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ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE COQUIMBO REGION
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The visitor to this Region will find a diverse
history of the land prior to the Spanish Conquest in 1536 which is being
pieced together to give insight into the lives of the original inhabitants
of the past. The Archaeological Museum of La Serena is an excellent
starting point because of its very well documented collection from pre
history onwards. The museum contains 25,000 pieces and can be divided
into three categories; archaeology from all the prehistoric cultures of the
region, pottery from various cultures.
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(El Molle Culture 300 A.D. - 700 A.D., the Animas
Culture 700 A.D. - 1000 A.D., the Diaguita Culture 1000 A.D. -
1470 A.D. and the Inca Diaguita Culture 1470 A.D. - 1536 A.D.)and
ethnographic and documentary archives. which include a large collection of
photographs and documents of the region.
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The museum also impressively displays one of the
few Moai statues from Easter Island which is on mainland Chile.
Sites dating back to pre history are invaluable in tracing the earliest
dinosaurs who roamed these parts for it is in the Pichasca National Monument near to Ovalle where rib bones from
dinosaurs have been found. This site has the remains of a forest
petrified over 70 million years ago with examples of trees which have kept
their cellular structure. Whilst in this area a visit to the Enchanted
Valley is of scientific and archaeological interest for this valley was
once the site of a large amphitheatre for religious ceremonies and is now
an open air museum of petroglyphs showing masks, tiaras, sun symbols and
snake and fishlike forms and pictographs painted on the rocks in natural
red colours together with small stone cups (piedras tacitas) in which food
or paints were ground.
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