Chinchorro Mummies: The World's Oldest Artificial Mummies

The Chinchorro mummies are the oldest known artificially preserved human bodies in the world, made by fishing communities on the Atacama Desert coast of northern Chile and southern Peru from about 5050 BC. For more than three thousand years these people took apart, rebuilt and painted their dead, roughly two thousand years before mummification became established in Egypt. In 2021 the main Chinchorro sites around Arica were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Chinchorro people

The Chinchorro culture flourished on the coast between Ilo in southern Peru and Antofagasta in northern Chile, roughly from 7000 to 1500 BC. Its centre was the area around today’s city of Arica and the mouth of the Camarones River. The culture is named after Chinchorro beach in Arica, where the German archaeologist Max Uhle studied ancient burials in 1917.

The Atacama is one of the driest deserts on Earth, but its coast is rich in food. The cold Humboldt Current brings nutrients that support fish, shellfish, sea lions and seabirds. Chinchorro people lived in small groups, probably of a few dozen people each, and drew most of their food from the sea. Chemical studies of their bones suggest that marine foods made up the great majority of their diet.

They had no farming, pottery or metal. Instead they made fishhooks from shell and cactus spines, harpoons, nets and lines of plant fibre, and stone weights for fishing. Many adult skeletons show bony growths in the ear canal, a condition today called “surfer’s ear”, which is caused by repeated exposure to cold water. It suggests that many people dived regularly for shellfish and fish.

Discovery and research

Uhle’s excavations in 1917, published in 1919, first drew attention to the elaborately prepared bodies. For decades afterwards they remained little known outside specialist circles.

Modern study expanded in the 1980s. In 1983 workers laying water pipes at the foot of the Morro de Arica, the headland above the city, uncovered a cemetery later known as Morro 1, with the remains of 96 individuals. Since then many more burials have come to light in Arica, often during building work, and in the Camarones valley.

The Chilean anthropologist Bernardo Arriaza, of the University of Tarapacá, became the leading specialist. His book Beyond Death: The Chinchorro Mummies of Ancient Chile, published in 1995, set out the main classification of mummy styles still used today. In total, the remains of several hundred Chinchorro individuals have been recovered.

How the mummies were made

The oldest bodies associated with the Chinchorro tradition were preserved naturally by the dry desert sand. The so-called Acha Man, found near Arica, is dated to around 7000 BC. Deliberate, artificial mummification began later. The oldest known example, a child from the Camarones valley site known as Camarones 14, is dated to about 5050 BC.

Archaeologists recognise several main styles, which changed over time.

Black mummies, made from about 5000 BC until roughly 3000–2500 BC, involved the most complex work. The body was taken apart. Skin was removed, and the muscles and organs were taken out. The bones were dried, perhaps with hot ashes, and reinforced with sticks tied along the limbs and spine. The body was rebuilt with clay, ash, reeds and animal hair, then covered with the person’s own skin, sometimes patched with sea lion skin. Finally the whole body was coated with a black paste made with manganese, and the face was covered with a clay mask, often with holes for the eyes and mouth. A wig of human hair was added.

Red mummies, typical of about 2500 to 2000 BC, were made with less dismantling. Embalmers made cuts in the shoulders, abdomen and other places to remove organs, dried the body and packed it with materials, then stitched it back together. The body was painted with red ochre, while the head and its long wig were often painted black and topped with a clay cap.

Mud-coated mummies, from late in the tradition, were simpler. The bodies were covered with a layer of mud mixed with sand and a binding material, which hardened like a cement shell. Some rarer styles, including bodies wrapped in bandages of skin, are also known.

Prepared bodies were usually buried lying on their backs, fully extended, often in groups that may represent families. Some were wrapped in mats of reeds or covered with animal skins. Grave goods were generally modest, including fishing equipment, shell ornaments and baskets.

Many mummies show signs of repair and repainting, which suggests that they existed above ground for a period before they were finally buried. Several bodies were often found together in a single pit, including adults and children, which has encouraged the idea of family or community burial grounds.

Who was mummified, and why

One of the most striking features of Chinchorro mummification is that it was given to almost everyone. Men, women, children, infants and even foetuses were treated in the same careful way. This is very different from ancient Egypt, where elaborate mummification was mainly reserved for the elite.

The reasons are not known for certain. Many researchers think the mummies were not hidden away immediately but kept among the living for a time, perhaps displayed or carried in ceremonies, before burial. The rigid frames and repainted surfaces of some mummies support this idea.

Bernardo Arriaza has proposed that high levels of arsenic in local rivers, such as the Camarones, may have increased miscarriages and infant deaths. In this view, grief over the deaths of many children could have encouraged the development of mummification. This remains a hypothesis rather than an established fact.

A 2012 study led by Pablo Marquet linked the beginning of artificial mummification with a wetter phase in the Atacama, which may have allowed larger and more settled populations. More people living in one place, the authors argued, created conditions for more complex ideas about the dead.

The end of the tradition

Artificial mummification declined after about 2000 BC and seems to have ended by around 1700 BC, although simpler burial practices continued. By the 2nd millennium BC new influences reached the coast, including farming, pottery and contacts with highland peoples. Later cultures of the region buried their dead with textiles and pottery, and naturally preserved bodies became common because of the dry climate.

The Chinchorro people themselves did not disappear suddenly. Their descendants probably mixed with newcomers and adopted new ways of life, so the end of mummification reflects a change in beliefs and customs rather than the extinction of a population. Fishing remained central to life on this coast for thousands of years afterwards.

Modern threats and preservation

The mummies survived for thousands of years in dry desert ground, but they are now under threat. Some mummies kept at the San Miguel de Azapa Archaeological Museum began to show black, gelatinous patches on their skin in the 2000s.

In 2015 researchers working with the microbiologist Ralph Mitchell of Harvard University reported that the damage was caused by common skin bacteria that thrive as humidity rises. Arica has become more humid in recent decades, a change linked to a shifting climate. Conservators are working to store the mummies in stable, controlled conditions of humidity and temperature.

Urban growth in Arica also puts unexcavated burials at risk, since many lie under the modern city. Local people have often found remains while building houses. The UNESCO site, inscribed in July 2021, protects three main areas: the northern slope of the Morro de Arica, the Colón 10 site in the city centre, and the mouth of the Camarones River.

Myths and facts

A common belief is that mummification was invented in Egypt. In fact, the Chinchorro were deliberately preserving their dead long before any known Egyptian example, as discussed in the article on mummification in ancient Egypt. The two traditions developed independently and used very different methods.

Another misconception is that mummies were always signs of wealth or rank. Chinchorro mummification was given to people of all ages and both sexes, and there is little sign of social hierarchy in the burials.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 7000 BC: Hunter-fishers settled on the Atacama coast; Acha Man naturally preserved.
• c. 5050 BC: Oldest known artificial mummy prepared at Camarones.
• c. 5000–3000 BC: Main period of the complex black mummies.
• c. 2500–2000 BC: Red mummies become the main style.
• c. 1700 BC: Artificial mummification comes to an end.
• 1917: Max Uhle studies burials on Chinchorro beach, Arica.
• 1983: Morro 1 cemetery uncovered during pipe-laying in Arica.
• 2021: Chinchorro sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Why it matters

The Chinchorro mummies show that small communities of fishers, without farming or cities, created the world’s first tradition of artificial mummification. Their care for the dead of every age offers a rare view into prehistoric beliefs. Their survival now depends on modern conservation, making them a test of how well we protect fragile heritage in a changing climate. For other early peoples of the region, see Monte Verde and the origins of the Norte Chico civilization.