A new study shows that up to 1000 years ago, mourners buried a young woman in a canoe to represent her final journey into the land of the dead.
Canoe burials were practiced throughout pre-Hispanic South America and not only after the Spanish colonization, according to the authors of the study.
The lead author of the study said he hoped the investigation would resolve the controversy.
Canoe burials are still practiced in some parts of South America. It's the first known evidence of the practice from the pre-Hispanic period. He said that the previous evidence was important and was based on ethnographic data.
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According to the study, the woman was buried on her back in a wooden structure made from a single tree trunk, which had been destroyed by fire.
The same burning technique has been used for thousands of years to make "dugout" canoes known as "wampos" in the local Mapuche culture, and evidence suggests that Indigenous people prepared the woman's remains so that she could embark on a final canoe journey.
The woman's grave is the earliest of three pre-Hispanic burials at the Newen Antug site, which was excavated between 2012 and 2015, before a well was built at the location. The location is at the northern extreme of the region known as Patagonia, which is located in the south of Argentina.
According to the study, the woman was buried more than 850 years ago and may have been up to 1000 years old. There is evidence that the Mapuche have lived in the area since at least 600 B.C.
A pottery jug decorated with white glaze and red geometric patterns, placed in the grave by her head, suggests a connection with the "red on white bichrome" tradition of pre-Hispanic ceramics. The earliest example of this type of pottery being used as a grave gift was found here.
The burial canoe has rotted away due to its age and humid environment. The tests show that the pieces came from the same tree and that it had been destroyed by fire.
Her body was placed on a bed of Diplodon chilensis, a type of freshwater clam that was likely brought from the shores of Lake Lacr, according to the researchers.
The Mapuche believe that a soul must make a final boat journey before it arrives in the land of the dead. Pérez told Live Science that there is a lot of ethnographic and historical information that accounts for it.
The passageways may have been used in rituals.
The destination of the deads' souls was "Nomelafken", which means "the other side of the sea" in the Mapuche language, and the newly dead would make a boat journey for up to four years before they arrived.
In pre-Hispanic times, the metaphor of a canoe journey to a final destination seems to have been used throughout South America.
Although it is little known to archaeology, it is thought that this was a widespread practice on the continental US. The antiquity of these practices is unknown, but we know that navigation technologies were used there more than 3,500 years ago.
Nicols Lira, an assistant professor of archaeology, ethnography and prehistory at the University of Chile, was not involved in the research.
In an email, Lira said that the findings were of exceptional preservation for the humid environment of the region, where rivers and lakes shape the landscape.
Juan Skewes, who was not involved in the study, said the Newen Antug burial was proof of a shared culture between the east and west slopes of the Andes.
The relationship between the Mapuche people and bodies of water was thought to be a symbolic one, Skewes said. Skewes said that trees are part of almost all aspects of the Mapuche's daily life. They are linked to the memories of the dead and to the birth of a child. He said that the construction of a burial wampo from a single tree might have had an extra meaning in addition to the canoe's symbolic function.
It was originally published on Live Science
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