The Mapuche remote origins comes from the large Mongolian ethnic group which arrived in America 1000 BC. Later on they would have branched off from the Andean subgroup. Three hypothesis have been formulated about the Mapuche origin:
1. Menghin (1909) proposes an Amazonian origin. Similarities in culture and language with the Amazon peoples suggest a link with a tropical subgroup, which later settled in the Andes.
2. Latchman (1924) proposes that the Mapuche people crossed The Andean mountains from the other side.. As a foreign ethnic group they settled in the zone of the Bio-Bio and Toltén rivers between the Pikunche and Williche people. Due to archaeological findings, especially ceramics, this theory has been discarded: the Mapuche ceramic is a clearly influenced by the Atacameño and Diaguita people, what is confirmed by the Tirúa and Pitren ceramic findings.
3. Guevara (1925) bases on a migration from north to south. There is also archaeological and ethnographical evidence of similarity with the Tiwanaku culture.