Dark green hardstone. As found, with numerous chips and abrasions on all surfaces, no restorations or conservation. With a custom lucite base.

Valdivia is a city and commune in southern Chile

Pre-Hispanic times (12,000 BC-1543)
The area around Valdivia may have been populated since 12,000 – 11,800 BC, according to archaeological discoveries in Monte Verde (less than 200 km south of Valdivia), which would place it about a thousand years before the Clovis culture in North America. This challenges the “Clovis First” model of migration to the New World. Researchers speculate that the first inhabitants of Valdivia and Chile traveled to America by water craft and not across a land-bridge in the Bering Strait.

During at least the Middle Archaic, southern Chile was populated by indigenous groups who shared a common lithic culture called the Chan-Chan Complex, named for the archaeological site of Chan-Chan located some 35 km north of Valdivia along the coast.

By the time of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, Valdivia was inhabited by the Huilliche (Mapudungun for People of the South). The Huilliche and Mapuchewere both referred to by the Spaniards as Araucanos. Their main language was a variant of Mapudungun, the Mapuche language.

The first European to visit Valdivia River’s estuary was the Genoese captain Juan Bautista Pastene, who took possession of it in 1544 in the name of the Spanish king, Charles V. He named the river after the Governor of Chile Pedro de Valdivia.