Category Archives: SOUTH AMERICA

BRAZIL, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

A bizarre chicken-sized dinosaur named lord of the spear is discovered in Brazil

A bizarre chicken-sized dinosaur named lord of the spear is discovered in Brazil

With a mane of yellow and brown fur down its back and long ‘needles’ growing from its shoulders, a peacock-like elaborate dinosaur has been identified. The neck spines of the creature are rare in the fossil record and made of keratin, which is the same protein that makes up parts of our hair, nails and skin. Dubbed Ubirajara jubatus, indigenous Indian for ‘Maned Lord of the Spear’

Experts led from the University of Portsmouth believe the flamboyant spines may have been used to impress prospective mates, and that the dinosaur may have indulged in ‘elaborate dancing’ to show them off.

The needle-like displays were positioned so they would not impede the dinosaur’s arms and legs — and would not have stopped it from hunting, preening or sending signals.

Ubirajara jubatus lived around 110 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, the researchers explained. The new species was originally unearthed in 1995 in the Chapada do Araripe in north-eastern Brazil, and was found among the collections of the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany.  The find could explain where birds like peacocks inherited their ability to show off, the team said. Birds are the modern descendants of dinosaurs. 

‘What is especially unusual about the beast is the presence of two very long, probably stiff ribbons on either side of its shoulders,’ said paper author and palaeontologist David Martill of the University of Portsmouth. These, he explained, ‘were probably used for display, for mate attraction, inter-male rivalry or to frighten off foes.’

‘We cannot prove the specimen is a male, but given the disparity between male and female birds, it appears likely the specimen was a male — and young, too, which is surprising given most complex display abilities are reserved for mature adult males.’

‘Given its flamboyance, we can imagine that the dinosaur may have indulged in elaborate dancing to show off its display structures.’

‘These are such extravagant features for such a small animal — and not at all what we would predict if we only had the skeleton preserved,’ said paper author and palaeontologist Robert Smyth, also of the University of Portsmouth.

‘Why adorn yourself in a way that makes you more obvious to both your prey and to potential predators?’ he mused. The truth is that for many animals, evolutionary success is about more than just surviving — you also have to look good if you want to pass your genes on to the next generation.’

‘Modern birds are famed for their elaborate plumage and displays that are used to attract mates — the peacock’s tail and male birds-of-paradise are textbook examples of this.’

‘Ubirajara shows us that this tendency to show off is not a uniquely avian characteristic, but something that birds inherited from their dinosaur ancestors.’

Experts led from Portsmouth found the new species — originally unearthed in 1995 — among the collections of the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe. Pictured, the two slabs of the Ubirajara jubatus specimen, in photograph (top row) and illustration (bottom)
Dubbed Ubirajara jubatus — indigenous Indian for ‘Maned Lord of the Spear’ — the creature’s neck spines are unique in the fossil record and made of keratin. This is the very same protein that make up parts of our hair, nails and skin. Pictured, an illustration of Ubirajara jubatus skeleton, with the fur and spines highlighted in orange

The fossil specimen of Ubirajara jubatus sports a section of extremely-well preserved mane. Long and thick, this would have run down the animal’s back. The researchers believe that the mane would have been manipulated by muscles — allowing it to be lifted, much like a dog raises its hackles when it feels threatened.  Ubirajara would have been able to lower the mane flush to its skin when not putting on a display, allowing it to move fast without getting tangled in vegetation. 

Its arms were also covered in fur, the team noted.

‘Any creature with movable hair or feathers as a body coverage has a great advantage in streamlining the body contour for faster hunts or escapes but also to capture or release heat,’ explained Professor Martill.

‘We know lots of dinosaurs had bony crests, spines and frills that were probably used for display but we don’t see these very often in living birds,’ said Mr Smyth.

‘In birds, crests are made of feathers. This little dinosaur provides some insight into why this might be the case.’ Bone requires a lot of energy for a body to grow and maintain. It’s also heavy and can cause serious injury if broken,’ he continued.

‘Keratin — the material that makes up hair, feathers and scales — is a much better display alternative for a small animal like this one. Keratin is less costly for a body to produce, it’s also lightweight, flexible and can be regularly replaced if damaged.’

‘Ubirajara is the most primitive known dinosaur to possess integumentary [external] display structures. It represents a revolution in dinosaur communication, the effects of which we can still see today in living birds.’

The specimen was originally excavated by palaeontologist Eberhard Frey of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe. It came out of the ground in two pieces. X-ray scans revealed previously hidden skeletal elements and soft tissue, from which the researchers were able to build a clearer picture of Ubirajara in life. Ubirajara jubatus is the first non-avian dinosaur to be discovered in a fossil-rich rock formation known to geologists as the Crato Formation.

At the time this was being deposited, the South Atlantic was opening up in a long narrow shallow sea, which accounts for the exquisite preservation of Ubirajara. The find is also important for the Americas, explained paper author and palaeontologist Hector Rivera Sylva, who curates the Desert Museum, in Mexico.

Ubirajara jubatus lived around 110 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, the researchers explained. Pictured, a close up of the small dinosaur’s fossilised remains

‘The Ubirajara jubatus is not only important because of the integumentary structures present for the first time in a non-avian dinosaur — completely changing the way of seeing the behaviour of certain dinosaurs,’ he added.

Rather, the find provides ‘the first evidence for this group in Latin America, as well as one of the few reported for the subcontinent of Gondwana,’ he explained.

This, he added, expands our ‘knowledge about non-avian feathered dinosaurs [in] America, whose evidence is very scarce.’ The full findings of the study were published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

ECUADOR, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Infants from 2100 years ago found with helmets made of children’s skulls

Infants from 2100 years ago found with helmets made of children’s skulls

According to the new study, two babies from ancient South American burial mounds have been discovered wearing helmets made from the skulls of other infants.

Skulls and other objects excavated at burial sites on the coast of Ecuador.

As researchers tell in their report published earlier this month in the science journal, Latin American Antiquity, this is the first recorded evidence of ancient people using children’s skulls as burial headgear anywhere in the world.

Excavations on Ecuador’s coast from 2014 to 2016 discovered the bodies of 11 people in ancient burial mounds, including two adults, one young person, and four infants. Around the burials, small artefacts and shells were discovered.

But it was two of the infants wearing skull “helmets” found in two burial mounds dated to approximately 100 BC that really grabbed attention.

The research — led by University of North Carolina at Charlotte assistant professor Sara Juengst — found that one baby was 18 months old at the time of death, and was wearing parts of the skull of another child aged between four and 12 years old.

The skull was placed in a “helmet-like fashion around the head of the first, such that the primary individual’s face looked through,” the researchers said. A small shell and a child’s finger bone was found between the skull “helmet” and the infant’s head.

Items found during excavations of ancient burial sites on the coast of Ecuador.

The other infant was aged between six and nine months old and was wearing skull fragments of a child aged between two and 12 years old.

Researchers said the skull “helmets” likely still had flesh on them when they were put on the infants’ heads, as children’s skulls often don’t hold together.

The story behind the skull ‘helmets’

In the study, researchers acknowledged that there were a number of questions remaining. They did not know whose skulls had been turned into “helmets” — or why two babies were wearing “helmets” while others were not.

But the researchers noted that detached heads were “symbolically important” in South America, and dead children were often given special treatment in death.

“The human head was a potent symbol for many South American cultures,” the study found.

The researchers speculated that the skull “helmets” could have been an attempt to protect the babies’ souls — a theory that they said was given weight by the figurines found around the burial site.

The area had been hit by volcanic ashfall before the burial, the study said.

“A tantalizing hypothesis is that this bodily stress is related to the volcanic ash fall that preceded these burials, and that the treatment of the two infants was part of a larger, complex ritual response to environmental consequences of the eruption,” the researchers said. “More evidence is needed to confirm this.”

The researchers also noted that there was no evidence of the tomb being reopened or manipulated after the initial burial.

Previous studies have uncovered details of burial rites of ancient civilizations of South America.

Earlier this year, archaeologists in Peru found the remains of around 250 children sacrificed by the pre-Colombian Chimu civilization.

BRAZIL, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Lidar Reveals Network of Ancient Villages in Brazil’s Rainforest

Lidar Reveals Network of Ancient Villages in Brazil’s Rainforest

Jose Iriarte and Mark Robinson of the University of Exeter and their multinational team of scientists explored Brazil’s southern Acre State with Lidar remote sensing equipment, according to a statement issued by the University of Exeter, and revealed a sequence of more than 35 villages dating from A.D. 1300 to 1700 in the thick vegetation of the Amazon.

This is further evidence the rainforest has long-been occupied by indigenous communities, whose cultures rose, fell, transformed, and rose again, long before Europeans made an impact in the Americas.

The research shows after the abandonment of the large geometrically patterned ceremonial earthworks, around AD 950, a new culture arose with communities living in mounded villages with highly defined concepts of social and architectural space.  

Lidar scanning the forest
Lidar scanning the forest.

The circular mound villages are connected across the wider landscape through paired sunken roads with high banks that radiate from the village circle like the marks of a clock or the rays of the sun.

The villages have both minor roads and principal roads, which were deeper and wider with higher banks. Most villages have paired cardinally orientated principal roads, two leaving in a northward direction and two leaving in a southward direction.

The survey reveals that the straight roads often connect one village to another, creating a network of communities over many kilometres.

Deforestation in the region had previously revealed the presence of large geoglyph earthworks on the landscape with archaeological research also documenting the presence of circular mound villages.

However, until now the extent of earthwork constructions, their architectural layouts, and their regional organisation remained hidden beneath the remaining dense tropical forest.

Experts from the UK and South America used a RIEGL VUX-1 UAV Lidar sensor integrated into an MD 500 helicopter to document architectural features below the forest canopy, revealing a more complex and spatially organised landscape than previously thought.

Lidar Reveals Network of Ancient Villages in Brazil’s Rainforest

Over 35 villages and dozens of roads were documented in the research with many more predicted to still be hidden below the unexplored jungle.

The villages were composed of 3 to 32 mounds arranged in a circle, the diameter of which ranged from 40 m to 153 m with the area enclosed by the central plaza ranging from ~0.12 to 1.8 ha.

The research was carried out by Jose Iriarte, and Mark Robinson from the University of Exeter; Jonas Gregorio de Souza from Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Antonia Damasceno and Franciele da Silva from the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional; Francisco Nakahara from the Federal University of Pará; Alceu Ranzi from the Federal University of Acre and Luiz Aragao from the Brazil National Institute for Space Research.

The findings are published in a paper in the Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology and footage of Jose Iriarte and Ella Al-Shamahi locating the village on foot, can be seen on the programme Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon on Channel 4 at 6.30 pm on 5th December.

Professor Iriarte said: “Lidar has allowed us to detect these villages, and their features such as roads, which wasn’t possible before because most are not visible within the best satellite data available. The technology helps to show diverse and complex construction history of this part of the Amazon.

“Lidar provides a new opportunity to locate and document earthen sites in forested parts of Amazonia characterized by dense vegetation. It can also document the smallest surficial earthen features in the recently opened pasture areas.”

COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Tens of Thousands of ice age Paintings across a cliff face shed light on people and animals from 12,500 years ago

Tens of Thousands of ice age Paintings across a cliff face shed light on people and animals from 12,500 years ago

In the Colombian jungle, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of ancient drawings dating back about 12,500 years. This prehistoric depictions of animals and humans have been discovered adorning cliff faces that stretch for almost eight miles. On top of that, some depict long-extinct ice age animals.

Archaeologists were shocked to discover numerous human handprints on the site, according to the Daily Mail. Funded by the European Research Council, the British-Colombian team had no idea what awaited them in the Chiribiquete National Park — but is now finally ready to share the remarkable discovery with the world.

Pictures of animals such as mastodons and paleo lamas, the extinct ancestors of elephants and camels, were perhaps the most exciting.  The cliff face art also includes giant sloths and ice age horses, all of which were clearly seen and painted by some of the first humans to ever reach the Amazon.

Tens of Thousands of ice age Paintings across a cliff face shed light on people and animals from 12,500 years ago
Many of the paintings are so high up that drones are needed to view them.

According to The Guardian, the find has been aptly lauded as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients.” Based on the sheer scale and plethora of paintings, experts say it’ll take generations to properly analyze. While it was uncovered last year, the find was kept secret for a documentary set to air on Britain’s Channel 4 in December.

“When you’re there, your emotions flow…We’re talking about several tens of thousands of paintings,” said lead archaeologist José Iriarte, professor of archaeology at Exeter University. “It’s going to take generations to record them…Every turn you do, it’s a new wall of paintings.”

The site is so remote that it took experts a two-hour drive from Chiribiquete National Park to Serranía de la Lindosa — followed by a four-hour hike to reach it. After this long journey, the team was awed to discover such extensive paintings.

Regional natives of the Amazon didn’t keep written records until fairly recently. With a humid climate and high levels of acid in the soil, nearly every trace of their tangible presence — including human remains — have been lost. Most about the region’s history before 1,500 has been inferred from ceramics and arrowheads.

Most native tribes of the Amazon are believed to have descended from the first prehistoric group of migrants to cross the Bering Land Bridge around 17,000 years ago. The discovery is thus sure to shed unprecedented light on various aspects of their culture.

The remarkable handprints are estimated to be as old as 12,500 years.

“We started seeing animals that are now extinct,” said Iriarte. “The pictures are so natural and so well made that we have few doubts that you’re looking at a horse, for example. The ice-age horse had a wild, heavy face. It’s so detailed, we can even see the horsehair. It’s fascinating.”

While it’s yet unclear exactly which tribe was responsible for the uncovered art, there are some preliminary wagers at hand. Both the Yanomami and Kayapo tribes have been around for thousands of years and appear to be likely candidates.

Of course, not everything worth doing is easy — and the region’s more hostile factors rapidly made that clear for Iriarte and his team. Ella Al-Shamahi, presenter of the upcoming Channel 4 documentary series Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon, spoke about these hidden threats.

“Caimans are everywhere, and we did keep our wits about us with snakes,” she said, recalling a giant bushmaster, “the deadliest snake in the Americans with an 80 per cent mortality rate” which the team encountered in the dead of night. “You’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Al-Shamahi recalled having to navigate both deadly animals and guerrillas to reach the site.

Unfortunately, there was another lethal threat abounding in the jungle not to be taken lightly — the FARC. Colombia suffered decades of civil war between these guerrillas and the government, with a shaky truce and heavy militant presence in the jungles not particularly calming.

Fortunately, they allowed the experts entry.

“When we entered Farc territory, it was exactly as a few of us have been screaming about for a long time,” said Al-Shamahi. “Exploration is not over. Scientific discovery is not over but the big discoveries now are going to be found in places that are disputed or hostile.”

It was only last week that evidence of ancient hallucinogenic rituals was uncovered in California. It seems these Colombian tribes engaged in the same, as paintings of psychoactive plants were also found on the walls.

“For Amazonian people, non-humans like animals and plants have souls, and they communicate and engage with people in cooperative or hostile ways through rituals and shamanic practices that we see depicted in the rock art,” said Iriarte.

The research will continue as pandemic-centric regulations loosen.

“It’s interesting to see that many of these large animals appear surrounded by small men with their arms raised, almost worshipping these animals,” added Iriarte.

For Al-Shamahi, one of the more intriguing aspects was the height of some of these illustrations. They were so elevated that they could only be viewed with camera-drones and some depicted wooden towers with figures bungee jumping off of them. Still, the historical context blew her away more than anything.

“One of the most fascinating things was seeing ice age megafauna because that’s a marker of time. I don’t think people realize that Amazon has shifted in the way it looks. It hasn’t always been this rainforest. When you look at a horse or mastodon in these paintings, of course, they weren’t going to live in a forest.”

“They’re too big. Not only are they giving clues about when they were painted by some of the earliest people — that in itself is just mind-boggling — but they are also giving clues about what this very spot might have looked like: more savannah-like.”

As it stands, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on continued research here. Fortunately for us, we’ll get to see these initial discoveries up close when the documentary series airs its episode on the matter on Dec. 12.

BOLIVIA, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Wall In Bolivia Contains More Than 5,000 Dinosaur Footprints

Wall In Bolivia Contains More Than 5,000 Dinosaur Footprints

Cal Orko, an immense limestone slab 1.5 km (0.9 miles) long and over 100 meters high (328 ft), is situated 5 km (3 miles from downtown Sucre, Bolivia. Visitors will look through time on this steep face (72 degrees inclination) to when dinosaurs roamed the Earth more than 68 million years ago.

You will find 462 different dinosaur tracks from at least 8 different species at Cal Orko, totaling an astounding 5,055 individual dinosaur footprints. So how do thousands of dinosaur footprints come to be, on a seemingly vertical rock face hundreds of feet high? You’ll have to scroll down to find out. 

Cal Orko: A Paleontologist’s Dream… Inside a Quarry

 Believe it or not, Cal Orko is situated entirely within a limestone quarry owned by FANCESA, Bolivia’s National Cement Factory.

Located in the ‘El Molino’ formation, the sight of heavy mining machinery (one could argue they are today’s ‘land giants’) set against a backdrop of 68 million-year-old dinosaur footprints (Earth’s prehistoric ‘land giants’) creates an intriguing parallel.

Further up the hill is Parque Cretácico. Opened in 2006, the dinosaur museum features 24 life-sized dinosaur replicas, various exhibitions, and a viewing platform 150 meters (~500 ft) from the rock face. It’s from this vantage point that you truly grasp the sheer scale and magnitude of Cal Orko.

So Dinosaurs Can Climb Walls Now?

 Not quite. We’re looking at something 68 million years in the making. The footprints at this site were formed during the Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous Period in the Mesozoic Era. As Ian Belcher of The Guardian explains:

“It was unique climate fluctuations that made the region a palaeontological honey pot. The creatures’ feet sank into the soft shoreline in warm damp weather, leaving marks that were solidified by later periods of drought. Wet weather then returned, sealing the prints below mud and sediment.

The wet-dry pattern was repeated seven times, preserving multiple layers of prints.

The cherry on the cake was added when tectonic activity pushed the flat ground up to a brilliant viewing angle – as if nature was aware of its tourism potential.”

Cal Orko is one of the few locations in the world where you will find a concentration of footprints from a wide variety of dinosaurs that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period. The sheer size, geological significance, biodiversity, and social behavior that can be studied here makes Cal Orko a special place.
 
Take the trail of Johnny Walker for example. Johnny Walker was the name given to a baby Tyrannosaurus rex whose 367 meters (~1200 ft) path can be traced and observed here.

CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

“Alien” skeleton found in Chile actually human fetus with a rare bone disorder

“Alien” skeleton found in Chile actually human fetus with a rare bone disorder

Alien? Alien? Primate Subhuman? Reluctant child? Fetus mummified? The Internet shakes at the nature of “Ata,” a bizarre 6-inch skeleton used in a recent UFO documentary. A Stanford University scientist who boldly entered the fray has now put to rest doubts about what species Ata belongs to. But the mystery is not over.

The story began 10 years ago when the diminutive remains were reportedly found in a pouch in a ghost town in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Ata ended up in a private collection in Barcelona; producers of the film Sirius latched onto the bizarre mummy as evidence of alien life.

Last fall, immunologist Garry Nolan, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Proteomics Center for Systems Immunology at Stanford in California, heard about Ata from a friend and contacted the filmmakers, offering to give them a scientific readout on the specimen. They asked him to give it a shot.

Among the apparent abnormalities, Ata sports 10 ribs instead of the usual 12 and a severely misshapen skull. “I asked our neonatal care unit how you would go about analyzing it. Had they seen this kind of syndrome before?” Nolan says. He was directed to pediatric radiologist Ralph Lachman, co-director of the International Skeletal Dysplasia Registry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

“He literally wrote the book on pediatric bone disorders,” Nolan says. Lachman was blown away, Nolan recalls: “He said, ‘Wow, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’ “

To study the specimen, Nolan sought clues in Ata’s genome. He initially presumed the specimen was tens or hundreds of thousands of years old—the Atacama Desert may be the driest spot on the planet, so Ata could have been preserved for aeons.

He consulted experts who had extracted DNA from bones of the Denisovans, an Asian relative of European Stone Age Neandertals. It turned out that their protocols weren’t necessary. “The DNA was modern, abundant, and high quality,” he says, indicating that the specimen is probably a few decades old.

To the chagrin of UFO hunters, Ata is decidedly of this world. After mapping more than 500 million reads to a reference human genome, equating to 17.7-fold coverage of the genome, Nolan concluded that Ata “is human, there’s no doubt about it.” Moreover, the specimen’s B2 haplotype—a category of mitochondrial DNA—reveals that its mother was from the west coast of South America: Chile, that is.

Meanwhile, after examining x-rays, Lachman concluded that Aka’s skeletal development, based on the density of the epiphyseal plates of the knees (growth plates at the end of long bones found only in children), surprisingly appears to be equivalent to that of a 6- to 8-year-old child. If that holds up, there are two possibilities, Nolan says. One, a long shot, is that Ata had a severe form of dwarfism, was actually born as a tiny human, and lived until that calendar age.

X-rays show that Ata is no hoax, but its DNA will disappoint UFO buffs.

To test that hypothesis, he will try to extract haemoglobin from the specimen’s bone marrow and compare the relative amounts of fetal versus adult haemoglobin proteins.

The second possibility is that Ata, the size of a 22-week-old fetus, suffered from a severe form of the rare rapid ageing disease, progeria, and died in the womb or after premature birth.

Nolan hasn’t yet turned up hits for genes known to be associated with progeria or dwarfism. He’s stepping up the search for mutations through additional sequencing and casting a wider net.

Another possibility is a teratogen: a birth defect-inducing toxicant along the lines of thalidomide. Nolan plans to analyze tissue using mass spectrometry to look for toxicants or metabolites. But reports of a handful of other Tom Thumb-sized skeletons from Russia and elsewhere have Nolan leaning toward a genetic explanation.

At least one expert has a more prosaic take—but agrees that the specimen is human. “This looks to me like a badly desiccated and mummified human fetus or premature stillbirth,” says William Jungers, a paleoanthropologist and anatomist at Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York.

He notes that “barely ossified and immature elements” of the hands and feet, and the wide-open metopic suture, where the two frontal bones of the skull come together down the middle of the forehead.

“Genetic anomalies are not evident, probably because there aren’t any,” he says. Nolan responds that the rib number and epiphyseal plate densities remain a riddle; while he is open to the fetus hypothesis, he thinks that the jury is still out.

Nolan’s analysis went viral; besieged as he has been by the media circus, he doesn’t regret having gotten involved in debunking a claim of alien life. “I’m thrilled with the outcome,” he says.

Once the analyses are complete, he says, he’ll submit his findings for peer review. The other claim Nolan debunks is that Ata is an elaborate hoax. The x-rays clearly show these are real bones, complete with arterial shadows, he says. “You just couldn’t fake it,” he says, adding, with a laugh, “unless you were an alien.”

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

9,000-Year-Old Remains Of Female Hunter Found In Peru

9,000-Year-Old Remains Of Female Hunter Found In Peru

Nine-thousand-year-old human remains discovered at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa in Peru appear to have belonged to a woman hunter buried with a toolkit of projectile points and animal processing implements, according to a report in Science Magazine. 

9,000-Year-Old Remains Of Female Hunter Found In Peru
An artist’s depiction of a female hunter 9000 years ago in the Andean highlands of Peru

They were fascinated by a tool kit with 20 stone projectile points and blades lined neatly by the person’s side at a burial pit high in the Andes. Both signs led to a high-status hunter’s discovery.  “Everybody was talking about how this was a great chief, a big man,” says archaeologist Randy Haas of the University of California (UC), Davis.

Then, the University of Arizona bioarchaeologist Jim Watson observed that the bones were slender and light.  “I think your hunter might be female,” he told Haas.

Now, the researchers report that the burial was indeed that of a female, challenging the long-standing “man the hunter” hypothesis. Her existence led them to reexamine reports of other ancient burials in the Americas, and they found 10 additional women buried with projectile points who may also have been hunters. “The message [of the new finding] is that women have always been able to hunt and have in fact hunted,” says archaeologist Bonnie Pitblado of the University of Oklahoma, Norman, who was not part of the study.

The “man the hunter hypothesis,” which prevailed after an influential symposium in Chicago in 1966, held that during the course of human evolution, men hunted and women gathered—and they seldom switched those gender roles.

Some researchers challenged the notion, and ancient female warriors have been found recently, but archaeological evidence of women hunting has been scant. And the idea that all hunters were male has been bolstered by studies of the few present-day groups of hunter-gatherers, such as the Hadza of Tanzania and San of southern Africa. In those cultures, men hunt large animals and women gather tubers, fruits, nuts, and seeds.

Haas and his team, including local Aymara colleagues, weren’t intending to study female hunters. They discovered the fossilized remains of six individuals in burial pits at the archaeological site of Wilamaya Patjxa at 3925 meters’ altitude on the windswept altiplano of southern Peru. Two people were buried with stone tools.

The teenage girl was buried with what archaeologists believe was a hunting tool kit.

One person, likely 17 to 19 years old, was accompanied by four projectile points that would have been attached to short spears for hunting, several cutting blades, a possible knife, and scraper tools likely used for processing animal hides and meat.

The 20 stone tools and ochre, which can be used to tan hides, were neatly stacked next to the top of one individual’s thigh bone as if they had been held in a leather pouch that had disintegrated. Another person, likely 25 to 35 years old at death, was buried with two projectile points. The pits also held bone fragments of Andean deer and camelids, such as vicuña or guanaco.

The researchers figured out the sex of the bones using a new forensics method developed by co-author Glendon Parker of UC Davis. The technique analyzes whether an individual’s tooth enamel carries a male or female version of a protein called amelogenin.

The individual with the impressive toolkit was female; the other person with hunting tools was male. Studies of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the woman’s teeth showed she ate a typical hunter’s diet of animal meat and plants.

Others find the evidence of a female hunter convincing. “It’s a smoking gun,” says archaeologist Meg Conkey of UC Berkeley, who was not part of the study. “But skeptics might say it’s a one-off.”

Haas anticipated that concern: In a search of reports of burials at 107 other sites in the Americas older than 8,000 years, he found 10 other women and 16 men also buried with hunting tools. This meta-analysis suggests “early big-game hunting was likely gender-neutral,” he and his colleagues report today in Science Advances.

Robert Kelly of the University of Wyoming applauds the discovery of the female hunter but isn’t convinced by many of the other potential cases. He points out that having tools in the same grave as a person doesn’t always mean they used them in life. Two burials were female infants found with hunting implements, for example. Buried tools could also have been offerings from male hunters to express their sorrow, he says.

Pitblado says that even if not all of those female remains belonged to hunters, the meta-analysis suggests women have long been capable of hunting, and provides hints about where to look more closely for evidence.

It was one of many burials found that featured women hunters in the last 50 years.

Human ecologist Eugenia Gayo of the University of Chile agrees. Such research could help answer questions such as “What was the type of environments where everybody got involved in the hunting?” she says.

It shouldn’t be surprising that women could hunt, Pitblado adds. “These women were living high up in the Andes, at 13,000 feet full time,” she says. “If you can do that, surely you can bring down a deer.”

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Two Inca Measurement Systems Calculated By Polish Architect

Two Inca Measurement Systems Calculated By Polish Architect

The Inca used two main units of measurement while constructing Machu Picchu, according to a Science in Poland report. Anna Kubicka of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology analyzed measurements of buildings at the site collected during field research conducted by the staff at Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park, the 3-D Scanning and Modeling Laboratory at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, and the University of Warsaw between 2010 and 2017.

Dr Kubicka said that until now research on the Inca measurement system was based mainly on 16th and 17th-century chronicles written by colonising  Spaniards, and on their dictionaries of the Quechua language used by the Inca.

These sources contain information on anthropometric measures (measures based on human body parts). But the values assigned to them were not known.

Machu Picchu. Image: Public Domain

Scientists speculated that since the average Inca person was about 1.6 meters tall, Inca ell (arms) could be between 40 and 45 cm.

Field measurements were carried out by employees of the Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park together with the 3D Scanning and Modeling Laboratory team led by Professor Jacek Kościuk from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology.

Anna Kubicka, a PhD student at the time, joined his team. Kościuk’s team started working there in cooperation with Professor Mariusz Ziółkowski from the Center for Pre-Columbian Studies of the University of Warsaw.

The researcher determined that the Incas used two modules (or quanta) to measure their buildings. The basic module was 42 cm long and corresponded to the elbow length.

The second one, measuring 54 cm, is a so far unknown measure and does not result directly from the length of any part of the human body.

Kubicka calls it the ‘royal ell’ because the unit was used to measure structures of a higher rank. The ‘royal ell’ was associated with representative and residential building complexes of the Inca elite, while the other, basic one – with complexes of farm buildings, workshops and buildings for the yanaconas (the servants of the Inca elite).

Asked whether her finding has brought anything new to the knowledge of Machu Picchu, Kubicka says the complex was built at one point, in the first half of the 15th century. Therefore, the metrological data she has obtained is not needed to determine, for example, its age.

Kubicka said: “On the other hand, the question to observe was whether there were modular differences due to different building traditions of the people who came as labour from different regions of the Inca Empire.

At Machu Picchu we have different stonework styles, also used depending on the function of the building or complex of buildings.”

But it turned out that despite the differences in the construction method, only two measurement systems were used. Kubicka believes that this is evidence that the measuring of the Machu Picchu city plan was supervised by imperial engineers who used their own system of measures.

Further research will determine whether the measurement system identified by Dr Kubicka was also used in other places in Inca Peru as so far no one has looked into it. 

But according to Kubicka, it cannot be ruled out that the units of measurement changed overtime before the advent of the Incas. Perhaps, along with the stone processing technologies borrowed from the Tiwanaku culture, one common system of measures was adopted.

For her analyses, Dr Kubicka used the cosine quantogram method developed by the British researcher Kendall in 1974 to analyse length measures in megalithic structures. Simply put, it consists of searching for an indivisible unit of measurement (quantum) in a series of measurement data, the multiple of which is the length of individual elements of architecture.

The research in Machu Picchu was financed with a grant from the National Science Centre.