The Juan Fernandez Archipelago lies roughly 80°W and 33.5° S, around 700 km west of Santiago de Chile (435 mi.), there are two islands, named for a famous castaway and the character he inspired: Alexander Selkirk Island to the west, and Robinson Crusoe Island to the east.
They were discovered by chance in 1574 when Juan Fernández set sail from Callao, Peru to Chile and decided to avoid the doldrums along the coastal route which extended the voyage duration to up to six months. He sailed west, and then south, shortening the trip to only 30 days, and discovered the Juan Fernandez Archipelago and the islas Desventuradas (Unfortunate Islands) 26°19'S and 80°W.
They were uninhabited, and soon became a stopover on the voyage from the Strait of Magellan to Polynesia. They offered water, food, and vegetation that helped restore the ailing mariners.
Over the following centuries, they were settled and abandoned by Spaniards, Chileans, Peruvians, they faced occupation attempts by the French and British, until finally, they became a Chilean National Park and an UNESCO Biosphere reserve. Work is in progress to protect its endangered fauna and flora, endemic and unique, that has been under siege due to the introduction of goats, cats, rabbits, cows, dogs, and foreign plants. See this book by Vicuña Mackenna (1883) on the island's history.
The question of pre-European discovery and settlement has been addressed, and a paper details the work by Atholl Anderson et al., (2002): Archaeological exploration of Robinson Crusoe Island, Juan Fernandez Archipelago, Chile, January 2002, New Zealand Archaeological Association.
They did not find any artifacts showing the presence of pre-European people on the island, but they found charcoal that is older than 1574, the discovery date of these islands. Fire is always a suggestion of human activity, even though it can occur due to natural reasons (lightning strikes in a dry environment with combustible plant material).
At Cumberland bay, the most sheltered area of the island, and one close to the largest expanse of flat ground in the abrupt island, the authors found charcoal "below the level of modern and historical artefactual remains these suggest that there have been forest firing in the pre-European , around the late first millennium and early second millenium AD. While interesting and potentially significant, they do not provide a strong indication of prehistoric occupation in the absence of cultural remains or of any horizon of charcoal, burnt rocks, etc."
The dates in the table 2 of this paper give these charcoal remains the following dates: 1340 ± 40 AD, 1010 ± 170, and 640 ± 210. The authors say that until the rockshelters are excavated nothing more can be said about prehistoric presence in the islands Nevertheless they consider it unlikely due to several reasons: the great distance from the main Eastern Polynesian bases, a vast ocean with no islands (Only Rapa Nui to the west), and for South American sailors, strong easterly head winds and choppy sea. The conclude "As in the case of remote western islands of Polynesia, occupation was likely to have been either very brief (Norfolk Island) or absent (Lorde Howe Island)."
I am curious why the paper shows a midden at La Vaquería, when it mentions the island sites that they analyzed, but does not mention it in the text. Midden is a dump of refuse, of ancient domestic garbage, coastal midden piles are mainly sea shells piled up by those who consumed them, and accumulated over hundreds, even thousands of years. The term may also apply to more recent dumps or heaps, containing potsherds, bricks, etc.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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