Monte Verde II: an assessment of new radiocarbon dates and their sedimentological context

Monte Verde II in southern Chile is one of the most important, and debated, sites for understanding of the early peopling of the Americas. The authors present 43 radiocarbon measurements based on cores of sediments that overlie the archaeological deposits adjacent to the site. Statistical analysis of these dates narrows the deposition of the earliest sediments sealing the occupational layer to c. 14 550 cal BP. The consistency between the dates of the site's archaeological strata and its adjacent deposits allows not only consolidation of the site's chronology, but also illustration of how a multi-pronged approach can inform debates surrounding the peopling of new lands--in the Americas or elsewhere. Keywords: Patagonia, Monte Verde, Late Pleistocene, human migration, AMS radiocarbon dating, sedimentology
Introduction The initial peopling of the Americas has been one of the most intriguing questions debated by archaeologists, palaeoanthropologists, geneticists and geologists in recent years (e.g. Waters & Stafford 2014; [...]