Reconsidering Precolumbian Human Colonization in the Galápagos Islands, Republic of Ecuador

A comprehensive re-evaluation of archaeological evidence from the Galápagos Islands challenges the long-held belief that precolumbian humans occupied the archipelago. By re-excavating five sites initially studied by Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold in 1956, researchers found that all artifacts—regardless of age or origin—were distributed uniformly, contradicting the assumption of multiple, unrelated occupations. Optically-stimulated luminescence dating of putatively precolumbian pottery revealed most were of historical age, while radiocarbon dating confirmed that the sites postdate the 16th century. Sedimentary core analysis further indicated anthropogenic impacts limited to the last 500 years. The study concludes that there was no human occupation in the Galápagos Islands before the historical era.

Anderson, A., Stothert, K., Martinsson-Wallin, H., Wallin, P., Flett, I., Haberle, S., Heijnis, H., & Rhodes, E. (2016). Reconsidering Precolumbian Human Colonization in the Galápagos Islands, Republic of Ecuador. Latin American Antiquity, 27(2), 169–183. https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.27.2.169