In the 9000s BC, Michinmahuida erupted and coated the Chilean side of Patagonia with ash. Prevailing winds pushed that cloud against the Andes so it might not have affected the planet beyond that.
It's in the news now because its ash is the floor - not ceiling - for Chile's Vermont or, in Spanish, Monte Verde. Tom Dillehay had touted this one over the 1990s as the Clovis-killer: it was, he claimed, inhabited long long before the 9000s and the Clovis culture. Proof of human expansion past the Darien Gap.
If the ash is from Michinmahuida, then this isn't true. The artifacts aren't preClovis; they are merely ignorant of Clovis. Maybe they didn't need Clovis tech down there (which has the function of Solutrean tech, famously). Also the artifacts in question are perishables: nets, wooden wall-planks, and the like. The new study claims that to the extent they look lower-tier (older), it's because they were swept down a river and buried in anoxic conditions. Which is fortunate for diggers, since that is how they were preserved from rot.
It does make stratigraphy something of a bad joke however. On any side.
Can the wood be wigglematched? At least to disprove dates around one of those elder Miyake events?
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