MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Skeleton 4,000 years old found in Tierra del Fuego

Anthropologists and geologists from the Austral Scientific Research Centre, Cadic, in Ushuaia have found in the north coast of Argentine Tierra del Fuego the buried body, surprisingly well conserved of an adult that lived in the area 4,000 years ago.

Apparently the oldest ever discovered, the skeleton corresponds to an adult at the time of the highest level of the world's seas because his remains were found under a 3,900 years old archaeological pit denominated "conchero" or "shells centre".

These centres were quiet common practice in the time when the original inhabitants of the area would settle for months to feed on molluscs and other sea food with shells and take time to build utensils.

The body is approximately 1,70 meters, in a foetal position on his right side with his left hand under the head and knees close to his chest. The burial ground is almost 3,000 meters from the current sea shore.

"The body is very well preserved, totally articulate, with complete denture but we can't say if it belongs to a selk-nam, ona tribe, although they inhabited the area and seems to be a foot hunter", said Monica Saleme, an anthropologist from the group that took the remains to the main Cadic laboratory for further examination and ADN tests to determine its migratory origin.

So far tools and utensils 12,600 years old have been found in Tierra del Fuego, supposedly belonging to selk-nams but no human remains. Researchers are interested in knowing the different migrations to Tierra del Fuego in the Holocene.