The Atacama Desert is widely recognised as the driest place on earth.
Stretching over a 1,600-kilometre-long strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of 105,000 km.
Located in Chile’s Antofagasta Region, it sees an average rainfall of just 15 mm per year, with some spots receiving a mere 1 to 3 mm annually.
There are even weather stations in the desert that have never recorded any rainfall, and certain areas have reportedly gone without rain for over 500 years.
There is even some evidence to suggest that from 1570 to 1971, the Atacama may not have experienced any significant rainfall at all.
But scientists believe it may once have had lakes and wetlands.
The theory was born after remnants of freshwater plants and animals were found buried in the dry plains.
This aquatic era is believed to have occurred between 9,000 and 17,000 years ago.
Scientists at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco suggest that this indicates the region could have been habitable for early settlers.
Marco Pfeiffer, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: “When you drive through the desert the only thing you see is the white cover of salt.
“And when we dig through this crust, it’s difficult to imagine that conditions were so different.”
The period they date to – from 9,000-17,000 years ago – was a time when hunter-gatherers from the north would have started to colonise South America.
Archaeologists had thought that these ancient people avoided the desert as they migrated to other regions – but the presence of water means it could have supported people.
