Bitter Taste genes

The ability to taste bitterness may help us avoid poisoning from eating toxixc plants. Animals in general, and our ancestors, the primates developed this trait. The PTC gene is responsible for our perception of bitter taste.

All nonhuman primates have only one variant of the PTC gene known as PAV, which is therefore considered as the ancestral or original gene form, these apes are homozygous for it (meaning that the two copies they carry, one from each parent, are identical). This is known as the "taster" allele, it allows them to taste bitterness.

Genetics

PTC bitter gene, is formally known as the TAS2R38 gene. It comes in eight different variants but two of them are prevalent, the ancestral "taster" allele, and a "non-taster" allele which comprise 96% of the human population. These encode a specific protein, which contains 333 aminoacids, the 7-transmembrane domain G-protein-coupled receptor which responds to bitterness.

The different alleles cause tiny variations in the position of some aminoacids in this protein and cause the "taster" and "non-taster" variants and four other intermedieate "less-taster" types.

The variants are named after the positions of these amino acids the "original" or "ancestral" form is the PAV form (because it contains proline at position 49, alanine at position 262, and valine at position 296), this is the "taster" form.

Neanderthals and Denisovans are also PAV tasters (Source).

The second mayor form is the "non-taster" one, known as AVI, because it contains alanine, valine and isoleucine aminoacids in those three positions, respectively.

Further down we will look into why do the "non-taster" alleles survive, and account for roughly half of the human population, who can't taste bitter flavors. If tasting bitterness protects against plant toxins, why do so many of us carry the non-taster variant?

The other six variants are AAV, AVV, AAI, PAI, PVI, AAI, and PVV and are found at relatively low frequencies.

The prevalence found in one study was the following: 42.3% PAV (ancestral, taster), 53.1% (derived, non-taster) and the intermediate taster ones (2.5% AAV, 1.2% AAI, 0.8% PAI, and 0.1% PVI, no AVV or PVV were detected). (Source).

People who inherited at least one copy of the PAV allele from their parents are able to taste bitterness.

These alleles also have a geographic distribution, PAV and AVI are the most frequent, and make up the vast majority of European and Asian alleles. They are also found in Africa, but there, AAI is found at a relatively high frequency. The table below, (Table 1 from Risso, D., Mezzavilla, M., Pagani, L. et al. (2016) Global diversity in the TAS2R38 bitter taste receptor: revisiting a classic evolutionary PROPosal. Sci Rep 6, 25506), shows data from 5,589 individuals sampled across 105 populations around the World, and it highlights the slight variations in different populations.

Table 1: Detailed distributions of TAS2R38 haplotypes in the studied populations. . Source

The "Americans" in the table shown in the image are from the following groups (the number is the individuals in each sample): North America Maya Mexico 42, North America Puerto Ricans Puerto Rico 110, South America Colombians Colombia 134, South America Karitiana Brazil 28, South America Mexicans Mexico 160, South America PEL Peru 170, and South America Surui Brazil 16.

American Natives and Bitter Taste Genes

Looking at the data, we see that PVV is exclusively European, and does not appear in any other population, including Amerindians. It didn't admix into them despite the large-scale intermingling that took place after 1492, which is quite surprising.

AAI is definitively African where it reaches 13.22%, and in small amounts among Europeans and Americans (perhaps due to African genetic mixing into Southern Europeans and slave trade into America).

PVI is extremely rare, and is found at higher frequencies among Native Americans, with 0.19%, followed by Africans by 0.15%. None in Asia, and only 0.03% in Europe. We could suppose that African slave trade brought it into America, but why is the prevalence 26.6% higher in the Americas than in Africa? Being absent in Asia it surely didn't arrive via Beringian migrants.

AAV, absent in Asians is also found among Americans (2.26%), slightly lower than Europeans (3.56%) and much higher than Africans (0.61%). If it introgressed into Amerindians through Europeans, then, why didn't the European AVI do so in a similar proportion? (AVI among Americans is 26.69% while it is 49.22% among Europeans and roughly 33% in Africans and Asians).

Regarding the ancestral PAV, original allele, it is highest among Native Americans with 68.8%. The other populations have a lower frequency of it.

Interestingly, according to Kim et al. (See: Kim UK, Jorgenson E, Coon H, Leppert M, Risch N, Drayna D., Science. 2003 Feb 21;299(5610):1221-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1080190. PMID: 12595690. Positional cloning of the human quantitative trait locus underlying taste sensitivity to phenylthiocarbamide), "The common nontaster AVI haplotype was observed in all populations except Southwest Native Americans, who were exclusively homozygous for the PAV haplotype" (these natvies were almost 100% tasters).

Another article (Flores SV, Roco-Videla A, Aguilera-Eguía R. Variation in haplotype frequencies of the TAS2R38 gene, associated with the perception of bitter taste. Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología. 2025 Jan. 1;5:1026.) notes taster prevalence among Peruvian Andean people: "A particularly interesting case is the Peruvian population, which stands out for its high frequency of bitter taste perception diplotypes. In this population, only 1 % has the AVI/AVI diplotype, indicating an almost total prevalence of bitter taste perception (PAV/PAV and PAV/AVI). This exception suggests a specific dietary adaptation in the Andean region, or well the result of genetic drift."

Why hasn't natural selection erased the non-taster alleles?

For human beings, nearly all naturally occurring plant toxins poisons taste bitter. But, not all bitter tasting foods are poisonous. Many bitter tasting foods are harmless.

One interesting paper suggests that excluding all bitter flavored plants would mean lost calories and nutrients, because many bitter veggies are healthy and have no harmful effect (citric fruits, bitter melon, or kale, as well as the other cruciferous vegetables), some foods like beer, green tea, or coffee are bitter yet pleasurable. Also, bitterness may also mean medical properties such as quinine (the bitter ingredient of tonic water) used to combat malaria, or the pain-killing properties of salicin, found in willow leaves, on which the aspirin was based.

Humans also have cognition, and curiosity, they may try a bitter food, which if it doesn't cause harm, can then be safely added to the diet.

A paper (T2R38 taste receptor polymorphisms underlie susceptibility to upper respiratory infection Robert J. Lee,… , Danielle R. Reed, Noam A. Cohen. Published October 8, 2012. Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2012;122(11):4145-4159. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI64240.) found that bitter taste receptors also act upon the tissue lining the upper respiratory tract, and those carrying at both PAV alleles (tasters) are better protected from microbes than those carrying one or none: "these individuals are more likely to be infected with gram-negative bacteria such as P. aeruginosa than those with 2 functional receptor alleles." It also suggests that " humans with more non-taster alleles live in the colder climates, where the evolutionary pressure for the taster genotype may be relaxed, as there are fewer pathogens than in warmer climates."

But why the AVI non-taster allele is still carried at around 50% levels in humans. Could it be functional for other reasons and offer an evolutionary advantage that we have not yet identified?

A 2012 paper (Campbell MC, Ranciaro A, Froment A, Hirbo J, Omar S, Bodo JM, Nyambo T, Lema G, Zinshteyn D, Drayna D, Breslin PA, Tishkoff SA. Evolution of functionally diverse alleles associated with PTC bitter taste sensitivity in Africa. Mol Biol Evol. 2012 Apr;29(4):1141-53. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msr293. Epub 2011 Nov 29. PMID: 22130969; PMCID: PMC3341826) says it does, but isn't yet fully understood:

"the selective force maintaining common AAV, AAI, and AVI haplotypes for extraordinarily long periods of time remains unclear. Although both AAV and AAI are associated with intermediate bitter taste sensitivity, the AAI haplotype is more common in Africa than AAV. Intriguingly, the AAV haplotype may represent a “stepping stone” to other more advantageous haplotype variation, such as AAI and AVI. We suggest that common PAV, AAI, and AVI haplotype variation may be maintained at high frequencies in response to selective pressures unrelated to diet. Indeed, recent studies have shown that bitter taste receptors are expressed in a variety of cell types in the human gastrointestinal tract (Rozengurt and Sternini 2007) and lungs (Shah et al. 2009; Deshpande et al. 2010), where they influence insulin and glucose levels (Dotson et al. 2008), eliminate harmful inhaled substances (Shah et al. 2009), and stimulate the relaxation of airways for improved breathing (Deshpande et al. 2010). These studies demonstrate that bitter taste loci have a number of different functions and raise the possibility that common variants at TAS2R38 may be under selection due to their physiological roles in human health beyond oral gustatory function. Though we cannot conclusively distinguish the selective forces maintaining common variation at TAS2R38, it is clear that genetic variation at this locus is diverse and has been functionally important long before modern Homo sapiens existed."

Neanderthals

Our relatives, the Neanderthals had bitter taste perception (source) the El Sidrón individual, was heterozygous, carrying the ancestral PAV and the derived allele with an alanine in position 49, the study didn't clarify the other two positions, so this Neanderthal could have carried the common non-taster AVI, or the more rare variants AAI or AAV.

This means that the non-taster variant dates to before humans and Neanderthals split around 500,000 years ago. Of course, genetic flow between both groups could have introduced the derived non-taster variant into the 48,000-year-old Sidrón individual (meaning it originated among our H. sapiens), but the study considers this unlikely and affirms that "our results indicate that the non-taster alleles were already present in the ancestral human populations from which both Neanderthals and modern humans diverged."

The rise of non-tasters took place long ago. Studying African populations Tishkoff et al. (2012) found the following evolution and timeline for this gene from the PVA to the AVI form:

The PAV → AAV variant arose when P was replaced by A at site 49 1.3 million ± 242,211 years ago. Then the AAV → AAI shift took place when V was replaced with I at position 296, 1.0 million ± 267,268 years ago. These changes predate the split between Neanderthal-Denisovans and our ancestral H. sapiens lineage. Another mutation was the A for V at position 262, causing the AAI → AVI shift. This one took place 336,000 ± 89,845 years ago. The other low-frequency alleles are much younger than 200,000 years. Below is and years old, respectively. The lower frequency variants, including those that are associated with decreased PTC sensitivity, appear to be much younger in age, occurring within the last 200,000 years. Below is Fig. 4, from this paper, we added in red letters, each allele.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

On the Native American Horse and its survival in Patagonia

In his paper El Grupo Lingüistico Tshon de los territorios magallánicos, Robert LEhmann-Nitsche mentions the name of the Tehuelche natives, and offers different explanations. One is the following, and it involves the pre-Hispanic horse, native to the Américas. (Revista del Museo de La Plata, vol.22, 1913).

I have posted several times about extant native American horses, this is additional proof. Below is the relevant text:

"[these] inducethe belief that tehuel may also be an animal, typical of Patagonia, but, which? The reasonings of Aníbal Cardoso³, in my point of view leave no doubt abouth the fact that the autochthonous Argentine horse (Equus rectidiens) has existed during the period of the conquest [by the Spaniards c.1536] and is still alive, though not with pureblood representatives (the last bands in Southern Patagonia must have disappeared during the past years), but crossbred with the imported horse, originating the creole horse. The native linguistics supports this ...
there is among the Araucanians [Mapuches] the native Word for a wild horse: caitá (this is, according to our investigations, the correct spelling), the word is not found in the old dictionaries, but is commented by Lenz¹.
...
It is on record that the Patagons of the South used the word shäch, to designate wild horse (Equus rectidiens), that was gradually replaced by the Spanish word caballo."

³ Cardoso, Antigüedad del Caballo en el Plata. Anales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires. XII, p.271-439. 1912. Nuevos comprobantes a propóito e la antigüedad del caballo en el Plata, ibidiem, XXIV, p. 445-460. 1913.
¹ Lenz, Los elementos indios del castellano de Chile. Santiago de Chile, 1904, p.160.

Below is a picture (Source) of a Tehuelche native, wrapped in his guanaco fur quillango mounting a rather small horse which, seems to have curly hair!!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

On Freshwater Turtles in Patagonia - Update

In a previous post earlier this year, I mentioned that the movie director Miguel Angel Rossi suggested that the "Lake Monster" of Lake Nahuel Huapi was probably a turtle and I listed different species found in Argentina, none of which live in Patgonia due to the low temperatures. However, looking into the matter I found several references on these animals in the Patagonian rivers.

In August 2016, (Source), a freshwater turtle was photographed swimming in the Rio Negro River at Paso Córdoba (Google map), Pablo Chafrat, from the Museo Patagónico de Ciencias Naturales, a museum in the neighboring city of General Roca said that it could be an "exotic" turtle that someone bought and then grew tired of it, discarding it in the river. Below is a picture of the animal.

Turtle, Paso Córdoba, Rio Negro.

An article published in May 2019 reported finding a turtle (Phrynops Hilarii) in the Plottier irrigation channel during works on it. This irrigation system takes water from the Limay River. After draining it, they checked for any fish that may have become stranded, to capture them and place them back in the Limay River. They found a turtle which was rescued ant taken to the local fish-stocking station. It is pictured below.

Lagoon Tortoise (Phrynops Hilarii), Plottier channel.

The director of the fish-stocking station of Plottier, Jorge Figuolo said that the animal was checked by a veterinarian to make sure it was healthy, adding that its habitat is the Paraná River basin, and that they would return it to that area as they don't believe it could adapt to the cold water in Neuquén. They couldn't understand how it found its way into the irrigation channel (see the location on google maps). This spot is 58 km (35 mi.) upstream from Paso Córdoba.

A second turtle was found by a fisherman in Dec. 2023, 15km - 9 mi. east of Plottier, in the waters of Duran Creek (Source, with video), it was also identified as a Phrynops hilarii specimen. This spot is not far from Plottier, and is actually a branch of the Limay River (Map with location). The same explanation was given: a pet that was returned to the wild.

Turtle, Durán Creek, 2023

In Dec. 2024, the media reported (see video) a turle at Paso Córdoba (was it the same one spotted in 2016?) and again the fact that it was an exotic animal was mentioned. The turtle in the video looks well adapted to its habitat! See its picture below.

Turtle, Paso Córdoba, 2024

The facebook page of the Reserva Ecológica Plottier (Plottier Ecological Reserve) mentions several sightings in the area, not only the one mentioned in 2019, but others: Jan. 2025, and the turtle was left where it was found. The post says that these animals are now part of the local fauna. It also has a picture from Nov. 2022, a sighting in 2018 and another at Santa Helena Lagoon in the Plottier botanical gardens.

So, are these native creatures that had gone on undetected until now, or were they brought to the Neuquén, Limay, and Negro rivers area as pets from another place outside of Patagonia, and then set free in the environment? By the way, they seem to be thriving in the area, despite the cold winter temperatures.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Patagonian mtDNA is quite unique!

A paper published in 2017 (Diferenciación regional de poblaciones nativas de América a partir del análisis de los linajes maternos, Intersecciones en Antropología 18: 271-282. 2017. ISSN 1666-2105. Josefina María Brenda Motti, Marisol Elisabeth Schwab, Julieta Beltramo, Laura Smeldy Jurado-Medina, Marina Muzzio, Virgina Ramallo, Graciela Bailliet, Claudio Marcelo Bravi), looks into the maternal genetic component of the Native American people of South America, analyzing their mtDNA.

Their data show that Patagonian natives have a unique set of haplotypes not found in the rest of South America. Table 1 in the paper is shown below, with the haplotypes found in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia (it has no data from the Province of Neuquén).

Haplogroup frequencies (%). Table 1 in Motti et al. (2017)

The authors point out the high frequency of certain variants in Argentina's Patagonia, namely, B2i2, D1g, D4h3a5 y C1b13. It suggests that the "notable unity" in Patagonia, both in Chile and Argentina with the preponderance of these haplotypes suggests that south of Latitude 40°S, as the Andes are lower in elevation, there could have been west-to-east mobility of migrating groups.

The authors also note that "these lineages are practically exclusive to Patagonia, as they are found at low frequencies in central Argentina, Uruguay, and northern Chile, and are absent from the rest of the continent. The homogeneity on both sides of the Andes Mountains is indicative of common ancestry."

They suggest that D4h3a5 reached the region along the Pacific, while the presence of B2i1 in the Amazon people like the Kayapó, a sister clade to Patagonia's B2i2 suggests the arrival of people along the Atlantic coast of South America.

mtDNA D1g is Ancient

Since D1g is around 18,000 year old, its age could hint that it was among the first to reach the area, followed by younger haplogroups B2i2 y C1b13, aged 10,800 BP and 12,000 BP, respectively. B2i2 is absent in the Island of Tierra del Fuego suggesting that it differentiated later.

Michelle de Saint Pierre (2017) suggested that D1g as well as D4h3a are ancient, and must have been present in the first wave of people to reach America, later overlaid by more recent arrivals. (de Saint Pierre, Antiquity of mtDNA lineage D1g from the southern cone of South America supports pre-Clovis migration. Quaternary International, Vol 444, Part B, 2017, p.19-25, ISSN 1040-6182, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.05.054.). de Saint Pierre wrote:

"The age calculated for D1g, between 25,000 and 19,000 cal yr BP is extremely old for a South American mitochondrial subhaplogroup. The anomalous age of this haplogroup does not fit the currently accepted framework for the other mtDNA haplogroups in the Americas...
Of the exclusively Amerindian haplogroups, D4h3a has an age of 17.6 kyr. This is a good candidate to date the early peopling, since considerable evidence has shown it to be an ancestral haplogroup. D4h3a has been recovered from the late Pleistocene (12,707e12,556 cal yr BP) Anzick child (Rasmussen et al., 2014) and from a skeleton of an early Holocene individual from Alaska (Kemp et al., 2007), which is empirical evidence of the presence of this lineage in Paleoamericans. Also, D4h3a has a wide geographic distribution, being found low frequencies in populations across the continent, including the most southern native populations, the Patagonians"

See my post on D1g here, and the post on D4h3a here.

The Amazonian origin of the Mapuches

Back in 2012 (de Saint Pierre M, Gandini F, Perego UA, Bodner M, Gómez-Carballa A, Corach D, et al. (2012) Arrival of Paleo-Indians to the Southern Cone of South America: New Clues from Mitogenomes. PLoS ONE 7(12): e51311. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051311) had found that the sub-haplogroups B2i2 and C1b13 were exclusive to the southern tip of South America and noticed that B2i2 was found at high frequencies among the Mapuche people and related groups like the Pehuenche and Huilliche (26 to 39% frequencies) while admixture led to lower levels among the Tehuelches (14%). It was absent in northern Chile and also among the canoe people of Tierra del Fuego and Southern Chile (who rarely admixed with the Mapuches). Saint Pierre not only found th B2i group among the Amazonian Kayapó, they "identified only two additional mtDNAs, one from Brazil and one from northern Uruguay (both bearing the B2 control-region haplotype plus the B2i diagnostic transitions at np 430 and 485), thus preliminarily suggesting a geographic distribution of B2i1 limited to the northern and eastern part of South America/i>." This is interesting, and it is in line with the notion that the Mapuche originated in the Amazonian region and moved on, later into Chile.

I have posted about a common origin for Mapuche and the Amazonian Guaraní people (and again here), and that the Mapuche were late arrivals in the Patagoian region, so I welcome additional evidence that supports this theory.

Variant C1b13, on the other hand, is found beyond Patagonia, among people like the Atacameño of NW Chile's Atacama desert region, and the Alakaluf and Yamana canoe people, and surely spread to these people from the Mapuche homeland in Central Chile, and is of recent origin there, from an older C1 root.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Oceanians: Okewa in the Americas

My previous post mentioned Father Molina's point of view on the "Oceanian" presence in Patagonia c.500 AD. He also mentions Polynesian ceremonial clubs or "okewa". Today's post will explore other articles on these clubs in the Americas.

In 1930, José Imbelloni (1885-1967), an Italian anthropologist who lived and worked in Argentina, wrote a paper about the Okewa and other similar artifacts (Imbelloni, J. (1930). ON THE DIFFUSION IN AMERICA OF PATU ONEWA, OKEWA, PATU PARAOA, MITI, AND OTHER RELATIVES OF THE MERE FAMILY. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 39(4(156)), 322–345. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20702331).

The paper includes several photographs and describes artifacts unearthed in Arkansas, California, the State of Washington, Oregon, Michigan, British Columbia (Canada), Mexico, Peru, Argentina,

Imbelloni discards "convergence" by which people in the Americas created artifacts that are identical to those manufactured in New Zealand by Polynesian people (" not only because I consider such a convergence improbable which supposes also a somewhat astonishing parallelism of creative stages; but also on account of a large number of purely morphological circumstances.")

Imbelloni concludes as follows:

"The fact is that to this day nobody has ever faced the phenomenon in its integrity, because statements were based on a few discoveries, and more especially on North American ones, without taking South America into account; and some other writers dealt with the subject with much lightness, accepting commonplace explanations. The difficulty was avoided: now by bringing to bear the criterion of “convergence” in accidental inventions to a degree unsuitable even according to Bastian himself; now by impugning the veracity of the evidence of authors and writers of the last generation, as regards the specimens I have not been able to locate in the Museums; now by supposing that everything can be explained through a transposition of labels and objects in the glass-cases of ethnographical collections.
Against all these presumptions we have seen that the specimens found and collected by me, in these pages show unity and congruence.
To North America belong the following specimens: five standard patu onewa made of green and brown stone; two bodies of patu which very probably were of the onewa type; one argillite patu with a two-headed handle, similar to the Chatham specimens; three specimens of the miti model; and several patu paraoa, shaped according to the pattern of New Zealand.
To South America belong the following specimens: four patu onewa and two okewa.
The discoveries are located all along the Pacific Ocean zone in the northern continent, as well as in the southern.
The area of spatular weapons comprehends in North America: British Columbia and the States of Washington, Oregon and California. It is not necessary to assume that the origin of Nos. 4 and 5 from Michigan is apocryphal. A well-known track led the Indian tribes from the west to the Great Lakes region, by following the courses of the rivers. As for the southern steps, they form an uninterrupted chain along another beaten track, the way of the Uto-Aztec wandering—California-Arkansas-Mexico.
In South America the same element becomes visible in Peru and Araucania. It is interesting to note that the form of the patu onewa prevails toward the north and that of the okewa toward the south; let us note also the identity of type in the territories placed on both sides of the Cordillera de los Andes: the Argentine Nequén and the Chilian Province of Cautin, two areas connected by a corridor, whose ethnological content defines them as two communicating vessels.
Thus, the facts are connected by a natural logic that links them and throws light upon them all; and I am quite ready with profound admiration for those ethnologists who, with the preconceived idea of denying the migration of cultures from the Pacific to America, will be obliged to display much ingenuity in refuting, or cloaking with smoky clouds, the simple nature of the facts I have stated.
I beg of the reader not to forget that this paper contains only the American discoveries of the mere family stricto sensu, and no other. We must likewise consider in separate chapters.
(a) The derivatives proper to the New World, and especially the two foci of Nootka Sound and Araucanía, so plentiful with local variations.
(b) The quadrangular ceremonial axes which are toki tikitiki in Mangaia.
(c) The acclimatization in America of the whole Oceanic system of words, customs, and hierarchies connected with the word toki."

Sickle-shaped stone clubs, Polynesia and Limay, Patagonia. From Imbelloni J. (1930), Fig. 17

Alternative Explanations

Imbelloni mentions two of them: convergent creative styles in different cultures or misplaced labels on museum collection artifacts. There are more. See, for instance, Ivory, C. S. (1985). Northwest Coast Uses of Polynesian Art. American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 9(4). http://dx.doi.org/10.17953 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xk7z6b2).

Ivory argues that these artifacts in North America date from the late 18th century and are not older than 1778. During this period the natives living along the Pacific Northwest in the US and Canada (British Columbia, California, Oregon and Washington) were exposed to European goods and also to objects coming from Polynesia "especially those, such as the Tahitian gorget or the Marquesan club, which would enhance their status or prestige, or those like the Samoan club, which would be practical substitutes for implements in use in the culture. In both cases, the Native Americans sought not to change their culture, but to expand or enhance it through exotic, innovative or unusual objects. That these objects were Polynesian is not as important as the fact that they were both differentfrom and adaptable to Northwest Coast life."

Ivory also notes a pre-European⁄American contact through "the wreckage of Japanese vessels drifted on prevailing currents to the Northwest Coast some even with surviving crew members."

Imbelloni in his description of the Limay artifact pictured further up (See: Imbelloni, J. (1929). Un arma de Oceanía en el Neuquén. Reconstrucción y tipología del hacha del río Limay. Humanidades (La Plata, 1921) 20, 293-316. https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/art_revistas/pr.2174/pr.2174.pdf), clearly states that he agrees with Juan Ambrossetti's 1908 publication about this same artifact, stating that "these American ceremonial weapons form part of the Polynesian culture."

The "Toki"

Imbelloni also noticed that the word "Toki" was used in Polynesia and among the Chilean Mapuche people to designate ceremonial axes or adzes. He wrote a paper about this (Imbelloni, "TÓKI" La primera cadena isoglosemática establecida entre las islas del Océano Pacífico y el Continente Americano, Revista de la Sociedad de Amigos de la Arqueología, 1931. V, 129-149):

"The phoneme toki extends unaltered from the eastern limit of Melanesia, through all the island groups of the Pacific, to the maritime territories of the two Americas, with a wide area of penetration into the interior of the northern continent, as well as the southern one, where the diffusion has followed the dual East and South direction, to the southern lands...
A more or less valuable part of the cultural heritage of the Native Americans is directly dependent on the migrations that the Pacific Islanders made to the west coast of America, fanning out from their last garlands of land, Hawaii in the North and the Marquesas, Paumotu, Rapa Nui in the South..."

Further reading

Juan B. Ambrosetti, Clava lítica, de tipo peruano, del territorio del Neuquen, en Anales del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires, tomo XVII (1908), p.229-231.
José Miguel Ramírez Aliag, Contactos transpacíficos: un acercamiento al problema de los supuestos rasgos polinésicos en la cultura mapuche. ISSN 0716-0887, CLAVA 5 1992, Museo Sociedad Fonck, Viña del Mar - Chile

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Molina on the "engraved stones": Oceanian (Polynesians) in Patagonia

In the past, I have posted (see below for some links to these posts) about the strange engraved stones that were discovered in different parts of Chubut province, Patagonia, during the 20th century, and which were sent to the Salesian Museum in Rawson (their Facebook page), Chubut, and are exhibited there. See these pictures from their Facebook, they show the "engraved stones": Picture 1, Picture 2.

In his book "Patagonica" (online here), Father Manuel Jesús Molina mentions these stones and includes them as plates in his publication. Below are these images and his original captions are translated in each image's caption-

But first, let's read his interpretation of these engraved stones:

"Sculpture style - They are works executed in counter- and bas-relief on stone slabs of very different materials: granodiorite, granite, compact basalt, marble, sandstone, quartz pophyry. They have sulpted human figures seen from the front, and profile, animals, and birds, sometimes forming scenes; weapons and work tools; signs can be seen in the inscriptions that appear to be letters, the phases of the moon, and a symbolic sign that give mental uniformity to the works. In general they have a frame of lines or frets... Decorated (or not), axes and the oquewa [sic] belong to it... With this style is the engraved ceramic of Patagonia, especially in Chubut. The Rawson Museum preserves a slab of stone on which they have reproduced in basrelief different shapes of ceramic objects with their respective decorations. With them, came the engraved plaques, done many times on soft materials like volcanic tuffs. All this makes us suppose that this style is of oceanic origin as shown by the symbolic cross-shaped sign of its bearers. The painted skulls of San Blas would also belong to it, which bear the same magical sign that is seen among the oceanic creatures of the Marquesas Islands, and is engraved on the back of the mythical lizard and painted in red in a dotted circle at Punta Gualicho, in Lake Argentino. An old Alakulup tradition says that long ago, some very bad men arrived in large canoes. Their bodies were painted with large stripes, and they killed everyone they encountered. Surely, their gateway must have been Puerto Aysén; they must have crossed the Andes through Coyhaique and reached Lake Colue Huapi via the Mayo and Senguerr rivers, where they established their settlement. There they mixed with the Patagonians and reached the coast, which they traveled as far as the Paraná River, where they formed the Canals Frau Littoral Group. It can be dated to around 500 AD."

The Engraved Stones and their Captions

From Molina's book Patagónica Figures 70 to 79:

70 - Sculpture style: small bust whose pedestal exhibits sculpted emblems on its four faces - Salesian Museum of Rawson No. 737
71 - Sculpted art: small bust with an engraved pedestal with emblems on its four faces - Salesian Museum of Rawson No. 737

72- Three sculptures: in th emiddle, a "Mature Mere" with sculpted effigy and signs of 27x9 cm; to the left a trapezoidal slab of prophyrite of 26x19 cm with ostriches and their chicks; to the right a basaltic stone of 23x18 cm with an indigenous effigy and its emblems - Salesian Museum of Rawson, N. 752, 738, 751

73- Boulder with the figure of a strange animal represented with only two legs, inscription, emblems and frets - Salesian Museum of Rawson, No.742

74 - Three sculptures: in the middle a porphyrite axe of 20x14 cm found in chullucurá; to the right, cross with double border and emblems, in white marble of 14x12x4 cm found in Puerto Visser; to the left, oval with the portrait of a native, 15x12 cm - Salesian Museum of Rawson, N. 748, 746, 747

75 - Guanaco that looks at you on dark shale of 43x36 cm, with various emblems, the condor and a serpent. - Salesian Museum of Rawson, No. 743

76 - Black basalt slab of 54x29 cm with a perimetral border: a collection of naitve artifacts and emblems: the hunter wears a loincloth. - Salesian Museum of Rawson, No. 736

77- Various artifacts and emblems

78 - Axe in basalt with inscription and red paint. - Patagones, collection of Mrs. Julia M. De Serrano

79- Oceanic artifacts: 1. Okewa, of 27x13x3.6 cm (n. 204); 2. Okewa, of 18.5x 10.6x2 cm (n. 1297); 3. Triangular axe, of 18x14.5x2 cm (n. 1300). - Fancisco de Viedma Museum, Patagones

Okewa

When Molina mentions "Oceanic" he is referring to the Polynesians. The "oquewa" ini the text (sic) and "okewa" pictured above are the words used to designate polished rock clubs used by certain Polynesian groups such as the Maoris of New Zealand. They can also be found under different names, and made in wood, in different islands across the Polynesia.

In a future post we will look into the ceremonial clubs found in the Americas that hint at a Polynesian link or visit to the New World.

Visitors from the West

Molina mentions an ancient myth of the Alakaluf about canoes full of men painted with stripes that murdered their people. These myths could refer to European ships or expeditions from Chile southwards along the Pacific coastline which usually ended up with the Europeans killing the natives. A big canoe could equally be a Polynesian vessel or a European caravel or galleon. Bodies painted with large stripes could refer to clothes (the Alakaluf people just wore some seal skins).

My previous posts on these stones

The "Phoenician" stones were definitively not made by native Tehuelche or Mapuche people, they are very different. And we can therefore conclude that they are either:

• Fake. A forgery, a hoax. That is: someone deliberately crafted these stones with "native" motifs, with the intention of making them appear as authentic native or Phoenician crafts (hence the use of Semitic letters), to sell them to gullible amateur archaeologists.
• Genuine, made by some non-native people like European settlers. By genuine I mean that the persons who made them, did so for some religious, cultural, social reason, and left them behind when they returned to their homeland or disappeared (famine, illness, war). Probably some were made and sold for a profit, to fool those who bought them believing they were genuine native handicrafts.

The posts on these stones:
Tehuelche rock inscriptions. Comparison to "Phoenician" stones.
Phoenicians, Tehuelches, Patagonia and cryptozoology - Part 1 where I asked if "are they genuine or are they forgeries? If genuine, were they carved by the Tehuelche natives? or by someone else?"
Genuine Tehuelche "inscribed or engraved" stones
Analysis of Tehuelche - Phoenician - Celtic (?) intertwined snakes : Strange snakes of alleged Celtic or Phoenician origin found engraved on Patagonian rockss. Native or Semitic - Celtic art?
Cryptid on Phoenician - Tehuelche carving, a cryptid on a Tehuelche engraved stone with Phoenician symbols. (" a very peculiar stone which differs from the standard native artistic expression.")
Phoenicians and Hebrews in Pre-Columbian Patagonia

An Article on the Stones

The issue No. 171, of Argentina Austral, published in September 1945, (online here, see p.12) included an article "¿Eran nómades o sedentarios los Tehuelches?" (Were the Tehuelche nomads or sedentary?) by Father Justo M. Ducco. In it, he discusses these engraved stones, and includes more photographs of them, including more samples such as a tortoise in pink granite (pictured below).

The article mentions the stone sculptures as follows (In it, Ducco, interviews Father Antonio F. Fernández, principal of the Rawson Salesian School, which served at that time as the "museum"):

"But what gives this Museum its unique character is the "Archaeological Collection," with its lithoglyphs that intrigue the observer. A dozen or more granite-porphyry plaques, exquisitely engraved in relief, with heads of indigenous people, animals of the region, tools, symbols, and probable inscriptions, surrounded by a geometric border like a fretwork. The stone chosen for these works is solid and fine-grained; diverse in color and composition. And there is an exception, a small marble plaque less than two square decimeters in diameter. [2 dm = 200cm² = 31 sq.in.] The engraving, or at least its retouching, was executed by percussion with pointed stones, with the patience necessary to achieve impeccable forms and surfaces. Father Fernández tells me that other visitors, more or less dedicated to archaeological matters, expressed their fears that these lithoglyphs may have been brought from Peru in ancient times; or perhaps they are local works by European carvers. I spoke at length with the Father; we examined the plaques and other similar works repeatedly, including a small bust of an indigenous person; we exchanged opinions, suppositions, difficulties, and arguments; and finally, we synthesized our shared opinion in several statements, which I present and elaborate upon here.
1°) The objects are heavy, some of the plaques weighing up to thirty kilos, and the Father has seen some of even greater proportions. We therefore dismiss the suspicion of allochthonous origin, taking into consideration that during the time of their long migrations, the indigenous people lacked vehicles that would have allowed them to carry more than the bare necessities.
2°) Regarding the hypothesis of the European origin of these sculptures, we note first that not all of them contain a single example of an exotic theme. If Europeans had engraved or simply directed the engravings, they would have imprinted their concerns as foreigners on them.
3°) Nor does the horse appear among the animal figures, which can only be explained by accepting that these are productions from a time before the arrival of the Spaniards to our shores; since with the first founding of Buenos Aires, the wild cattle descended from the escaped or abandoned cattle already began to spread towards the pampas.
4°) None of the plaques have a symmetrical face, even if only approximately. Their creators were aware of symmetry, as evidenced by the perfection with which they reproduced the Indian heads seen frontally in low relief, with their fringed headbands and geometrically arranged necklaces; likewise, the turtles, arrows, and other naturally symmetrical motifs. But they were not concerned with symmetry as European or Europeanized artists were; therefore, the outline of the work, traced by a simple fretwork, and the distribution of the figures, lack intentional symmetry.
5°) The works show the work of different hands, as can be seen from the compositions, the details of their execution, and even more so from the fact that the sculptures were found in different, very distant locations. At first glance, the themes might seem repetitive, were it not for the fact that the objects typical of the Patagonian moorland were specifically few: rheas, guanacos, pumas, snakes, lizards, the sun, the four phases of the moon... and add to that two almost indispensable symbols: arrows, such as those found in the riding arenas in their most common and elegant form; and another symbol that leaves us intrigued: Something like a uniform club or a bundle of rods, with two radiating bows or ties, also uniform and without a terminal notch, the whole of which resembles a crude schematization of a lizard's body seen from above. To these elements of the sculptural compositions, we must add several small signs that appear to be hieroglyphs. And there is precisely one plaque that contains about twenty of them, as if it were a mnemonic or learning manual.
6°) It will be objected that, since these were "nomadic" Indians, we cannot attribute to them the perfection displayed by the carvers of these stones."

Next Post: Okewa in the Americas

In a future post I will explore the presence of these okewa in the Americas.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall © 

The Last Warrah (Falkland-Malvinas wolf-fox): Isla Pavón Santa Cruz - 1875

Llaras Samitier wrote an article back in March 1965 (La Argentina Austral, No. 401 Leyendas del Río Santa Cruz, Tadición de un Zorro. p.8) in which, among others, he tells the following story about the now extinct Warrah. The author mentions Pavón Island, which was set in the middle of the Santa Cruz River (see it in Google maps), it was here that Argentine naval officer Luis Piedrabuena had set up his fortified enclave and traded with sealers and Tehuelche natives. From here George Musters set out in 1869 towards Carmen de Patagones on an expedition that covered more than 2,300 km (1,430 mi).

Below we quote Llaras Samitier's text

"A FOX'S LEGEND.
 
There on Pavón Island, there also lived a warrah, the Falkland Islands fox (Dusicyon australis or Canis antarcticus), which, according to the inhabitants of the trading post, disappeared at the end of the summer of 1875. It is generally accepted that the last one in the Falklands was hunted in 1876, since from that date onward, there was no further news of the existence of this animal. But at the end of 1874, a sealing vessel that docked in Port Louis established a camp on land so the crew could rest and also to caulk the boats, badly damaged during a brief Antarctic campaign. During their stay, a fox cub approached the tents and became familiar with the crew members working on land, from whom it meekly accepted food and a few kicks. One Sunday, when the first officer, after preparing and greasing his boots, he placed them at the entrance of the tent. The little animal, unable to think of anything better to do, started gnawing on those greedily greased or oiled leathers, as if they were meant for him. Furious, the first officer fired several revolver shots at him, missing his target, but the fox wasn't frightened; he just stood there gazing mockingly at him from a short distance. Amid laughter and comments after such a summary trial, it was decided to spare his life and take him on board as a pet the next day, if he was still around. Indeed, the next day the American-registered schooner set sail, taking the puppy on board. On their return, they stopped at Santa Cruz to replenish their salt supplies, and everyone was fed up with the pet, as it punctuated its endless days of leisure on board by gnawing on anything made of leather, especially the crew's footwear. When some of the laborers at the island's trading post inquired about this unusual "specimen of a dog," it was immediately offered as a gift, an offer that was accepted, particularly by Juan Razo, who considered himself the dog's owner. Although at first it didn't get along well with the pack of dogs living on the island, little by little they grew accustomed to tolerating it. The truth is that one cool April night, while his owner was fishing on the riverbank, the fox that accompanied him began to howl. He howled plaintively, sitting on the shore, until, driven by some strange force known only to God, he resolutely plunged into the water. It is assumed that the river became his grave, for he was never seen again. Perhaps he heard the call of a riverside fox and managed to cross the river, disappearing into the Patagonian pampas. The fact is the name of one of the last specimens of that breed of canid, which became extinct in 1876, is linked to the great [Santa Cruz] River, contributing to its first legend.

This same story was reported in Chebez, J. C., Bertonatti, C. (1994). Los que se van: especies argentinas en peligro. Argentina: Editorial Albatros, p. 50.

Did the Warrah survive extinction?

Liborio Justo, (1902-2003) was an Argentine author known also by his pseudonym Lobodón Garra (name that combines the words wolf, mylodon, and claw – in Spanish, lobo, milodón, and garra). Between 1926 and the early 1930s, he traveled extensively to Patagonia and wrote about his experiences in his book "La Tierra Maldita" (The Cursed Land), which has a gripping and natural Jack London style.

In one of his fictional works written in the 1930s, "Las Brumas del Terror", he tells about an old man at Dumas Peninsula on the Fuegian island of Hoste, is accompanied by a "uarrah". Justo suggests that maybe some warrah had managed to survive and were taken to the mainland by seal hunters that frequented the islands. Probably a case of fiction inspired by facts.

2021 Warrah Fox Falkland Island 50p.

Embalmed Warrah Fox . Source

The possibility that a warrah brought from its island home to the continent is exciting, and if it managed to breed in the wild it opens the possibility that warrah genes could still be found among Patagonian dogs or even its foxes.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

EDAR in ancient Amerindians and modern ones - 2025 update

The ectodysplasin A receptor (EDAR) gene, which is also known as rs3827760; 370V/A (where the V and the A represent Valine and Alanine, two aminoacids) or 1540T/C (where T and C are two nucleotides Thymine and Cytosine respectively) has an impact on tooth shape, hair thickness, sweat glands, and milk production and breasts in women. It is also found almost exclusively in Asian and Native American populaitons. It is extremely rare in Africa and Europe who carry the "ancestral" variant the 370V. The derived or mutated allele, where the Alanine was replaced for Valine in the protein or Thymine for Cytosine in the DNA strand, is a "recent" mutation known as 370A.

I have posted about it, when I mentioned that an ancient Amerindian from Brazil, a the Lapa do Santo individual who died over 6,000 years ago, carried the ancestral variant. Which is odd, since his ancestors came from Asia, and the derived variant is predominant there. This variant is also predominant among current Native Americans.

The question is: How could he have the original ancestral unmutated version while the other natives have the derived version? What about the bottle necks and founder effects, the Beringian standstill and so forth? These "filters" are supposed to have narrowed down the genetic variability in America, only a few mtDNA and Y-Chromosome haplogroups managed to enter America. So, with these limiations, wouldn't we expect all ancient Native Americans to carry the mutated Asian variant with them into America?

Posth et al. (2018) were the first to point out this anomaly:

"EDAR gene Variant. Our data show that a variant in EDAR that affects tooth shape, hair follicles and thickness, sweat, and mammary gland ductal branching and that occurs at nearly 100% frequency in present day Native Americans and East Asians was not fixed in USR1, Anzick-1, a Brazil Lapa do Santo 9600 BP individual and a Brazil Laranjal 6700 BP individual, all of whom carry the ancestral allele. Thus, the derived allele rose in frequency in parallel in both East Asians and in Native Americans."

These ancient American remains mentioned by Posth are old: the USR1 baby was 11,500 years old, Anzic-1 ~12,900 years old, the Brazilian dates are given above.

Yet the derived (mutated) form was present in the ancient site of Los Rieles "(12.0 kya) from coastal Chile of South America." (source), and the same source states that the mutated form increased to a frequency of 90% by the Early Holocene in both East Asia and America (11.6 - 5.0 kya). Posth et al. give the Los Rieles site a younger age of 10.9 kya, and confirms it had a mutated variant (See the Table 7 in Posth's Supplementary Material with a site by site detail).

Posth explains this anomaly by suggesting that the derived EDAR was not yet fixed at that time and that it evolved later, in some kind of convergent evolution on both sides of the Pacific. Probably promoted by natural selection.

A newer paper by Xiaowei Mao et al., (2021) from which the following image was taken, discusses ancient remains from the Amur River region, it also mentions EDAR.

Fig 4B. EDAR alleles. Source

The image above is captioned "(B) Allele counts for adaptive mutations of EDAR V370A in Tianyuan, ancient populations in the Amur region, and recently published ancient northern East Asians (Yumin, Bianbian, Boshan, Xiaogao, and Xiaojingshan) (Yang et al., 2020) from 40–6 ka. Purple shading represents the period of the LGM. Dots represent genotype calls (blue, ancestral alleles; red, derived alleles; gray, missing alleles). The number at the top of the bar (separated by a comma) shows the allele coverage for the derived and ancestral allele, and the number in parentheses at the bottom of the bar shows the number of individuals included in that time column. Genotypes were called using a maximum-likelihood-based method (snpAD) that takes into account possible errors in the covered alleles."

The text adds that "here we show that mutation V370A in the EDAR gene appeared in all ancient East Asians (including AR19K), except for AR33K and Tianyuan, the only two individuals in our sample predating the LGM stadial in East Asia." So it was not present in the 34.3-32.4 cal BP AR33K specimen from the Amur River area or the older Tianyuan man (40 ky old). It developed later. Remember that it was not found in ancient Amerindians either.

The paper adds that "our direct observation demonstrated that this allele emerged as early as ∼19 ka, as observed in the AR19K individual (Figure 4B), providing an older and more accurate upper boundary for the allelic age estimate." Then it spreads quickly reaching 93.7% in Asia nowadays.

Prevous estimates from 2008 (online source) reported a later date of fixation of 370A, some 10,740 years ago, it also suggested that "370A was likely at high frequency before the colonization of the Americas 10,500–14,000 years ago. Thus, the high frequency of 370A in Native Americans is most likely due to positive selection prior to migrations from Asia to America."

These explanations suggest that the derived allele was already present in the people who populated America.

But why is it not found in the other old remains? Some would argue that the first people to reach America carried the ancestral and the derived variants, and that eventually the later replaced the former. I believe that these people came from a group that carried the Ancestral allele, so this places them before the LGM, say 30 or 40 kya. Then came the post LGM migration with the mutated allele and erased all of the previous original Americans.

Another explanation lies with the Australasians: A 2021 paper on the genetics ancient Asians reported that none of the 7 ancient Jomon samples (Jomon hunter-gatherers lived in Japan) dated to ~2500–800 BC carried the derived allele. The Jomon were assimilated by the a later wave of people who now make up the Japanese population. The Ainu of Northern Japan are realated to the Jomon, and these, in turn, seem to have reached Japan using a coastal route, linking them to Southeast Asian people like tue Taiwan aborigines (Ami, and Atayal) and the Igorot, all of which are Austronesian minorities. (source). This coastal migration from ASEAN to Japan could also link them with the Onge, who only carry the ancestral allele.

Could Onge-related people have carried the ancestral allele into America in a first peopling wave, and in the process leave their genetic imprint there?

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Prehispanic Cattle in Patagonia (revisited)

I posted about native bovids in Patagonia several years ago. Today I found an interesting interview published in June 1969, in the Boletín de Intercomunicación de la Familia Salesiana, which appeared in a 2011 blog post. The Boletín is a magazine of the Catholic Salesian Congregation, a religious organization founded in the 1850s by Father "Don" Juan Bosco to help the young vulnerable people. The Salesians worked in Patagonia helping the Natives, starting in the 1880s. There are many Salesian schools, and even a University in Argentina.

The person that is interviewed is father Manuel Jesús Molina (link to a post with his bio), and the part I quote below deals with "bovids" and horned animals. There are no known native bovids (cows, buffalo, bison, antelopes, or goats) in Southern South America yet, there are many native myths involving horned animals.

"— Who, when, where, and how were these rock engravings and paintings done?
— The natives, the oldest of which date back to ten or eleven thousand years ago; there are other which are more recent: six thousand years. I have just concluded an investigative work at Lake Posadas, in Santa Cruz, precisely about rock engravings and paintings.
— How old are they...?
— I had already received information from a technician of the museum who had been sent there ten years ago, to investigate the area, and he brought a series of really good photographs. Later, one of our pupils -a rancher- sent me another set of photographs. When I compared them and studied them, I found that there was something that wasn't running, that wasn't clearly visible: but it gave me the impression that some of the paintings of bovids were from the Spanish period. As I alreay had photographs of bovid scenes that were much older, when I conducted my study, I imagined that those at Lake Posadas were more recent. Well, now I went back to conduct a complete study of the site, and I came across this new finding: that these bovids which I had interpreted as being from the time of the Spaniards, were clerarly from the native period, and so ancient, that I found them painted at a height of five meters [16 ft.] on the rock walls in the middle of the Cordillera...
—Painted by…?
—The Patagonian indigenous people.
—Could you explain how they could paint at five and a half meters high? How tall were the Patagonians?
—It means the following: the Patagonian didn't bother to paint high up; they painted at ground level, about half a meter up.
—How did they manage to paint? What did they use? What did they rely on? What were those paintings like?
—To explain the origin of those paintings, I only had to look at the geological formation of the region. It was once a large glacial lake. The remnants are the small lakes that remain: Posadas, Lago Salitroso, Lago Pueyrredón. But there was a time when all of that formed an immense interglacial lake. Later, as the ice retreated, the lateral moraines (which are large accumulations of rocks, rubble, clay, and mud) left behind sediments that settled against the hill. When the indigenous people arrived, they found the sediments at a height of about five meters, and—standing on the moraines—they created their paintings. Then, over time, five or six thousand years, those moraines eroded, crumbled, and were demolished by erosion. Today they are almost at that level.
—How tall were the Patagonians?
—Between 1.80 and 2.30 meters tall.
—Do those paintings date back eleven thousand years?
—Those paintings date back to an imprecise time, after the lake drained. One could say eight thousand years.
—What other interesting details about those paintings could you give us?
—The most interesting thing about these paintings is this: I've corrected a mistake I made when analyzing the previous photographs, because I had always believed that these paintings were from the Spanish period. Now I've discovered that they're not from that era, but from the old indigenous period. At first, I interpreted them as Spanish bovines: bulls and cows from the Spanish colonial era. Now—having been there and taken photographs of those paintings—I've found that they represent animals called unicorns, that is, animals with a single horn. And there isn't just one representation, but four, including a large, curved horn, which is identical to the painting I had documented near the Santa Cruz River, dating back six or seven thousand years before Christ. Now it turns out it's the same animal in four different representations: the male depicted with a horn, and the female without. It's an interesting case, because there's no unicorn animal in Argentine paleontology. Once, when Dr. Frenguelli published something about a bovid, all the Argentine paleontologists denied it. When I sent the photograph of that animal to the prehistorian Dr. Osvaldo Menghin, he didn't take it seriously; but when he later saw the diagram drawn by a technician, he said: "Now we have in hand an argument to prove that bovids, or at least unicorns, existed in Argentina, and that Frenguelli was right." The fact is, unicorns did exist in Argentina."

Analysis and Comments

The site of these paintings is Cerro de los Indios (map), close to Lake Posadas, the eastern tip of Lake Pueyrredón. Below is an image of the paleolake formed by these two lakes, plus Lake Salitroso. To the north is Lake Buenos Aires / General Carrera. During the Last Glacial Maximum, they drained eastwards across the steppe into the Atlantic (A). Now, after the ice field melted, they both drain west into the Pacific and their level has dropped (B).

Paleolake Pueyrreón LGM and nowadays. Source

Another view of the Paleolake and its evolution, the colors indicate different water levels, pale blue color marks the current lakes Pueyrredón, Posadas, Salitroso (left to right) and Ghio center-right. Number 5, marks the Cerro de los Indios, site of the unicorn paintings.

Paleolake Pueyrreón, at different levels. Source

Molina mentions Joaquín Frenguelli and a publication about bovids. I found the publication, but it is not digitalized (Frenguelli, ]., 1933. Restos de Bovino en el Lujanense de Santa Fe. Anales de la Sociedad Científica de Santa Fe, 5: 14-24.) the title is "Remains of Bovine in the Santa Fe Lujanenese".

Another source about Frenguelli and his comments on bovids is a newspaper article, Were there Horses and Cows in the Prehistoric Pampas? Crítica, July 8, 1935, p.6. This article mentions Joaquín Frenguelli, Director of the La Plata Museum, and his discovery of prehistoric bovids in Argentina, it says that "The Findings of Dr. Frenguelli... nevertheless does not got beyond believing very possible, and in no way proven, the bovine origin of the remains he found." It also mentions a previous finding by Florentino Ameghino and Muñiz of the remains of primitive American oxen, though later Ameghino said they were antelopes. The photograph below is from the Critica article:

Fragment of a skull of Nothobos Pampaens, the horns, as can be seen, are similar to those of cows. Critica, 1935

This is the link to Ameghino's bovid publication, which he die not publish with Muñiz, but with Gervais (Mamíferos Fósiles de América del Sur. Henri Gervais, F. Ameghino, 1880). The text reads:

"1ANTILOPE ARGENTINA - H Gerv and Amegh SYN.
Bos pampaeus - Amegh
We establish this species on the extremity of a horn belonging without a doubt to an antelope. It has been collected in the province of Buenos Aires.
LXX GEN. PLATATHERIUM - H Gerv and Amegh
We propose to create this generic name for a large ruminant found in fossil form in the province of Buenos Aires and represented in the collections of the Museum of Natural History of Paris by a left half of the lower jaw, some limb bones, and a portion of the hip.
PLATATHERIUM MAGNUM - H Gerv and Amegh We will call the only species of this genus Platatherium magnum and give an idea of the size of this animal by saying that the space occupied by the molars of the second dentition must be at least 0.164 m The lower half of the jaw is provided with all the teeth of the first dentition. These teeth are close to falling out and the permanent molars are already visible underneath, ready to replace them. The molars of the P magnum are very compressed, very different in shape from those of deer, but on the contrary, they seem to resemble those of antelopes. The true molars are composed of two yokes or columns and present in the external groove that divides the two parts a column quite similar to that which occupies the inner part of the upper molars of cattle. The false molars, at least of the first dentition, differ in shape from those of antelopes, resembling in their characteristics those of cervines and bovines."

Fig 4 in Torricelli's Obras Completas Vol. 9 (Complete Works of Ameghino), shown below is the "tip of one of the horns of the Platatherium pampaeum.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©