WHAT IS THE SNITCH MAN? - HISTORY - 2025

The Chivateros man were individuals who lived during the Lithic Era in what is now the archaeological site that bears the same name. Chivateros was a common work area for prehistoric men in the coastal area of ​​Peru, specifically in the city of Lima.

It was the archaeologist Edward P. Lanning and his colleague Thomas C. Patterson, who in the 1960s found the remains of this civilization. Terrain studies and anthropological investigations revealed that Chivateros men existed in approximately 9,500 BC.

Image taken from oocities.org

These same archaeologists discovered that the Chivateros area extended to prehistoric periods dating back to 12,000 BC.

The man from Chivateros was a hard worker who forged tools and weapons from quartzite stone. From knives and spearheads to hand axes.

However, some historians affirm that the man from Chivateros lived in 7,000 BC and that instead of forging weapons they collected raw material to make Paiján points.

Historical characteristics of the man from Chivateros

Numerous archaeological studies and important anthropological investigations affirm that the man from Chivateros was one of the first settlers of Peru and even of America.

This has aroused the interest of scholars who have compiled the main characteristics of the Chivateros man.

Settlement or workshop?

Although the denomination of man of Chivateros seems to refer to the settlement of a common population, the region today known as Chivateros has been described as a "lithic workshop" by historians and anthropologists who study the subject.

According to the evidence, it has been determined that the men of the time did not live in that area.

The Chivateros man could not fish, hunt animals or survive in the Chivateros area. There was also no structure or evidence of any type of architecture in the area.

For this reason, the man from Chivateros presents himself as a nomad. It is presumed that the Chivateros population went from one place to another in search of food, whether in the form of animals, fruits or edible flowers.

They moved from one place to another in groups of several men to be alert to possible threats and to get more food to their huts.

Chivateros was then presented as a workshop where men could find raw materials to make tools and weapons.

The main material they used was quartzite stone and the main artifacts built were pedunculated points, that is, stones carved in the form of triangles (mostly) or bifacial, for spears or bows.

How did Chivateros's men discover the place?

The current administrator of the lithic department of the National Museum of Archeology, Anthropology and History of Peru, Verónica Ortiz, affirms that the men who inhabited the lands of Chivateros came from the north, but due to a sudden rise in sea levels due to the melting glaciers had to migrate south.

The men of Chivateros found a good geographical place to supply their needs along the banks of the Chillón River.

They settled there because they could fish, hunt, and collect edible fruits and flowers from the surrounding areas. In that place they were out of the danger that had made them migrate.

On the other hand, in Chivateros they had the opportunity to make weapons and utensils, both for hunting and fighting and for eating, collecting, chopping, among others.

Around 50 settlements have been found in Chivateros. In addition to multiple stone workshops and quarries where the raw material was obtained.

History and

The Chivateros man first created unifacial scrapers, that is, concave stones in the shape of a leaf (the closest thing to a shovel) with the aim of using them for digging.

Scrapers were used in the early settlement years to mine the quartzite stone with which they would later make more complicated objects.

The man from Chivateros was a born explorer, ingenious and intelligent in his desire for survival. Therefore, one discovery led to another and inventions were soon developed in search of facilitating everyday life.

The Holocene Period, plagued by melting glaciers, was one of the most difficult periods for the man of Chivateros due to the extinction of many fauna and flora that they used as food.

The survival instinct led the Chivateros man to create weapons to hunt down the wild animals in the environment, which by then were fast and agile.

The solution was the creation of weapons, mainly spears and arrows. Then the second era of the Chivateros men began.

The men of Chivateros found themselves in the need to make tools, not only for gathering, but also for hunting, because if this was not done then they would die of hunger.

The modus operandi of the Chivateros men consisted in the extraction of quartzite stone and the realization of a type of pre-form of the tool or weapon.

In other words, Chivateros functioned as an extraction and work center. After being extracted and molded, the quartzite stone by means of the percussion method, this was taken to the settlement site.

At the settlement site the pre-formed stones were polished and joined with other components to form the final product.

You may be interested Stages of Prehistory: Stone Age and Neolithic.

How did the man from Chivateros work with quartzite stone?

The man from Chivateros used two techniques to work the quartzite stone.

Percussion

It consisted of hitting the center of the stone with an object much harder than the quartzite stone itself.

In this way, the other side of the area where the blow was made (percussion) came off in a kind of sheet, or even a piece of stone, which, although large, was sharp and useful for cutting and hunting.

This sheet or piece of stone that was detached, was known as flake. And it was usually put through a second process before use.

Pressure

It consisted of applying pressure with heavy objects to the sides of a flake. In this way it was shaped.

References

1. Gordon Randolph Willey. (1966). An Introduction to American Archeology: South America. Google Books: Prentice-Hall.
2. Brian M. Fagan. (1974). Men of the earth: an introduction to world prehistory. Google Books: Little.
3. Thomas F. Lynch. (2014). Guitarrero Cave: Early Man in the Andes. Google Books: Academic Press.
4. Sigfried J. de Laet, Unesco. (1994). History of Humanity: Prehistory and the beginnings of civilization. Google Books: Taylor & Francis.
5. Dolores Moyano Martín. (nineteen eighty one). Handbook of Latin American Studies. Google Books: University of Florida Press.
6. André Leori-Gourhan. (2002). Prehistory in the world. Google Books: AKAL Editions.
7. Nelly Luna Amancio. (2014). The lost tracks of the Chivateros man. August 20, 2017, from El Comercio Website: elcomercio.pe.
8. Andrefsky, William Jr. (2005). Lithics. Cambridge University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-521-61500-6.