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Peruvian History & Archaeology

Ancient Wari royal tomb unearthed in Peru

Archaeologists in Peru have unearthed a royal tomb with treasures and mummified women from about 1,200 years ago.
The discovery north of Lima could shed new light on the Wari empire, which ruled in the Andes before the rise of the better-known Inca civilisation.

More than 60 skeletons were inside the tomb, including three Wari queens buried with gold and silver jewellery and brilliantly-painted ceramics.
Many mummified bodies were found sitting upright - indicating royalty.

The archaeologists say the tomb was found in El Castillo de Huarmey, about 280km (175 miles) north of Lima.
"We have found for the first time in Peruvian archaeological history, an imperial tomb of the Wari culture," co-director of the project Milosz Giersz was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
"The contents of the chamber consisted of 63 human bodies, most of them women, wrapped in funerary bundles buried in the typical seated position, a native Wari pattern."

Forensic archaeologist Wieslaw Wieckowski says the way other bodies were positioned indicated human sacrifice.
"Six of the skeletons we found in the grave were not in the textiles. They were placed on the top of the other burials in very strange positions, so we believe that they were sacrifices," he said.

"The fact that most of the skeletons were of women and the very rich grave goods, leads us to the interpretation that this was a tomb of the royal elite and that also changes our point of view on the position of the women in the Wari culture."
The archaeologists spent months secretly digging through the burial chambers amid fears that grave robbers would find out and loot the site.

The Wari civilization thrived from the 7th to 10th centuries AD, conquering all of what is now Peru before a mysterious and dramatic decline.
The Wari people had their capital near the modern-day Ayacucho, in the Andes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23092825

Wiki has several articles on the Wari, eg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari_culture
 
oops :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23173628

Authorities in Peru say an ancient pyramid at the oldest archaeological site near the capital, Lima, has been destroyed.

They are pressing criminal charges against two real-estate companies blamed for tearing down the structure, which was 6m (20-ft) high.

An archaeologist said those responsible had committed "irreparable damage".

The building was one of 12 pyramids found at the El Paraiso complex and is thought to be at least 4,000 years old.

The site, which dates back to the Late Preceramic (3500-1800 BC) period, is situated several kilometres north of Lima.

According to Peru's tourism ministry, it was a religious and administrative centre long before the pre-Columbian Inca civilisation.

Rafael Varon, deputy minister of cultural patrimony, said the destruction had taken place over the weekend. He said company workers using heavy machinery had attempted to destroy three further pyramids, but had been stopped by onlookers.

Mr Varon said criminal complaints had been lodged against two companies.

Marco Guilen, director of an excavation project at El Paraiso, told Associated Press news agency the people who tore down the pyramid "have committed irreparable damage to a page of Peruvian history".

"We are not going to be able to know in what ways it was constructed, what materials were used in it and how the society in that part of the pyramid behaved."
 
Tomb of a Powerful Moche Priestess-Queen Found in Peru

Discovery helps change ideas about the roles of elite women in Moche society.

A Moche princess queen and her funerary mask.
A funerary mask of copper is uncovered near the priestess-queen's skull.

Photograph courtesy Luis Jaime Castillo Butters
A. R. Williams
National Geographic
Published August 8, 2013

Some 1,200 years ago, a prominent Moche woman was laid to rest with great pomp and ceremony. Now archaeologists have uncovered her tomb along with clues that testify to her privileged status and the power she once wielded.

The discovery—made over the last couple of weeks at the site of San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque River valley of northern Peru—is one of several that have revolutionized ideas about the roles women played in Moche society.

In about A.D. 750 this revered woman was buried in a large chamber some 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the ground. The earthen walls of her tomb were painted red, and large niches held offerings of ceramic vessels. Two adults, presumably sacrificed female attendants, were buried with her along with five children. (See video of a Moche tomb.)

Her skeleton rested on a low platform at one end of the chamber and was adorned very simply with a bead necklace of local stones. Beside her lay an important clue to her identity—the kind of tall silver goblet that appears in Moche art in scenes of human sacrifice and blood consumption. Such vessels have only been found previously in the tombs of powerful priestess-queens, so that was likely the role this woman played in life.

The elaborate decoration of the coffin is another clue that this was someone important. The box itself was probably made of wood or cane, which has long since decayed. Copper plaques once covered it, tracing out a typical Moche design of waves and steps that's now visible to one side of the skeleton where the wall of the collapsing coffin fell flat.

Near the skeleton's head lay a copper funerary mask, which probably sat atop the coffin originally. And at the foot of the burial lay two pieces of copper shaped like sandals. "The coffin was anthropomorphized," explains excavation director Luis Jaime Castillo Butters. "It became a person." ...

The coffin must have been part of the show of a public funeral, as with famous people today. The deceased probably ruled one of the Moche communities nearby. During her funeral, her coffin—with a face and feet that represented the person inside—was carried to its final resting place in a grand procession that included an honor guard of warriors and musicians who played rattles, drums, whistles, and trumpets.

This is the eighth elite female burial to be found since excavations began at San José de Moro in 1991. The accumulating evidence has convinced archaeologists that the site was an important ceremonial and pilgrimage center between A.D. 600 and 850, and that the priestess-queens who were buried there played a large role in governing the political and spiritual affairs of the region—a huge shift in thinking about the structure of Moche society.

"Twenty-five years ago we thought that power was monopolized by male warrior-priests," says Castillo Butters, a professor of archaeology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and a National Geographic grantee.

Back then experts were influenced by discoveries like the tomb of the Lord of Sipán, a ruler who died at the age of 30 in about A.D. 250, at the height of the early Moche culture. His body was adorned in gold and buried in an elaborate mausoleum that also held human sacrifices.

Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva described this figure as a supreme monarch in his story about the tomb and its artifacts in the October 1988 issue of National Geographic magazine: "Accepting homage and tribute, performing priestly duties himself, and standing confidently at the apex of the social pyramid with absolute power of life and death over his subjects, he must have seemed like a demigod."

Additional finds made in recent years, however, have put women at the top of the Moche power structure as well. A tattooed female mummy, for example, unearthed at the site of El Brujo in 2005, was buried with traditional symbols of power such as massive ceremonial war clubs and nose rings with fierce designs—men carrying war clubs or heads pecked by condors. She also wore tokens of great wealth, such as her 15 necklaces made of lapis lazuli, quartz crystal, silver, and a gold-copper alloy. The archaeologists who uncovered her believe she was likely a warrior queen.

At San José de Moro, the evidence uncovered year after year seemed to suggest that power in that area was exclusively in the hands of women.

But in 2009 the tomb of a priest came to light. He was about 45 years old when he died, and he was buried with ornaments of gold-plated copper, necklaces of semi-precious stones, and a crown colored with the green patina of aged copper. Near him lay the remains of five other people, probably sacrificed to accompany their lord in death.

This site, then, with its elite burials of both genders, suggests that men and women alike filled positions of power in the neighboring communities.

The Moche, it turns out, did not have a centralized society, as once believed. They were more a loosely affiliated group of communities, each with its own ways of doing things. In this valley, it's likely that women were in charge of many of the communities and men were in charge of others. Those roles also carried over into the great beyond.

"The Moche seem to have believed that the identities that gave prominence to these individuals in life were to be maintained after death," notes Castillo Butters. "Accordingly, they imbued their burials not only with symbols of religion and power, but [also] with the artifacts and costumes that allowed the priest and priestesses to continue performing their ritual roles in the afterlife."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...queen-tomb-discovery-peru-archeology-science/
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2013081...queen-tomb-discovery-peru-archeology-science/
 
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Wari, Predecessors of the Inca, Used Restraint to Reshape Human Landscape
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 123036.htm

This is an aerial view of Pikillacta, facing toward the Cusco Basin. (Credit: Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History)

Oct. 16, 2013 — The Wari, a complex civilization that preceded the Inca empire in pre-Columbia America, didn't rule solely by pillage, plunder and iron-fisted bureaucracy, a Dartmouth study finds. Instead, they started out by creating loosely administered colonies to expand trade, provide land for settlers and tap natural resources across much of the central Andes.

The results, which appear in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, shed new light on how early states evolved into empires in the region that became the Inca imperial heartland.

The study is the first large-scale look at the settlement patterns and power of the Wari civilization, which flourished from about AD 600-1000 in the Andean highlands, well before the Inca empire's 15th century rise. Relatively little is known about the Wari -- there are no historical documents and archaeologists are still debating their power and statecraft. Many scholars think the Wari established strong centralized control -- economic, political, cultural and military -- like their Inca successors to govern the majority of the far-flung populations living across the central Andes. But the Dartmouth study suggests that while the Wari had significant administrative power, they did not successfully transition most colonies into directly ruled provinces.

"The identification of limited Wari state power encourages a focus on colonization practices rather than an interpretation of strong provincial rule," says Professor Alan Covey, the study's lead author. "A 'colonization first' interpretation of early Wari expansion encourages the reconsideration of motivations for expansion, shifting from military conquest and economic exploitation of subject populations to issues such as demographic relief and strategic expansion of trade routes or natural resource access."

The results are based on a systematic inventory of archaeological surveys covering nearly 1,000 square miles and GIS analysis of more than 3,000 archaeological sites in and around Peru's Cusco Valley. The data indicate Wari power did not emanate continuously outward from Pikillacta, a key administrative center whose construction required a huge investment. Instead, the locations of Wari ceramics indicate a more uneven, indirect and limited influence even at the height of their power than traditional interpretations from excavations at Wari sites.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Dartmouth College, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

R. Alan Covey, Brian S. Bauer, Véronique Bélisle, Lia Tsesmeli. Regional perspectives on Wari state influence in Cusco, Peru (c. AD 600–1000). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2013; 32 (4): 538 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2013.09.001
 
Explorers hot on the trail of Atahualpa and the Treasure of the Llanganates
Explorers claim to have found ruins in the Amazon that could help lead to the Treasure of the Llanganates
By Jasper Copping
6:00AM GMT 15 Dec 2013

It sounds like a plot from an Indiana Jones film, but explorers claim to have found ruins hidden deep in a dense and dangerous Amazonian jungle that could solve many of South America's mysteries – and lead to one of the world's most sought-after treasures.

The multinational team, including Britons, has located the site in a remote region in central Ecuador which it believes could represent one of the great archaeological discoveries.

They have already unearthed a 260ft tall by 260ft wide structure, made up of hundreds of two-ton stone blocks, and believe there could be more, similar constructions over an area of about a square mile.

Investigations of the site, in the Andes mountain range, are at an early stage and theories as to what it contains vary.
Some of those involved believe it could be the mausoleum of Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor who was captured by the conquering Spaniards, or hold the Treasure of the Llanganates, a vast haul of gold and other riches amassed by his followers to pay for his release.
In exchange for his freedom, Atahualpa is said to have offered to fill a room with gold. But the offer was rebuffed and he was executed in 1533.

His body is said to have been exhumed, mummified and later hidden by his followers in the region in which the new site has been found. According to legend, great treasures – which had been amassed for the ransom – were either buried with him, or separately.
The search for the tomb and the riches has been one of the world's greatest historical treasure hunts, inspiring many, thus far unsuccessful, expeditions.

Others believe the newly discovered site dates back far earlier, to unknown, pre-Inca cultures from before 500 BC, citing what appear to be rudimentary tools found there.
Local legend has it that the area was once populated by a civilisation of exceptionally tall people and the apparently outsized nature of some of the approximately 30 artefacts found have led some to describe the area as the Lost City of The Giants.
The site, in the Llanganates National Park, is being investigated by a team of British, French, America and Ecuadorean explorers.

Among them is Bruce Fenton, an Ecuador-based Briton and researcher into the region's indigenous cultures, who has been involved in the project for about three months, after he heard of recent discoveries made by local trekkers. He is planning two visits to the site before the end of the month. Also involved is Benoit Duverneuil, a French-American archaeologist, who undertook an expedition there earlier this year.
The Ecuadorean government has been told of the discovery and an official expedition by archaeologists and paleontologists is expected to take place. The site is already attracting groups interested in recovering artefacts.

It is only about 20 miles from the town of Baños de Agua Santa, but it takes about eight hours to trek to it through swampy and mountainous jungle. The site is about 8,500ft above sea level and in cloud forest, where it rains most of the time. One route to it is known for the risks posed by attacks of Africanised – "killer" – bees.

The precise extent of the structure and the possible wider development has not yet been gauged. The vast structure is a wall, sloping at a 60 degree angle, with a flat area at the top where many of the artefacts have been found.
The team believes the summit was used for some form of human activities, possibly sacrifices. Some have suggested that it could have been the venue for human sacrifices, with the incline deliberately engineered to allow a head to roll down the side.
The area is affected by regular landslides and much of the structure is covered by mud and vegetation, making investigations difficult.

There are several other large mounds - also covered in mud and vegatation - within a square mile, which the explorers think could be more man-made structures, as well as what appears to be a road.

The team believes the structure already discovered could contain rooms and Mr Duverneuil, who undertook an expedition to the site in April and May, believes it could be Atahualpa's mausoleum.
"This could be one of the biggest archaeological discoveries ever," he said. "It would be huge. We just don't have structures of this type and size in this part of the world. But we are some way from declaring that yet.
"It looks like a paved wall, an ancient street or plaza with a 60 degrees angle, perhaps the roof of a larger structure. Many of the stones were perfectly aligned, have sharp edges and seemed to have been sculpted by human hands. But there is still a chance that this could be a very unusual natural rock formation
."

He has also not ruled out a connection to either the Panzaleo culture, which was established around 600 BC and saw the construction of large temples dedicated to its gods, or the Canari people, who were rivals of the Incas and joined forces with the Spanish during the conquest.

But Mr Fenton suspects it may date back earlier than any of these groups. He believes the site once held a city, built there to capitalise on the gold found in the region's rivers, and could be the size of Machu Picchu, the Inca city in southern Peru.

"This is a very inhospitable area and is still considered very dangerous because of the landscape," he said. "The only thing around there of any value would have been gold. It seems artefacts are spread over a wide area of inhospitable jungle and this only makes sense if a long-lost settlement is present."

Unlike in Peru, where much attention goes to Inca sites such as Machu Picchu, Ecuador's archaeological ruins attract a limited number of tourists and government spending is limited

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... nates.html
 
Ancient Desert Glyphs Pointed Way to Fairgrounds

Solstice sunset. The sun sets on the largest Paracas mound during the winter solstice in the Chincha Valley in Peru. Meter-wide geoglyphs (inset) guided travelers to such places to celebrate.

Seen from above, the jagged rocks strewn about the Chincha Valley desert in Peru seem inconspicuous. But stand in the desert itself and these rocks form lines that stretch toward the horizon. Researchers have found that these lines were probably ancient signposts for the Paracas culture more than 2000 years ago, guiding people across the desert to gathering places for the winter solstice.

The Paracas people lived in what is now southern Peru from 800 to 100 B.C.E. They immediately preceded another culture called the Nazca, which is famous for making massive line drawings out of earth and stone, including enormous works of art depicting everything from birds to monkeys. Archaeologists call such lines “geoglyphs,” whether they are meant to be artistic or serve a practical purpose.

The Paracas also made geoglyphs, and the Chincha Valley contains two kinds, explains Charles Stanish, an archaeologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. By sweeping the darker desert soil off the bright limestone underneath, ancient peoples created white lines that are easily visible at great distances. “They would be unmistakable” to people traveling down to the desert from the surrounding hills, Stanish explains. Then, as these travelers arrived at certain spots on the desert floor, the second type of geoglyph would become obvious. What previously looked like nothing more than scattered rocks would suddenly take on a definite shape and appear to form new lines stretching off into the horizon.

To understand the purpose of the geoglyphs, Stanish and his team first had to confirm that the lines were made by the Paracas people. Scientists have a horribly difficult time pinning down when any geoglyphs were made because they include no remains from dead plants for carbon dating. However, the Chincha Valley also contains ruins of five settlements with small pyramids built by the Paracas that contain artifacts from daily life, such as pots and baskets. There are also three large mounds in the desert that contain the remains of maize and sugarcane that definitely came from 400 to 100 B.C.E., when the Paracas people dominated the region.

So the researchers played a 30-square-kilometer game of connect the dots. They used GPS technology to plot the desert’s settlements, mounds, and 71 geoglyphs for the first time. What they saw was unmistakable. Certain groups of geoglyphs clearly led directly to particular mounds or settlements, suggesting that they served as paths for Paracas people seeking to trade goods or gather for other activities, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Because each group of geoglyphs pointed the way to a different settlement, Stanish believes the settlements were likely controlled by distinct political or ethnic groups. Each group probably built its own set of geoglyphs in order to draw followers throughout the desert to its own trade fairs and other social events, he says. This discovery not only provides a glimpse of what life was like before the Nazca, he adds, but it also shows the roots of how society developed when the dominant culture had no real government. “They’re converting this landscape into a big theater, and the ultimate goal is to bring people together to market, exchange goods, manufacture goods, exchange marriage partners, gossip, do all the things people like doing. And then they’re competing with each other to bring in the most supporters,” Stanish says.

But that wasn’t all the researchers found. It appears that the three large mounds had a ceremonial purpose, because each was connected to separate pairs of geoglyphs that point directly to the spot where the sun sets on the winter solstice in June. There’s no evidence that people lived around the mounds, so Stanish suspects the Paracas used them as gathering places for yearly festivities tied specifically to the solstice. “When you stand behind the mounds and you’re facing the sunset—and we were there for the solstice—the sun sets right on the mound. And if you’re a human being standing there, the sun melts right on your head. It’s pretty impressive.”

The new research is “very sound,” says archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, who was not involved in the study. He added that the findings hint at how astronomical awareness grew over the centuries in the region, beginning with recognition that the sun slowly travels back and forth, north and south, over the course of the year. “Here we have the more basic earlier observations being used, just simply following one of the extremes of the pendulumlike movement of the sun.”

Hendrik Van Gijseghem, a Nazca archaeologist at the University of Montreal in Canada, who was also not involved in the study, called the new work “tremendously interesting.” He says Stanish and his team’s effort to date the glyphs by connecting them with the Paracas mounds and settlements is convincing. “They can actually make a good case that there is a consistent association between well-dated settlements, these geoglyphs that are notoriously hard to date, and astronomical phenomenon.”

Now that the mounds’ ceremonial purpose is clear, the next step for Stanish’s team is to figure out the exact nature of the social events at the Paracas settlements. He plans to further excavate the settlements to look for objects such as beads, copper, shells, and the bones of llamas and alpacas. “There’s all sorts of things we can look for to see what kinds of activities were going on.”

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/ ... airgrounds
 
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Research conducted at the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world sheds new light on the capacity of humans to survive in extreme environments.

The findings, to be published in the Oct. 24 edition of the academic journal Science -- co-authored by a team of researchers including University of Calgary archaeologist Sonia Zarrillo -- were taken from sites in the Pucuncho Basin, located in the Southern Peruvian Andes.

The primary site, Cuncaicha is a rock shelter at 4,480 metres above sea level, with a stone-tool workshop below it. There is also a Pucuncho workshop site where stone tools were made at 4,355 metres above sea level. Climatic conditions in both sites are harsh, with factors including low-oxygen, extreme cold and high levels of solar radiation making life in the region a challenge for any humans. And yet, the findings indicate that people were living in these high altitude zones for extended periods of time. Cuncaicha was occupied about 12.4 to 11.5 thousand years ago while the Pucuncho workshop site dates to around 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago. ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 142304.htm
 
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An international team of archaeologists under the joint directorship of Dr. Maria Lozada of the University of Chicago, Dr. Hans Barnard of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology of UCLA, and Lic. Augusto Cardona Rosas of the Centro de Investigaciones Arqueológicas Arequipa, Peru, have uncovered what they identified as an ancient Wari temple with a configuration in the shape of a ‘D’ in the Lower Vitor Valley of southern Peru.

“We have identified extensive Wari influence and possible presence at Vitor, including a D-shaped temple and significant quantities of Wari-influenced ceramics,” write Lozada and colleagues about the site discoveries. They have also uncovered a “strong and substantial presence of local populations”, indicating a mix of local and Wari-influenced culture at the site.* ...

http://popular-archaeology.com/issu...ologists-excavate-ancient-wari-temple-in-peru

 
As lions, tigers and bears roam lazily about Peru's largest zoo, archeologists are busy digging up stranger animals from the ground beneath them.

The zoo, the Park of Legends in the capital, Lima, is also the burial site of scores of ancient dogs apparently sacrificed 1,000 years ago at the funerals of fallen warriors, whose remains lie beside them.

Before it became a zoo and botanical garden in 1964, the park was a sacred site for at least three ancient civilizations: the Lima culture (AD 100-650), the Ichma culture (900-1470) and the Incas (1200-1500).

The dogs, sacrificed by the Ichma, are often found with ropes still tied around their necks, which bear the telltale signs of animal sacrifice: slit throats or strangulation wounds.

Surprisingly, their fur is still intact.

Their human companions' remains often show signs of violent injuries to the skull and ribs, which is how researchers deduced they were warriors.

"All indications are that they were killed in clashes with other social groups," said Lucenida Carrion Sotelo, head of archeology at the park.

The dogs' bodies are always arranged "as if they were sleeping," she added.

"For the Ichma, sacrificing a dog was probably part of a warrior's funeral rites."



Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-beneath-peru-zoo-ancient-dog.html#jCp
 
This Volcano-Shaped Pyramid in Peru Has Experts Stumped

From far away, El Volcán in the Nepeña Valley of coastal Peru might look like a natural feature in the landscape.

But this volcano is artificial, a mound or pyramid built by human hands with a crater dug out of the top. And some archaeologists are trying to figure out what it was used for.

Robert Benfer, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri who focuses on biological anthropology, had previously found a series of mounds shaped like orcas, condors and other animals in coastal valleys in Peru. He was looking for more of those earthworks by surveying valleys north of Lima when he spotted the volcanic cone that stands 50 feet tall (15.5 meters). ...

"I knew that a mountain in the valley had a large archaeological site, San Isidro, with platforms oriented to the solstice," Benfer told Live Science. "So with my team, we climbed it to get a better view of the surrounding valley, and I saw the Volcán site from a platform."

In the 1960s, archaeologists had noted the volcano-like mound and identified it as artificial, but Benfer and his team decided to investigate further. As the researchers report in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity, they dug a trench into the inner crater of the volcano, and found a collapsed stairwell that descends below a layer of adobe bricks to a mud-plaster floor. ...

They also found a fireplace at the bottom of the stairwell, full of bits of charcoal and shell. Archaeologists can determine the age of such organic material using radiocarbon dating. A sample of burned material from the hearth showed that the last fire was lit sometime between A.D. 1492 and 1602.

Benfer believes this date range is important. During the 16th century, there would have been four total solar eclipses, visible from El Volcán, in short order: in A.D. 1521, 1538, 1539 and 1543. This would have been a rare occurrence. "The chances that four solar eclipses could occur during the probability distribution of the radiocarbon date of the hearth is less than 0.0003," Benfer told Live Science. (That's less than a 0.3 percent chance of occurring.) ...

The researchers are not sure when the mound was first built. It's possible that the original structure might be much older than the hearth. The nearby archaeological site at San Isidro was active during the Late Formative period (900 B.C.to 200 B.C.).

The meaning behind the mound's shape is also still unclear. Benfer noted that there are no volcanoes around El Volcán that would have served as models for its construction, if it was indeed meant to look like a volcano, and no other structures like it have been found in Peru.

NEWS SOURCE (With Photos):
http://www.livescience.com/59544-mysterious-volcano-shaped-pyramid-in-peru.html

DETAILED REPORT (Antiquity;June 2017; 'Project Gallery' section):
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour.../FAC1EED63EE912826EA1D8E746AA21D9/core-reader
 
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My theory is that the Nazca lines were originally painted like the statuary of ancient Greece, but the pigmentation has since eroded. I have no evidence to support this, save practicality. If you want to view things clearly, it helps if they stand out a bit.
 
My theory is that the Nazca lines were originally painted like the statuary of ancient Greece, but the pigmentation has since eroded. I have no evidence to support this, save practicality. If you want to view things clearly, it helps if they stand out a bit.

I don't believe there was any need for additional painting / pigmentation, owing to the peculiar character of the Nazca Desert plateau where they're located.

The entire area's soil surface is a fairly uniformly light-colored clay rich in lime. This clay is covered by gravel / stones that are dark colored - primarily from iron oxidation.

This makes the plateau a virtual giant artist's scratchboard (a multi-layered board with a dark surface layer and a white layer beneath, which one engraves to reveal white lines and areas within a dark background).

Analogous to the contrast between (e.g.) charcoal sketching versus scratchboard engraving, the Nazca lines weren't laid down, but rather exposed. They consist of shallow grooves or trenches exposing the clay by removing the dark stones.

The lime-rich clay absorbs the little moisture available (from mists) and hardens. There's no substantial rainfall there to wash the lines away.

Here's a photo of Maria Reiche (arguably the most important figure in researching, promoting, and preserving the geoglyphs) illustrating how the lines produced with such simple scraping could be maintained with no more than a broom.

nazca3.jpg
 
This news item concerns geoglyphs in southern Peru which are separate and distinct from the famous Nazca Lines. These geoglyphs are strongly associated with paths along which trade presumably flowed for centuries.

Ancient Travelers Created These Sprawling Circular Structures During Pit Stops
Dotting the desert landscape of southern Peru are mysterious circles, some half a football field across. Now, researchers have found that these strange dirt markings were probably made by on-the-go travelers passing along the area's footpaths long ago.

The circular geoglyphs are positioned along these old transport routes, researchers reported today (Oct. 24) in the journal Antiquity. The marks may have been made over many centuries, from as early as A.D. 200 to as late as A.D. 1400.

"People are doing these geoglyphs 'on the road' in both senses of the term," said study co-author Justin Jennings, the curator of New World archaeology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. "They're in the midst of travel, and they're doing this work, and of course, when you're in the midst of travel, you're doing it at a pit stop," he added, explaining the close link between geoglyphs and roadways. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.livescience.com/63932-mysterious-peru-circles-explalined.html

ABSTRACT from the associated article in Antiquity :
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...outhern-peru/1124A6405DB731721F865A9E34B6D6CF
 
Archaeology can be a crap job at times.

The history of the Andes might well be written in llama poop.

Researchers have found that in a small, dried-up lake in highland Peru, mites that ate these creatures’ feces closely track major historical events through their population growth, including the rise and fall of the Incan Empire. In certain kinds of environments, this new method of peering back in time might be more accurate than another common one: using dung-dwelling fungal spores to track environmental conditions in the past.

The ancient lake in question, called Marcacocha, is now a wetland high in the Andes, near the Incan city of Ollantaytambo. But before it disappeared about 200 years ago, it was a small pool surrounded by grassland and a popular stop for Incan llama caravans. Thousands of llamas carrying trade goods such as salt and coca leaves marched through the basin, drank from the lake, and defecated en masse. That dung washed into the lake, where it was eaten by oribatid mites, a half-millimeter-long spider relative that lived in the lake.

The more llamas that passed through Marcacocha, the more poop the mites had to eat, and the larger their populations could grow. When the mites died, they sank into the lake mud, preserved where Alex Chepstow-Lusty, a paleoecologist at the University of Sussex in Brighton, U.K., found them in a sediment core centuries later.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-01-08&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2589397
 
physorg:2010 said:
and then vanished after the Chimu conquest of the Lambayeque region around 1375 AD, a group that also preceded the Incas.

WARNING
This story regarding the ritual sacrifice of between 200 and 300 Chimu is utterly-horrifying. All these poor children, faces daubed in red dye, with their living hearts sliced out, to pacify the gods of El Niño.

Please don't read it if you are easily upset. And even if you aren't: you will be....
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...ople-sacrificed-children-llamas-peru-mystery/

https://www.livescience.com/62108-ancient-child-sacrifices-found.html
That copper rattle-knife is terrifying: was it really the murder weapon?

The bastards that did this, so recently as well, are utterly beneath all our contempt.

A quintessentially-terrifying example of why religion, of any stripe or colour, has always been fundamentally-toxic for those that are defenceless.

Horrible but fascinating. RIP Chimu children- your life-stories were ended far too soon: but you speak to us across the centuries

EDIT main Wiki entry for
Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
 
Last edited:
WARNING: This story regarding the ritual sacrifice of between 200 and 300 Chimu is utterly-horrifying. All these poor children, faces daubed in red dye, with their living hearts sliced out, to pacify the gods of El Niño.

Given the effects of Climate Change on crops and ultimately civilization we may soon be wondering if this whole child sacrifice thing is worth a try. Desperate people do stupid things.
 
Given the effects of Climate Change on crops and ultimately civilization we may soon be wondering if this whole child sacrifice thing is worth a try. Desperate people do stupid things.
As we can see, child sacrifice has never worked. Politician-sacrifice, now - that might work...
 
This construction work will likely result in the destruction of ruins, artefacts and local farms.

Last month, a phalanx of bulldozers and trucks arrived in Chinchero, Peru, to begin to clear land for a 40-year-old dream: an international airport in the heart of the country’s tourist region high in the Andes.

Once it is completed in 2023, authorities say 6 million visitors a year will have an easier, more direct route to nearby Incan sites, including the famed royal estate of Machu Picchu. But archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and others say the airport and the resulting surge in development and tourism will destroy archaeological sites and some of the very cultural riches the visitors come to see. Nearly 200 Peruvian and international experts have signed a letter to Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra asking him to suspend construction and consider relocating the project. More than 2000 people have signed an accompanying petition.

Chinchero overlooks Peru’s Sacred Valley, one of the first areas conquered by the Incas in the 1300s as they began to expand their empire from their capital of Cuzco, 29 kilometers southeast of Chinchero. The Sacred Valley provided maize and other crops to Incan rulers, and several emperors built their private estates there. Incan agricultural terraces still cover the hillsides around Chinchero and are used by local farmers. “It’s one of Peru’s most archaeological and historically complex places,” says Natalia Majluf, a Peruvian art historian at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, former director of the Lima Museum of Art, and one of the petition’s organizers. “You put an airport in the middle of that landscape and it’s a disaster.”

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-02-05&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2638926
 
Oh dear! and also Oh no! Given the importance of teh whole landscape as an artifact...... :(
 
A disturbing find.

Around 1450 C.E. on the northern coast of Peru, more than 140 children and 200 young llamas were marched to their deaths.

It’s one of the largest known sacrifices of children in history, the Los Angeles Times reports. The site, called Huanchaquito-Las Llamas, was part of the Chimú Empire, and the chemical isotopes preserved in the children’s bones suggest they came from all over Chimú territory, National Geographic adds. Normally the region is very dry, and the Chimú relied on complex irrigation systems to grow enough food. But the sacrificed children, boys and girls ranging from 6 to 14 years old, were buried in a thick layer of mud, suggesting that at the time they were killed, an El Niño event was causing heavy rains and catastrophic floods. The sacrifice might have been performed in an attempt to stop the rain.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-03-06&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2701860
 
An occasion when "Won't somebody think of the children" is horribly horribly apt :(
 
Another mass killing of children,

Archaeologists in Peru have unearthed what is believed to be the largest single mass child sacrifice in history.

The bodies of 227 victims, aged between five and 14, were found near the coastal town of Huanchaco, north of Peru's capital Lima. The children were believed to have been sacrificed over 500 years ago. The discovery comes barely a year after 200 child victims of human sacrifice were found at two other sites in the country.

Archaeologists told AFP news agency that some of the bodies in this latest collection still had hair and skin when they were dug up. The children show signs of being killed during wet weather, and were buried facing the sea, meaning they were probably sacrificed to appease the Chimú's gods. It is unclear in which year the incident took place.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49495167
 
Water discovery!

A 3,000-year-old megalithic 'water cult' temple used for fertility rituals has been discovered in Peru by a team of Peruvian archaeologists.

The religious monument is over 131ft long and is located in the springs of the Zaña Valley river about 500miles from Lima, the modern capital of Peru. Inside the temple archaeologists found a square with an alter that was likely used to offer important fertility rituals with water taken from the Zaña Valley river.

The megalith structure was found at the Huaca El Toro site in the Lambayeque region of Peru by a team led by Walter Alva, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb of the Lord of Sipan in 1987. The temple still features the remains of large stone blocks and a long staircase.

'This discovery is unique because it is the only megalithic architecture in Lambayeque,' said Dr Alva.

The site was discovered in October but the news of its finding was delayed to reduce the risk of treasure hunters taking artefacts that hadn't been secured.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7685227/Archaeologists-3-000-year-old-megalithic-temple-Peru.html
 
The use of a portable 3D scanner has allowed archaeologists to view and record engravings on a remote Pre-Incan monolith in the jungle of northern Peru.
Engraved with fangs, ornate swirls, Peruvian monument lay hidden for 2,000 years

A sprawling, stone monument decorated with swirls, circular patterns and godly fangs has been hiding in a remote jungle in northern Peru for around 2,000 years.

Though the locals knew of the monolith's existence — and a few explorers who visited the region had noted the structure — it wasn't until recently that researchers were able to investigate it in-depth. And now, they've created a highly detailed 3D scan of the stunning structure.

The images and patterns are so abstract and ornate, they are hard to describe in words. However, the researchers said the two fangs engraved into the stone come from a deity that archaeologists call a "feline feathered figure." ...

The team wanted to create a detailed record using an Artec 3D scanner, particularly because the monolith's carvings are in danger of being lost due to erosion from all the rain pelting the structure's surfaces. "We don't know if it's going to survive," said Daniel Fernandez-Davila, an archaeologist who had been traveling to the area for 21 years to deliver supplies. ...

Instead, when the team arrived, they found that the engravings on the monolith were still visible. The 3D scanner was able to capture details that are hard to make out with the naked eye, such as the fangs from the "feline feathered figure." ...

The engraving of the "feline feathered figure" indicates that the carvings were created during what archaeologists call the "formative period," which occurred between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200.

There was no writing in Peru during this period, but studies of other archaeological sites in Peru show that the feline feathered figure was popular at the time. ...

As such, the jungle valley where the monolith is located is "probably a very important and sacred place," Fernandez-Davila said. The monolith is made of a sedimentary rock that is not found locally and so would have been dragged into the jungle valley from elsewhere, he said. The weight of the monolith (about a ton) and its size (2.5 feet tall by 10 feet wide by 5 feet long, or 8.0 by 3 by 1.5 m) would have made dragging the rock through the jungle a difficult task requiring many people.

"That itself was a tremendous effort, a communal effort definitely," Fernandez-Davila said.

The Inca, who flourished in the area during the 15th century A.D., also believed that the jungle valley was a sacred place, as they built two baths not far from where the monolith is located. ...
FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.livescience.com/peru-ancient-monolith-discovered.html
 
So, why did the Wari Culture collapse? Perhaps the intersection of drought, lack of maintenance of canals, factionalism and trouble with other tribes.

When Wari colonists arrived in the Moquegua Valley of southern Peru some 1400 years ago, people already living there were likely nervous.

The Wari state, with its capital city of Huari high in the Andes near what is now Ayacucho, Peru, had been expanding its reach. The Wari takeover was violent in places; the invaders sacrificed local people and displayed their heads as trophies.

But this time the Wari colonists did something unexpected. Rather than trying to seize the fertile valley floor, where people already lived, the newcomers occupied high, dry land that no one else had figured out how to use. They constructed their government and religious buildings on top of a high mesa, now called Cerro Baúl, and erected canals and aqueducts that carried water much farther than any previously attempted in the valley. They carved mountain slopes into agricultural terraces, which efficiently trapped and distributed water from rain and snowmelt to plots of maize, quinoa, and peppery berries called molle. People from several other regions moved to the new farms and towns, forming a powerful labor force that helped maintain the sprawling water infrastructure. ...

Those studying the Wari state’s rise and fall, however, confront a puzzle. Its end, about 1000 years ago, appears to have coincided with a severe drought. Across history, the pattern might seem familiar; other ancient civilizations, including the Classic Maya and the Old Kingdom of Egypt, appear to have collapsed in a time of drought. But how could drought have doomed Wari, a society that had been built on learning to take maximum advantage of limited water, and had seemingly even expanded through previous dry spells? To find an answer, researchers are trying to reconstruct two intricate, fragmented narratives—the human and the environmental—and weave them together. The history of climate “in the Andes is extremely complicated,” says Benjamin Vining, an environmental archaeologist at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. “And the only thing more complicated is human behavior.” ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/shrewd-water-use-helped-south-america-s-first-empire-thrive-so-why-did-drought-destroy
 
A find which hints at religious links.

A submerged Inca offering hints at Lake Titicaca’s sacred role
By Bruce Bower 21 HOURS AGO

A stone box fished out of Lake Titicaca contains tiny items that add an intriguing twist to what’s known about the Inca empire’s religious practices and supernatural beliefs about the massive lake.

Divers exploring an underwater portion of the lake’s K’akaya reef found a ritual offering deposited by the Inca, say archaeologists Christophe Delaere of the University of Oxford and José Capriles of Penn State. The carved stone container holds a miniature llama or alpaca carved from a spiny oyster shell and a gold sheet rolled into a cylinder about the length of a paperclip, the scientists report in the August Antiquity. The meaning of these objects to the Inca are unclear.

The location of the K’akaya offering indicates that Inca people regarded all of Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru, as sacred, not just its fabled Island of the Sun, the researchers say.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/inca-offering-late-titicaca-sacred-religious-supernatural
 
Makes a change from cats under the floorboards.

Some 500 years ago, four elaborately adorned llamas looked out over a low, grassy plain in the Acari Valley near the southern coast of what is now Peru for the last time.

The animals, whose mummified remains were found in 2018, were ritually sacrificed and buried beneath the floor of a building. Now, researchers think they know why: They were a “getting to know you” present from the Inca Empire to their recently conquered neighbors.

By the beginning of the 15th century, the Inca civilization was concentrated in the southern mountain stronghold of Cuzco. In the 1430s, the Inca began to expand their territory by annexing surrounding lands—often peacefully, but by force if necessary. Histories of the region recorded by Spanish colonists argue the Inca peacefully annexed the Acari Valley around this time.

To shore up their support with the locals, they might have sacrificed the llamas to local deities in the plaza of a site known as Tambo Viejo—three white llamas to the Sun god and one brown llama to the creator god—along with several guinea pigs, the researchers suspected. Llama sacrifice was a hallmark of the ancient Inca Empire—the animals were second only to human beings in terms of their value as sacrificial offerings. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/want-make-nice-neighbors-try-sacrificing-few-llamas
 
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