres fist colonized South America at the close of the Pleistocene epach, when the last Toe Age was wan ng. Castingaside old dog. finding that people arrived significantly earlier than previously believed, and adapted rapidly to environments From the ard western coastline tothe Amazon jungleand the frost heights of the Andes By teaming up with geolog scientists and ather researchers, gists are gaining clearer picture of what the ancient envionments were ike and how peo- ts, climate rchaeolo plemigrated across the landscape — clues that are leading them to other ancient occupation HIDDEN ANCESTRY The archaeology thats being done in South America is becoming more scientific with the development of new methodologies, and theresa level of collegiality developingamong, younger researchers says Rademaker, "Were all really excited about the new develop. ‘ments that are coming faster and faster” But researchers are racing against time as South American countries rapidly expand mining, ‘oad buildingand other activites that threaten to obliterate evidence from promising sites. BY BARBARA FRASER For decades a fractious attitude prevailed § dover research on the ea Hiest people in the Americas. One of the most acrimonious disputes concerned a stein southern Chile called Monte Verde, which Tom Dillehay, an anthropologist now at Vanderbilt University in Nashille, Tennessee, excavated inthe and 1980s, He found evidence ofhuman occu: pation’ that hedated to about 14,500 years ago, Dillehay’sconchusions regarding Monte Verde put him in direct conflict with the accepted wisdom amo archaeologists that people from Siberia did not spread across ‘North America and venture south before around 13,000 years ago, That is the age of the Clovis culture, a group ofbig-game hunt cers who used distinctive spear points that are found littered across the United States. The Clovis people were thought tobe the pioneers in North America, and many archa there dismissed Dillehay’s claim that Monte Verde was older But antagonism has faded over the past six years, as convincing evidence of pre-Clovis, sites has emerged in North America (see Nature 485, 30-32; 2012). Meanwhile South American archaeologists, who were never as ologists sceptical as their northern colleagues, have + les.found more sites dated between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago, indicating that hunter therers had spread through South America before and during the riseol the Clovisculture inthenosth, Now that researchers have moved beyond that debate they are making greater headway instadying when people reached South Amer cand what they did when they got there. Rademaker’ finds in the Andes are helping ‘o answer those questions — and pose new ‘ones, Hisjourney'began 150 kilometres away from the Andes cave, on Peru's aid coast at (Quebrada jaguay, where Daniel Sandweiss, an anthropologist atthe University of Maine and Rademakers graduate adviser, was excavating at dated to the end of the last Ie Age between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, Sand. weiss had uncovered the remains of seafood Above: Christopher Mil (lef) and Rademaker survey sites inthe Pucuncho Basin in August ‘Left: Kurt Rademakor explore the Cuncaicha rock heltorin the Andes. meals, as wells lakes of obsidian produced as people chipped at the glassy mineral to ‘make stone tools", There are no obsidian deposits along that coastline, so the material must have come from formations high in the Andes. Rademaker travelled into the mountains and found a large outcrop of the obsidian known as Alea’ at Mount Condorsayana in 21004, Over the next three years he studied the ‘obsidian deposits and evidence of past glacia tion in the area with geologist Gordon Bromley ofthe University of Maine ‘Those field trips gave Rademaker his frst slimpse of the Pucuncho Basin, an alpine wet land with a stream, numerous vicuias, lamas and alpacas, and a ready supply of cushion plants, which the researchers discovered are rich in resin and can burn easily. The basin ‘was alsolitered with points and shards eft by carly oolmakers. Hiking down the stream, he glanced up the hilltohisleft and sawa yawning ‘gap — the Cuncaicha rock shelter, which he began excavating in 2007. “Thisis the ist time we've founda site this old in the high Andes” Rademaker says. On a day in August, he wrapsa bandana over his mouth and nose and shovels dirt into buck- ts to fillin an excavation pit that isn longer needed. As he works, his shirt sleeve pulls up, revealing a glimpse of meticulously detailed hominin skulls tattooed up his right arm from Australopithecus afarensis nea his wrist to Homo sapiens on hisshouldet. Thslatein the field season, hisfield trousersare frayed and he hhas hal to ind hislefthikingboot with several strata of duct tape A.chilly breeze whips across the Pucuncho plateau as some of Rademaker’s companions struggle with the thin alr. As well as caution. {ng hs team members to prepare forthe old Ragemaker ensures tha they acclimate gradu ally othelack of oxy ven while battling the extremes, the has gathered evidence contradicting the con: ventional wisdom that the mountains were too high, cold and inhospitable for early human habitation, Bromley’ data show that at che tend of thelast Ice Age, glaciers were mainly confined to some alpine valleys, and Pucuncho and other areas were not glaciated, Palaco- climate data indicate that the environment was probably wetter then, sothere might have been more plants and animalsavailable forthe early residents, says Rademaker These Palaeo-Indians were able tolive in ‘one of the most extreme environments on Earth at the end ofan ie age, and they seem to have done so quite successtully” he says. "This tellsusthat Palaeo-Indians were capable ofliv ingjast about anywhere” There are large numbers of animal bones, mainly from deer and vicufas, in the eal test layers of sediment in the Cuncaicha rock shelter, showing that the inhabitants found abundant game on the plateau, And some ofthe tools were made of stone not available in the area, indicating that residents of the cave either travelled outside the region oF exchanged materials with other groups that did, Some tools show traces of plant starch, which the researchers hope to analyse to work. ‘out what the cave-dvellers ate, and whether they domesticated tubers or other plants The researchers have also found a frag ‘meat froma husnan skull at the sit. Ithas not yielded DNA and its age is uncertain, but it hints thatthe cave could contain early human remains, says Rademaker, TOOL TRADE Farther south, César Méndez has followed similar cluesin his search for late-Plistocene sites along the Chilean coast, Beginning in 2004, Menez, an anthropologist at the Uni- versity of Chile in Santiago, and his colleagues ancient encampment, which they dated to around 13,000 yearsago" Some of the stone tools atthe site, called (Quebrada Santa lia, were made of translucent «quart that isnot found in coastal deposits, Like Rademaker, Mendez mapped potential paths towards known quartz deposits inland. Sam plingalong those routes his team foundan out crop of transhicent quartz atasite where people had lived and quarried between 12,600 and 11,400 years ago. The similarity with Quebrada iad tool-making excavatedCE tev techniques suggests that the coastal toolscame from these mountain outrops "What wee seing is that 12,000 years ago or more, these groups already had networks, knew the landscape and moved between the coast and the ieion” says Meer Sites such as Quebrada aguay and Quebrada Santa Julia sugges that some early hunter- gatherers in South America might hve ra elledalong the coast, taking advantage ofthe fish, shelliah, animals and plants ound invet~ landsand nea river deltas, says Dillehay. Heis finding more evidence beneath Huaca Prtaa $2-metre-high moundon the coast of nother Peru (see‘Congueringa conten’ “Theround was fistexcavatedin the 1940s, butDillehay dugdeeper and uncovered traces of ce Age settlements in 2010, Radiocarbon Gating indicates’ that hurmans had live there asmuchas 14,200 yearsago, when the area was surrounded by wetlands COASTAL DRIFT early people did migrate along the coast, some ofthe best evidence has probably been swallowed up by the ocean, At the end of the Pleistocene, melting ice sheets caused sca levels toriseby 70 metres, which would have flooded much of the former coastline, That effect ‘would have been greatest in some regions of eastern South America, where the land isrela Lively lat and the ocean migrated well inland. A the border between Uruguay and Argen tina, for example, archaeologists suspect that ancient people might have hunted and camped. ‘on abroad delta that formerly existed at the ‘mouth of the Uraguay River. But any such sites would have been drowned when the sea advanced by more than 120 ilometees, says Rafael Suérez, an archaeologist at the Univer sity of the Republic in Montevideo, Susirez has looked for clues upriver, and bhas dated several residential sites to between 12,900 and 10,200 yearsago. Some tools found at asite called Pay Paso are made of transhucent agate, which apparently came fom quarries near the border with Brazil about 150 kilo- ‘metres away: And other tools from Uruguay have been found 500 kilometres to the south in Argentina’ Buenos Aires province’, says Nora Fegenheimer, an archaeologist with the National Scientific and Technical Research, Council (CONICET) in Necochea, Argentina Such finds point to widespread trade or travel, rote in eastern South America Somearchavologists wonder whether carly residents of the continent might even have crossed the Andes. Bolivian archaeologist José Caprilesof the University of Farapacin Arica, Chil, has raised that possibilty alter studying 12,800- year-old artefacts at Cueva Bautista, rock shelter 3,930 metres above sea level in southwestern Bolivia, He notes thata similarly aged site existsat the same latitude in Chileon thewestern slope ofthe Andes. Futuee research could explore tools found at both sites to see ueraca want © @- re a) ky sh gon @ Se ee ago ARGENTINA igrted from one side wo the other orestablished trading routes. But some of the best evidence for Pleisto cene humans in South America may disappear soon, owing to rapid expansion in industrial scale agriculture, road building and other formscf development, Those human threats come on top of the natural ones — wind erosion and changing watercourses — that constantly alter landscapes. Suirez and his team had to call the navy to evactate them froma site in Uruguay lst December, when floodwaters rose dangerously Inthelakebehind a nearby hydroelectric dam, A proposed dam could also ood sitesin the (Ocona River vlley in Peru, which Rademaker thinks could have been an early route from the coast to the Andes. In the highlands, the rapid expansion of ‘mining can be both a bane and a blessing. Archacologists discovered Bolivia’s Cueva, Bautista site duringa survey fora road leading, toamine. But open-pit mines threaten many other sites, says Caples. Archaeological surveys must be carried out before development and infrastructure projects can go aliead, but the people who perform such studies donot always recognize the subtle signs of ancient human occupation, the researchers say. Andeven ithe surveysdo. turn up important archaeological evidence, developing countries are often reluctant to let the past sland inthe way ofthe future “Pye never seen such destruction as you get in Peru” says Dillehay, He has witnessed bull ddozers ravage sites and landowners destroy evidence to avoid delaying construction work. ‘There are no signs yet of such activity reaching Rademaker’s survey stein the high Peruvian Andes. Over the past decade, he and his colleagues have extensively explored 2014 Macmiln Ubtshrs Lined Alihts reser Ey poop lve is | in rk shate lost at © B00 metres near ebadan i na le mht prove 1) 7 Staanaeo peop yp) ering hose Stes of ses Bovis ~ CONQUERING A CONTINENT ‘Studies ofc ag occupation Sites (o)in Sait Arora revel ow human pena Imation my ranean Pores 9 RR eats mined Hore nas BRUBUAY ida Pay Paso vwesem Uniiny. the region on foot in an effort to determine ‘whether the inhabitants of the Cuncaicha rock shelter traded fortheir exotic tools and whether they lived there year-round, Theanswers may Tie in undiseavered occupation sites between thecaveand the coast, so Rademakersexplor: ing likely avenues, mapping the routes that ‘would have required the leat energy expendi tuxe while providing access to water and food. The revearchers hive backpacked along doz ens of streams and rivers, sometimes clamber ing up steep cliffs to avoid flash floods, always ‘with an eye out fr gashes in the rock face that signala potential shelter. Fai inhabitans prob: ably would haveexplored the nvr landscape in thesame way with the same targets in mind. ‘Rademaker surveyed four rock shelters this yearbutall ofthem were inhabited too recently only 4,000 to 6,000 years ago Stl, he iscon vinced that there are more late-Pleistocene sites in the Andes. Early inhabitants must have found other places like the Pucuncho Basin and the Cuncaicha rock shelter. They might hhave followed rivers that flow from the high ands othe coast. Or perhaps they trailed the herds of wild guanacos that still descend along spurs ofthe Andes nearly tothe ocean shore, ach field season dangles more possibilities before Rademaker’s team. “I went fora walle ‘oncnight found another confluence an found another cave” he says “Itsnever-ending” Barbara Fraser is writer Lima, Peru 1. ileay TD. ofa Science 30, 788-786 2006). 2. Saretacis 0.M eft Sonnce 281, 1630-1832, 1338) 3. RaderatorK eta Gol At, 779-782 2013. 4 Mende CJacson Dy Segual Revo Detuney A Cum Res, Hestocene 27,1921 eno, Diy: stat. Quat Res. 77, 418.423 2012), Fegeeer Bayan c.Vaente Meza, Femeniss I Quat it 108-120, 3°64 2005)