Chinchorro mummies

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The Chinchorro mummies are naturally and artificially preserved human remains associated with the Chinchorro culture, an Indigenous people who lived along the Pacific coast of what is now northern Chile and southern Peru. The oldest known naturally preserved Chinchorro individual dates to about 7020 BCE, while deliberate mummification began by about 5050 BCE, making the Chinchorro mummies the oldest known examples of purposefully preserved human bodies in the world. The Chinchorro artificially preserved men, women and children from across their communities rather than restricting elaborate funerary treatment to a social elite. Their methods included reconstructing and reinforcing bodies, modelling them with clay, and adding wigs and mineral pigments. Several forms of mummification developed and overlapped during a tradition that continued for about 3,000 years, ending around 1800 BCE. In 2021, settlements and cemeteries associated with the Chinchorro culture and its tradition of artificial mummification in Chile's Arica and Parinacota Region were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.