Araucaria araucana - The monkey puzzle tree is native to the Andes Mountains of Central Chile and Argentina. It is distributed along the lower slopes of the Central Andes and is one of the hardier conifer trees. The trunk has a diameter of 2 meters and reaches heights of 40 meters. There are about twenty pine trees producing seeds large enough to warrant harvesting, the monkey puzzle being one. The indigenous Pehuenche people used these seeds as an important food source.
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Monte Verde is an archaeological site in Southern Chile. It has provided evidence of human arrival in the Americas much sooner than earlier calculations. The Clovis First Theory, named after a site in New Mexico, had placed the arrival of the first humans into the Americas, via the Bering Strait land bridge, at about 13,000 years ago. Artifacts from the Monte Verde site have been carbon dated to 14,000 years ago. This refreshes the debate of when and how the first humans arrived in the Americas.
