Historic stone traps in Chile’s highlands present that looking societies endured alongside early farmers for millennia.
Satellite tv for pc imagery has uncovered a fancy community of enormous, funnel-shaped looking traps probably constructed by historical hunters and herders to seize prey within the high-altitude areas of northern Chile.
The brand new research of the Andean panorama and its previous inhabitants recognized 76 stone “chacus,” some stretching for a number of hundred meters, which had been designed to entice vicuñas, wild kin of the alpaca.
Whereas related looking programs have been documented in arid areas such because the Center East, this discovery marks the primary recognized focus of such constructions on this a part of the Andes and suggests they might be older than these related to the Inkas.
Dr. Adrián Oyaneder, an archaeologist on the College of Exeter, additionally uncovered indicators of settlements and waypoints within the Western Valleys, offering robust proof that foraging communities endured there for hundreds of years after agriculture turned widespread elsewhere.
The analysis, performed as a part of Dr. Oyaneder’s doctoral work in Exeter’s Division of Archaeology and Historical past, is printed within the journal Antiquity.
Revisiting the thriller of the Western Valleys
“There has lengthy been a discrepancy between what archaeological and ethnohistorical information have instructed us about life within the Western Valleys of northern Chile through the colonial interval,” says Dr Oyaneder. “On the one hand, archaeological analysis has pointed to a gradual decline in looking and gathering from 2,000 B.C. onwards with the introduction of domesticated crops and animals. However, historic sources, similar to Spanish tax information from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, confer with ‘Uru’ or ‘Uro’, which was a generic time period for foraging populations who had been of little financial curiosity to the colonizers.”
Utilizing publicly obtainable satellite tv for pc imagery, Dr. Oyaneder analyzed a 4,600-square-kilometer (about 1,775-square-mile) part of the Camarones River Basin, concentrating on upland areas that had acquired little prior consideration. Over the course of 4 months, he documented a outstanding variety of new archaeological websites.
Amongst these had been 76 chacus, most of which featured a particular V-shaped design composed of two “antennae” constructed from dry-stone partitions roughly 1.5 meters (about 5 toes) tall and averaging 150 meters (round 490 toes) lengthy. These partitions converged into an enclosure of about 95 sq. meters (roughly 1,020 sq. toes), which was both excavated or constructed to a depth of roughly two meters (about 6.5 toes)—deep sufficient to entice animals herded into it by hunters.
Each chacu was located on a steep, downhill slope, with a number of incorporating pure terrain options to kind one of many antennae. All had been positioned at elevations typical of vicuña habitats.
A panorama stuffed with historical ingenuity
“My response once I noticed the primary chacu was to double and even triple test it,” stated Dr Oyaneder. “Initially, I believed it was a little bit of a singular incidence, however as I progressed with my survey, I noticed that they had been in every single place within the highlands and in a amount by no means beforehand recorded within the Andes.
“After which once I started to learn papers and books across the topic, notably by Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne and Olivia Harris, there was reference to the choquela, specialised vicuña looking teams, and phrases referring particularly to chacu looking individuals and chacu hunters.”
Settlements linked to looking websites
Dr Oyaneder recognized virtually 800 small-scale settlements, starting from single buildings of no a couple of sq. meter to teams of 9 or extra constructions. These had been plotted utilizing GIS and grouped into probably clusters linked to close by chacus and different settlements, all inside a 5 km (3 miles) distance.
“The image that emerges is of a panorama occupied by a variety of human teams from at the very least 6000 B.C. to the 18th century,” provides Dr Oyaneder. “These teams moved strategically throughout the highlands, tethered primarily to looking assets, notably vicuña. The proof signifies overlapping lifeways, combining hunting-gathering with agropastoral practices, and a community of short-term seasonal settlements and outposts to assist individuals transfer throughout rugged and tough terrain.”
Dr Oyaneder is now conducting additional analysis up to now a few of these websites and set up whether or not they signify the primary examples of their type within the Andean area.
Reference: “A tethered looking and mobility panorama within the Andean highlands of the Western Valleys, northern Chile” by Adrián Oyaneder, 13 October 2025, Antiquity.
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2025.10213
Funded by the Becas Chile-ANID doctoral scholarships program and a FONDECYT challenge by the identical company, led by Dr Daniela Valenzuela (Universidad de Tarapacá).
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