Monte Verde
View of Monte Verde and Chinchihuapi Creek in 2012.
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 Shown within Chile
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| Location | Southern Chile |
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| Coordinates | 41°30′17″S 73°12′16″W / 41.50472°S 73.20444°WCoordinates: 41°30′17″S 73°12′16″W / 41.50472°S 73.20444°W |
| Type | open-air |
Monte Verde is an archaeological site in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Southern Chile, which has been dated to as early as 18,500 BP (16,500 B.C.). Until recently, the widely published date has been 14,800 years BP. This dating added to the evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but in recent years the evidence has become more accepted in some archaeological circles, There is as yet no consensus, and vocal "Clovis First" advocates remain.
Paleoecological evidence of the coastal landscape's ability to sustain human life further supports a "Coastal migration" model. However, as of 2009 no archaeological evidence has been found of pre-Clovis humans using a coastal migration route.
The site was discovered in late 1975 when a veterinary student visited the area of Monte Verde, where severe erosion was occurring due to logging. The student was shown a strange "cow bone" collected by nearby peasants who had found it exposed in the eroded Chinchihuapi Creek. The bone later proved to be from a mastodon. Tom Dillehay, an American anthropologist and professor at the Universidad Austral de Chile at the time, started excavating Monte Verde in 1977.
The site is situated on the banks of Chinchihuapi Creek, a tributary of the Maullín River located 36 miles (58 km) from the Pacific Ocean. One of the rare open-air prehistoric sites found so far in the Americas, Monte Verde was well preserved because it was located in an anaerobic bog environment near the creek. A short time after the site was originally occupied, the waters of the creek rose and a peat-filled bog formed that inhibited the bacterial decay of organic material and preserved many perishable artifacts and other items for millennia.
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