Under the framework of an investigation she carries out along the north coast of Chile, the Alternate Director of the Millennium Nucleus UPWELL, Carola Flores; together with Felipe Rivera (sociologist and descendant of the last builder of Chango´s sea lion leather rafts) and Alberto Arancibia (autodidact crafer) are developing an experimental project for manufacturing replicas of shell fishhooks.
“The purpose of this initiative is to know the production process of these hooks, and the technical specialization achieved by the groups of fishermen who inhabited the northern coast of Chile, between approximately 7500 and 4500 years ago ” says Carola Flores, researcher in charge of the Human-Environment Interaction Working Package.
The next step in the ethno-archaeological aspect of this research, will be to film the manufacturing process of these hooks, as well as the experimental fishing to be carried out with the obtained replicas. By doing this, we seek to evaluate the resistance and efficiency of shell fishhooks for different fish species, using different techniques and in different habitats.
