A tackle box from the Holocene
Along the coast of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, the Chinchorro people lived for more than 5,000 years. Their persistence in this hyperarid environment was possible because of a sophisticated toolkit for exploiting the Pacific Ocean. This pre-ceramic culture, which emerged around 7,000 BCE, engineered highly effective fishing gear from materials found in their immediate surroundings.
The most fundamental tool was the fishhook. The earliest Chinchorro hooks were composite designs, assembled from multiple pieces. One common type used the sharpened, curved spines of the cardón cactus, bound to a shank. Others were crafted from mussel shells, which were first drilled and then shaped into a durable hook. Bone was also a frequent material. To take these hooks into deeper water, the Chinchorro fashioned fishing lines from twisted fibers of the totora reed (Schoenoplectus californicus) and attached grooved stone sinkers to carry the bait down. Their nets, also woven from plant fibers, allowed them to catch smaller shore fish like anchovies and sardines. This entire technological suite, hooks, lines, and sinkers, appears in the archaeological record around 6000 BCE, thousands of years before the introduction of pottery or agriculture in the region.
Hunting the Humboldt Current
The Chinchorro diet was overwhelmingly marine, with chemical analysis of mummified remains showing that seafood constituted about 90% of what they ate. Their technology was not limited to small fish. They developed harpoons with detachable heads, often made of bone, which were used in conjunction with spear-throwers known as atlatls. This gave them the ability to hunt larger prey, including sea lions. The presence of deep-sea fish bones in their middens suggests they used reed boats to venture away from the shore. Evidence for this comes from a specific pathological condition found in some adult male mummies: auditory exostoses, a bony growth in the ear canal associated with repeated diving in cold water.
This reliable and abundant food source, supplied by the nutrient-rich Humboldt Current, supported a large, semi-sedentary population. A stable food supply meant that not everyone had to be constantly involved in subsistence activities. This surplus is what permitted the development of the Chinchorro's most famous cultural practice: artificial mummification. Beginning around 5050 BCE, they developed complex techniques to preserve their dead, a practice that predates Egyptian mummification by two millennia. They treated all members of their society this way, from distinguished adults to infants and even fetuses, indicating a complex social and spiritual belief system built on a foundation of maritime technology.