Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes.
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abstract
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world, about 900 meters above confidently dated contemporary sites. The Pucuncho workshop site [4355 meters above sea level (masl)] includes two fishtail projectile points, which date to about 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 masl) has a robust, well-preserved, and well-dated occupation sequence spanning the past 12.4 thousand years (ky), with 21 dates older than 11.5 ka. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.
Rademaker, K., Hodgins, G., Moore, K., Zarrillo, S., Miller, C., Bromley, G., ... Sandweiss, D. H.
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Rademaker, Kurt||Hodgins, Gregory||Moore, Katherine||Zarrillo, Sonia||Miller, Christopher||Bromley, Gordon RM||Leach, Peter||Reid, David A||Álvarez, Willy Yépez||Sandweiss, Daniel H
