Argentina, found in Patagonia young woman buried 880 years ago in a canoe

A team of archaeologists found a pre-Hispanic tomb in north-western Argentine Patagonia in which a young woman was buried in a ‘wampo’, a canoe used by the indigenous Mapuche to symbolize ‘the last journey’ at the moment of death. “This – ensures the online scientific publication PLOS One – is the first discovery of a burial in a canoe in Argentine Patagonia, and the southernmost example of the entire continent”. Furthermore, according to the Chilean and Argentine archaeologists who carried out the study, it would also be “the oldest dating (880 years ago) in Argentina of traditional two-tone red-on-white ceramics used as funeral offerings”. The excavation work carried out on the site called Newen Antug, in the province of Neuquén, led to the discovery of the remains of three bodies on two levels. In the upper one, which dates back to 540-600 years ago, scientists have found the skeletons of a man and a woman, accompanied by typical funeral offerings. At the deepest level they found the remains of a young woman inside the ‘wampo’, confirming a known rite of the Mapuche, in ancient times but even now, which is “a metaphor of the journey to the final resting place of the dead, located beyond a body of water that must be crossed on a boat “. Finally, the discovery refutes the idea that the burials in the canoes could have been used only after the Spanish colonization. The Mapuche are the largest indigenous people in Chile. They have lived for almost 1,000 years in central and southern Chilean, as well as in southwestern Argentina.