Human spines on sticks found in 500-year-old graves in Peru

Hundreds of years ago, Indigenous people in coastal Peru may have collected the scattered remains of their dead from desecrated graves and threaded reed posts through the spinal bones.

Scientists recently counted nearly 200 of these bone-threaded posts in stone tombs in Peru’s Chincha Valley, and they suspect that the practice arose as a means of reassembling remains after the Spanish had looted and desecrated Indigenous graves.  

Archaeologists investigated 664 graves in a 15-square-mile (40 square kilometres) zone that contained 44 mortuary sites. They documented 192 examples of posts threaded with vertebrae.

The researchers then measured the amount of radioactive carbon in the bones and reed posts. Radioactive carbon accumulates when an organism is alive but decays to nitrogen at a constant rate once the organism is dead. So based on the amount of this carbon, the scientists could estimate when the posts were assembled.

Their analysis placed the vertebrae and posts between A.D. 1450 and 1650 — a time when the Inca Empire was crumbling and European colonizers were consolidating power, the researchers wrote in a new study.

This was a period of upheaval and crisis in which Indigenous tombs were frequently desecrated by the Spanish, and Chincha people may have revisited looted tombs and threaded spinal bones on reeds in order to reconstruct disturbed burials, said lead study author Jacob Bongers, a senior research associate of archaeology with the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

“The fact that there’s 192 of these and that they’re widespread — we find these throughout the Chincha Valley — it means on one level that multiple groups of people coordinated and responded in a shared way, that this interesting practice was deemed the appropriate way of dealing with disturbed bodies of the dead,” Bongers told Live Science.

Most of the vertebrae on posts were found in and around large and elaborate stone tombs, called chullpas, that typically held multiple burials; in fact, one chullpa contained remains from hundreds of people, Bongers said.

The people who performed the burials were part of the Chincha Kingdom, “a wealthy, centralized society that dominated Chincha Valley during the Late Intermediate period, which is the period that precedes the Incan Empire,” Bongers explained.

The Chincha Kingdom once had a population numbering around 30,000, and it thrived from around A.D. 1000 to 1400, eventually merging with the Inca Empire toward the end of the 15th century. But after the Europeans arrived and brought famines and epidemics, Chincha numbers plummeted to just 979 heads of household in 1583, according to the study.

Historic documents record accounts of Spaniards frequently looting Chincha graves across the valley, stealing gold and valuable artefacts, and destroying or desecrating remains.

For the new study, the researchers closely examined 79 bone-threaded posts, each of which represented a collection of spinal bones from an adult or from a child.

Most posts held bones belonging to a single individual, but the spines were incomplete, with most of the bones disconnected and out of order. This suggested that the threading was not performed as a part of the original burial. Rather, someone gathered and threaded the spinal vertebrae after the bodies had decomposed — and perhaps after some of the bones were lost to looting, the study authors reported. 

And because Andean cultures valued preserving the integrity and completeness of a dead body, the likeliest explanation is that Chincha people revisited looted graves and reconstructed the scattered remains in this way to try and restore some semblance of wholeness to remains that had been dispersed and desecrated.

“When you look at all data we gathered, all of that supports the model that these were made after these tombs had been looted,” Bongers said.

Ancient mortuary practices, such as this bone threading, provide valuable clues about how long-ago communities dealt with their dead, but they also shed light on how people defined their identities and culture through their relationships with the dead, Bongers told Live Science.

“Mortuary practices arguably are what make us human — this is one of the key distinguishing features of our species. So, by documenting mortuary practices, we’re learning diverse ways of how people showcased their humanity.”

The findings were published on Feb. 2 in the journal Antiquity.

Archaeology breakthrough as 1,000-year-old mummy found in underground tomb ‘bound by rope’

Archaeologists have unearthed a mummy dating back around 1,000 years at the site of Cajamarquilla in Peru. The researchers discovered the mummy lying in a fetal position and bound by rope.

At the time the mummy was buried, Cajamarquilla was a thriving city located on the right bank of the Rímac river about 16 miles (25 kilometres) inland, and was a place where people from the coastal and mountainous areas of Peru engaged in trade, researchers said in a statement.

More than 10,000 people might have lived in the city at the time, the researchers said. 

The well-preserved mummy was found in an underground tomb that had a seven-step staircase leading down to it, researchers said in the statement.

The mummy, a male who was between 18 and 22 years old when he died, was found covered in a textile, their body wrapped in rope — a common practice at the time for those who lived in mountainous areas close to Cajamarquilla, the researchers said. 

The remains of a dog and an Andean guinea pig were found beside the mummy, along with corn and the remains of other vegetables, Pieter Van Dalen Luna, an archaeology professor at the National University of San Marcos who led the team, said in another statement.

The buried man died sometime between 1,200  — and 800 years ago, and he may have been the son of a wealthy merchant, the researchers said. 

Family members would have visited his tomb at times after his burial to give offerings. “After the body is placed in the tomb, there are constant events and activities,” Van Dalen Luna told CNN.

“That is to say, their descendants keep coming back over many years and placing food and offerings there, including molluscs.” He noted that llama bones were found outside the tomb and may have been cooked by visitors who brought those bones as offerings. 

The mummy is now being displayed at the National University of San Marcos’s museum. Analysis of the mummy is ongoing. Van Dalen Luna did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication. 

Archaeologists stunned as 2,000-year-old skull bound by metal evidence of ancient surgery

Archaeologists were taken aback when a 2,000-year-old skull was discovered bound by metal evidence of ancient surgery. The 2,000-year-old skull of a Peruvian warrior bound by metal, which is one of the earliest examples of ancient surgery, has astounded archaeologists.

The elongated skull, which has been fused together with metal, is currently on display at the SKELETONS: Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma, USA. The museum has described the find as one of its “most interesting” pieces.

The skull is thought to have belonged to a Peruvian warrior who was killed in a battle around 200 years ago. When the warrior returned from battle seriously injured, Peruvian surgeons are said to have performed a miraculous surgery on his skull.

The elongation of the museum’s structure was “achieved through head binding beginning at a very young age,” according to the museum’s Facebook page.

This was a practice used to demonstrate social status.

A piece of metal is thought to have been implanted by ancient Peruvian surgeons to repair the fractured skull. The material used was “not poured as molten metal,” according to the museum, and the plate was “used to help bind the broken bones.”

The alloy’s exact composition is unknown.

“The material used was not poured as molten metal,” the museum explained.

“We have no idea what the alloy’s composition is.”

The plate served as a binding agent for the broken bones.

“While we can’t say for sure whether anaesthesia was used, we do know that many natural remedies for surgical procedures existed during this time period.”

The procedure on the skull, according to experts, demonstrates that ancient peoples were capable of performing complex surgery and medical procedures.

“We don’t have a ton of background on this piece, but we do know he survived the procedure,” the museum wrote.

“You can see that it’s tightly fused together based on the broken bone surrounding the repair.

“The surgery went well.”

The skull had been in the museum’s private collection for quite some time. However, the artefact was later put on display in 2020, following a surge in the public interest.

“Traditionally, silver and gold were used for this type of procedure,” a SKELETONS: Museum of Osteology spokesperson told the Daily Star.

The Peruvian region where the skull was discovered is well-known for surgeons who devised a series of complicated procedures to treat a fractured skull.

At the time, the type of skull injury seen here was fairly common.

This is due to the use of projectiles in battle, such as slingshots.

In addition, elongated skulls were quite common.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Giant 7 – 8 Foot Skeletons Uncovered In Ecuador Sent For Scientific Testing

Strikingly tall skeletons uncovered in the Ecuador and Peru Amazon region are undergoing examination in Germany, according to a research team headed by British anthropologist Russell Dement. Will these remains prove that a race of tall people existed hundreds of years ago deep in the Amazonian rainforest?

According to a Cuenca news site, since 2013, the team has found half a dozen human skeletons dating to the early 1400s and the mid-1500s, which measure between seven and eight feet (213 to 243 centimetres) in height.

Dement said, “We are very early in our research, and I am only able to provide a general overview of what we have found. I don’t want to make claims based on speculation since our work is ongoing. Because of the size of the skeletons, “this has both anthropological and medical implications,” reports Cuenca Highlife.

Skeletal Remains in Ecuador and Peru

In late 2013 Dement received word that a skeleton had been uncovered by a Shuar local, approximately 70 miles (112 kilometres) from Cuenca, in Loja Province, Ecuador. Dement travelled to the site and recovered a rib cage and skull of a female exposed by flooding. The bones were thought to date to 600 years ago. The rest of the skeleton was located and, once assembled, reportedly measured seven feet, four inches (223.5 centimetres) in height.

This prompted the formation of a research team including four researchers from Freie Universität in Germany and the assistance of Shuar locals. The university provided funding for excavation and investigation.

Recognizing it is a controversial area of research, Dement noted, “Even though I had been working with Freie for many years, I was concerned that they might not give a grant for someone looking for giants. To outsiders, especially scientists, I understand this sounds a little hair-brained. 

Within six months of excavations and mapping at two sites: the one outside of Cuenca, and another settlement dating to about 1550, approximately 20 miles (32 kilometres) away on the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border, the team had found five more tall skeletons, as well as artefacts. Dement and colleagues believe that the tribe at the second site had been at the settlement for at least 150 years.

The three complete skeletons and two partial skeletons had no disfiguration and suggested they were relatively healthy.

Dement said, “The skeletons show no signs of diseases such as the hormonal growth problems that are common in most cases of gigantism. In all the skeletons, the joints seemed healthy, and the lung cavity appeared large. One of the skeletons that we have dated was of a female who was about 60 when she died, much older than typical cases of gigantism,” reports Cuenca Highlife.

The burials were elaborate. Bodies were wrapped in leaves and buried in thick clay. This sealed the skeletons and protected them against water intrusion, leaving the remains in reasonably good condition.

Legends Come to Life

It is reported that Dement had previously studied Amazon indigenous communities for more than two decades and had heard the legends of “very tall, pale-skinned people who used to live nearby,” he said. Community elders described Dement as a race of giant, peaceful Amazonians who were welcomed by the indigenous Shuar and Achuar people. However, the locals believed these people belonged to the ‘spirit world’ and were purely mythical.

Real-Life Giants

Since the announcement of this discovery, several reports have vastly exaggerated the dimensions of the finds, with seven feet being reported as seven meters (making them 23 feet tall). The bones have also been erroneously connected with hoax photos and a reconstruction of an “Ecuador Giant,” which was a fake skeleton for a now-closed theme park in Switzerland.

These false reports should not detract from the actual discovery of seven-to-eight-feet skeletal remains in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian rainforest, which are being scientifically studied. While seeming to fit the ancient legends of a mythical race, such skeletons are not unheard of or unproven in scientific literature.

Other such cases of highly tall humans (or “giants”) can easily be referenced, such as Robert Wadlow, known as the “Alton Giant,” cited as the tallest person in recorded history. Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois, the USA, in 1918, and at his death was eight feet, eleven inches (2.72 meters) tall.

Another of the many cases of modern gigantism include that of Charles Byrne (1761-1783), known as “The Irish Giant,” whose skeleton is now on display at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London. Measurements of his skeleton measured him at approximately seven feet, seven inches (2.31 meters) tall.

Earlier this year, archaeologists in Bulgaria discovered the remains of what they have described as a “huge skeleton” in downtown Varna, a city on the shores of the Black Sea whose rich culture and civilizations span some 7,000 years. The size of the bones was said to be “impressive” and that they belonged to “a very tall man.”

As such cases exist in history, it stands to reason there were cases of individuals or even communities of people who were seen as “giants” to the ancients.

Results of the reported Freie University research are to be published a year from now, according to Dement, who is said to be examining DNA samples from the Shuar communities near the excavation site to see if they connect with the skeletal remains from the ancient settlement.

Hopefully, the published information will shed light on the people who lived in the Amazonian rainforest hundreds of years ago and how they might have interacted with the Shuar and Achuar peoples, possibly sparking myths and beliefs passed down for generations, resulting in the legend of the Ecuadorian giants.

The Incas used cutting-edge technology to power their empire

In the 15th and early 16th Centuries, a small island in Lake Titicaca was one of South America’s most important religious sites. Revered as the birthplace of the Sun, the Moon and the Inca dynasty, Isla del Sol (“Island of the Sun”) drew pilgrims from across the Andes.

A few years ago, I followed in their footsteps, catching a boat from the Bolivian town of Copacabana across the choppy, gunboat-grey lake, which sits at an altitude of 3,812m, making it the only place on the planet a traveller can “suffer from sea-sickness and mountain-sickness at the same time”, according to the British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett, who visited in the early 1900s.

After docking on Isla del Sol’s north-east coast, I followed a centuries-old trail past a host of Inca and pre-Inca ruins – tambos (waystations), shrines, temples, plazas, altars and a ceremonial complex that includes Titikala, a slab of sandstone from which Andean creator god Viracocha is said to have brought forth the Sun and the Moon.

These deceptively simple feats of agricultural engineering helped the Inca to build the largest empire in South American history

Captivated by the ancient sites and the views of the snow-streaked Cordillera Real in the distance, I paid little attention to the terraced fields snaking along the hillsides of the island. Yet these deceptively simple feats of agricultural engineering helped the Inca to build the largest empire in South American history.

Known as Andenes (Spanish for “platforms”), these terraced fields are scattered across the central Andes. First constructed around 4,500 years ago by ancient cultures across the region, they were perfected by the Inca, who emerged in the 12th Century and were masters of adopting and adapting techniques, strategies and belief systems from other societies. Andenes, says Cecilia Pardo Grau, curator of the British Museum’s current Peru: a journey in time exhibition, was “a creative way of defying the terrain… that allows for an efficient way of growing [crops]”.

They allowed Andean communities to overcome challenging environments, including steep slopes, thin soils, extreme and sharply fluctuating temperatures, and scant or seasonal rainfall. Fed by artificial pools and elaborate irrigation systems, Andenes significantly expanded the area of cultivable land. They also conserved water, reduced soil erosion and – thanks to stone walls that absorbed heat during the day and then released it at night – protected plants from severe frosts.

This enabled farmers to grow dozens of different crops, from maize and potatoes to quinoa and coca, many of which would not otherwise have survived in the region. The upshot was a dramatic increase in the overall amount of food produced.

Beyond their ingenuity, Andenes also have an artistic quality, forming vast geometric patterns on the landscapes of the Andes. Some look like giant green staircases carved into the mountainside, while others are made up of sets of concentric circles, capturing the attention like an optical illusion.

One of the most impressive is the Peruvian archaeological site of Moray, which resembles a natural amphitheatre. Located around 50km north of the former Inca capital of Cuzco and 3,500m above sea level, it demonstrates how andenes were used to create a range of microclimates. Thanks to the varying designs, sizes, depths and orientations of the terraces, the temperature differential between the highest and lowest are around 15C. Moray has been described as an “agricultural research station”: soil samples from across the empire have been discovered here and researchers argue the Inca may have used the site to experiment with practices like crop rotation, domestication and hybridisation.

Sophisticated agricultural techniques such as Andenes played a vital role in the expansion of the Inca empire, which was known as Tawantinsuyu and spanned much of modern-day Peru, western Bolivia, southwest Ecuador, south-west Colombia, north-west Argentina and northern Chile at its height. One of the oldest surviving accounts of their use comes from Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616), the son of an Inca noblewoman and a Spanish conquistador. After capturing new territory, the Inca started to expand the amount of agricultural land by bringing in skilled engineers, de la Vega noted in his book, Royal Commentaries of the Incas.

“Having dug the [irrigation] channels, they levelled the fields and squared them so that the irrigation water could be adequately distributed,” he wrote. “They built terraces on the mountains and hillsides, wherever the soil was good… In this way the whole hill was gradually brought under cultivation, the platforms being flattened out like stairs in a staircase and all the cultivable and irrigable land being put to use.”

The newly expanded land was subsequently split into three parts: one for the Inca emperor; one for religious purposes; and one for the community, tranches of which were then distributed by local leaders. Although they were not taxed, farmers were required to spend time working on the emperor’s and the religious lands, as well as their own.

Techniques such as andenes were combined with policies such as mitma, where people were moved to recently conquered territories to help cement Inca control; and mit’a, a form of compulsory public service used to provide manpower to build infrastructure, including a road network tens of thousands of kilometres long.

This approach to agricultural, community and imperial organisation allowed the Inca to amass large surpluses of food for use during droughts, floods, conflicts and other lean periods. These stockpiles – which included chuño, freeze-dried potatoes produced by repeated exposure to frost and bright sunshine – were kept in huge storehouses called qullqas. In the absence of a written language, the Inca used a complex system of multicoloured knotted strings known as quipu (or khipu) to maintain inventories, as well as keep track of population and astronomical data. Some academics believe quipu may even have been used to record narratives such as stories, songs and poems.

Grau argues that quipu – examples of which are on display in the British Museum’s exhibition – were central to Inca society. “They inherited this knowledge from the Wari, a society that existed in the southern highlands, 400 years before the Inca,” she said. “The Inca used a decimal system: they had a different knot for every number from one to nine, and then for tens, hundreds and thousands… the quipu was key in the way the empire functioned and was organised.”

Ultimately, the andenes, stockpiles and quipus helped the Inca to steadily expand an empire that eventually dominated a great swath of South America, encompassed 12 million people and produced majestic citadels such as Machu Picchu.

But the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th Century triggered the overthrow of the Inca and the decline of the Andenes. Colonial violence, epidemics of European diseases and forced displacement devastated the indigenous populations of the central Andes. European crops and agriculture practices were introduced and quickly spread throughout the region.

READ ASLO: TWO INCA MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS CALCULATED BY POLISH ARCHITECT

Yet while many andenes were abandoned or fell into disrepair, they never disappeared completely. Drawing on knowledge passed down over the generations, many Andean farmers continue to use them today, and though often overlooked by travellers, they remain a common sight in places such as Isla del Sol and the wider Titicaca region, the Sacred Valley near Machu Picchu, and the Colca Canyon in southern Peru, a fissure twice the depth of the Grand Canyon.

In recent years, there has also been renewed academic interest in Andenes as a form of sustainable agriculture that could help the world cope with the climate crisis, water scarcity and soil erosion. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, for example, describes traditional Andean culture as “one of the best examples of the adaptation and knowledge of farmers to their environment”, and highlights its sustainable approach to land usage, water management, soil protection and crop biodiversity.

Four and a half thousand years after they first emerged, the terraced fields of the Andes appear to be ahead of their time.