Chinchorro mummies

The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture, found in what is now northern Chile and southern Peru. They are the oldest examples of artificially mummified human remains, becoming popular by up to two thousand years before the Egyptian mummies. To put this in perspective, the earliest mummy that has been found in Egypt dated around 3000 BC, while the oldest mummy recovered from the Atacama Desert is dated around 7020 BC. The artificial mummies of Chinchorro are believed to have first appeared around 5000 BC and reached a peak around 3000 BC. Often Chinchorro mummies were elaborately prepared by removing the internal organs and replacing them with vegetable fibers or animal hair. In some cases an embalmer would remove the skin and flesh from the dead body and replace them with clay. Shell midden and bone chemistry suggest that 90% of their diet was seafood. Many ancient cultures of fisherfolk existed, tucked away in the arid river valleys of the Andes, but the Chinchorro made themselves unique by their dedicated preservation of the dead.