Here on these barren desert hillsides along the Pacific coast of South America, no trees grow.
No shrubs. No cacti. No green.
The dry brown earth and the desert sand stretches as far as you can see, rolling into the Ocean. But this barren landscape preserves life, as it has for thousands of years.
Nine thousand years ago, communities of peoples lived on the hillsides here. They were semi-nomadic. Fisherfolk. They survived off of the ocean from the abundant seafood and fish.
Their water came from the nearby Camarones River, which poured down from the Andes Mountains, like a vein from the gods, transforming its meandering path into a fertile river valley.
This was one of the homes of the Chinchorro people. But here, alongside the refreshing cool waters of the Pacific Ocean and under the neverending blue sky, the Chinchorro suffered.
Miscarriages were common. Birth defects. They watched their babies die before they even took their first breaths.
The elders, the women and men, feared for future generations.
And it was this, the experts say, that led the Chinchorro mothers to mummify their first deceased babies roughly 7,000 years ago. To try to hold on to them.
“It’s like you’re still here. You’re still with me. And I want you to stay. Even though you can’t speak, you’re still with us,” says archeologist Jannina Campos.
They removed the organs and covered the skeletons with wood, mud, earth, and clay. Then they gave their mummies a mask. Tiny eyes, nose, and a mouth. A mask that still seems to speak thousands of years later. A mask that seems to reach into their very souls and connect these people into the present.
The Atacama Desert — the driest in the world — would preserve their bodies perfectly until today.
Experts say that the high number of miscarriages and infant deaths were likely caused by extremely elevated levels of naturally occurring arsenic in the Camarones River, their only source of fresh water. And so this led the Chinchorro people to mummification.
Over time, over hundreds of years, the practice of mummifying their dead spread to every deceased loved one in the community here and to Chinchorro peoples up and down the coast of present-day Chile and Peru. Everyone was mummified. It was their mortuary ritual. Men. Women. Children. Babies. The young. And the very old.
And, 7,000 years later, their bodies remain hidden in the desert. Dozens have been found and sent to museums in Chile and elsewhere. But most remain out there. Buried just underground. Preserved by the dry sands that have protected them for millennia. Holding on to time, despite the millions of spins the Earth has taken since they were laid into the ground by those who loved them… Resisting in the Atacama Desert.
If you take a walk along the coast, near Caleta Camarones in northern Chile, near an old archeological site called Camarones 15, it is hard not to spot evidence of the mummies.
Cloth, rope, hair, tiny fragments of bones, and pieces of wood, an item that is nowhere to be seen growing anywhere nearby, but which the Chinchorro people used to keep their mummies intact like little dolls.
And archeologists say that when they find remnants of Chinchorro mummies today, they don’t try to excavate, exhume, and remove them. They cover them back up. There is no better place to protect them than the bone dry desert sands.
The Chinchorro mummies are considered the oldest mummies in the world. Thousands of years older than the Egyptian mummies. And these were not pharaohs. They were everyday folks looking to hold on to what was most dear to them: The people they loved.
An embrace from the past that would last for thousands upon thousands of years. That would last until today. And, hopefully, far into the future.
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Hi folks, thanks for listening. I’m your host Michael Fox.
I did some reporting about the Chinchorro mummies earlier this year. It was an incredible experience. I’ll add some links in the show notes.
For supporters of this podcast and my work, you can see some exclusive pictures and drone footage of the Chinchorro mummies and archeological sites at my patreon. That’s patreon.com/mfox.
If you ever make it to the town of Arica, there is a pretty great museum that houses dozens of Chinchorro mummies, plus archeological sites you can visit. I’ll include some links in the resources.
This is Episode 41 of Stories of Resistance, a podcast series co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment or leave a review.
As always, thanks for listening. See you next time.
This is episode 41 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.
If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review.
Visit patreon.com/mfox for exclusive pictures, to follow Michael Fox’s reporting and to support his work.
Written and produced by Michael Fox.
Resources
Preserving the world’s oldest mummies in Chile, by Michael Fox: https://theworld.org/stories/2025/02/27/preserving-the-worlds-earliest-mummies-in-chile
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