2,000-Year-Old Maya Civilization Spotted in Guatemala
A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S., working with a colleague from France and another from Guatemala, has discovered a very large 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala.
Triadic structures in El Mirador: (a) LiDAR image showing triadic structures in the civic center of El Mirador (Tigre pyramid is the largest in this section of the city); (b) LiDAR 3D view showing the pyramidal complex of La Danta, located on the east side of the civic center at El Mirador.
In their paper published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, the group describes using LiDAR to conduct a survey of the area.
LiDAR is a detection system similar to radar but is based on laser light rather than radio waves. In recent years, it has been used to scan parts of dense tropical rain forests for signs of ancient civilizations.
Lasers used in such systems are able to penetrate vegetative canopies over rain forests, revealing what is on the ground beneath them.
In this new effort, the researchers flew over parts of Guatemala as part of a mapping effort, when they came across what they describe as a vast ancient Maya civilization.
In studying their maps, they were able to see that the ancient civilization was made up of more than 1,000 settlements covering approximately 650 square miles, most of which were linked by multiple causeways.
The researchers were also able to see that the people who once lived in the settlements had been densely packed—a finding that goes against theories suggesting early Mesoamerican settlements tended to be sparsely populated.
The causeways (cleared, raised beds used as roads) added up to 110 miles of traversable pathways, making it relatively easy for the people in the civilization to visit other settlements.
The researchers note that the road network would have allowed for collective labor efforts.
The researchers also found evidence of large platforms and pyramids in some settlements, which, they note, suggests some of them served as centralized hubs for work, recreation and politics. They note also that some of the settlements had ball courts that prior research has shown were used for playing a variety of sports native to the region.
The researchers also found that the people of the civilization had built canals for moving water and reservoirs for holding it to allow for use during dry periods.
Ancient Peruvians gave themselves elongated skulls as a mark of status
The Collagua people would bind pieces of wood to children’s heads to modify the shape of the developing skull (Creative Commons)
Members of the ruling elite in parts of South America would have been very easy to spot 700 years ago – due to their tall, elongated skulls. Their artificially extended heads were apparently status symbols, and could have helped foster a sense of community and collective identity, according to a study.
Over 300 years before the Inca empire swept the south western Americas, members of a small ethnic community known as the Collagua practised intentional head shaping which developed to focus on creating a tall thin skull shape.
According to bioarchaeologist Matthew Velasco of Cornell University the cranial modifications may have bound the powerful elite together, but it may also have polarised other groups, resulting in social inequality.
The Collagua people lived in the Colca Valley in south-eastern Peru, where they raised Alpacas and llamas for wool.
Early Spanish accounts also detail another ethnic group – the Cavanas, who also populated the region. Spanish records say that in contrast to the tall narrow heads of the Collagua, the Cavanas also modified their skulls, widening and flattening them.
The Collagua would use pieces of wood, which were tightly bound to the heads of infants to modify how their heads grew. The practice was banned by the invading Spanish in the 16th Century.
Mr Velasco’s research, published in the journal Current Anthropology is the first time skull shape has been studied as a class differentiator within the Collagua.
By looking at skull shapes from over 200 individuals from a 300-year period, the research team saw that tall thin skulls became increasingly linked to high social status.
Chemical analysis of the bones revealed that Collagua women with purposefully distended heads were more likely to eat a broader diet than those without cranial modifications. The team also observed that these women typically had fewer injuries from physical attacks than women with unaltered skulls, Science News reports.
The study suggests the changes to head shape among those with power may have helped pave the way for a peaceful incorporation for the Collagua into the Incan empire.
“Greater standardisation of head-shaping practices echoes broader patterns of identity formation across the south-central highlands and may have provided a symbolic basis for the cooperation of elite groups during an era of intensive conflict,” says Mr Velasco.
The intensive conflict was due to the encroaching Incas, who originated from the highlands of Peru and through armed takeovers and assimilation, ultimately controlled most of Peru, as well as large parts of what are now Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, in addition to a small part of southwest Colombia.
The civilisation was one of the largest empires in the world when it reached its peak in the 16th century before the Spanish conquistadors arrived.
Characterizing red pigment in ancient bone samples in Peru to reveal their sources
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. and one in Canada has characterized a large number of red pigment samples found on the bones of ancient people who once lived in what is now southern Peru.
In their paper published in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, the group describes their study of the pigments.
Prior studies of the use of red pigments in funeral rites by people who lived in ancient Peru suggest the practice is related to prolonging the existence of the dead.
In this new effort, the researchers used various techniques to analyze red pigments found on bones left behind by members of the Chincha, people who lived around Peru over the years 1000 AD to 1825 AD.
The pigments were found on bones excavated from over 100 chullpas, or mass burial graves. The aim of the research was to determine why the bones were painted and how it was done.
To find their answers, the researchers subjected the 35 bones (25 of which were skulls) to laser ablation, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and X-ray powder diffraction in order to identify all of the components in the pigments.
They found that the bulk of them were made using iron-based ochres such as hematite. Another major material they found was cinnabar, which had a mercury base.
They also found that cinnabar was not native to the local area—it would have been imported. This suggested its use was likely meant for important or rich people.
The researchers also noted that while there were some women and children’s bones in their collection, most were from adult males.
The researchers concluded that the arrangement of the pigments on the bones indicates it had been applied using either leaves or bare fingers.
The researchers also noted that the arrangement of the bones in the chullpas suggested that the pigments may have been applied long after the people had been skeletonized.
This, they suggest, indicates that the people of the time may have exhumed loved ones and applied the paints to their bones to protect them from European invaders.
Scientists Found 168 More Ancient Figures Etched Into the Peruvian Desert
The Nazca Desert in Peru is decorated with hundreds of mysterious figures, called geoglyphs, that were etched into the soil by the Indigenous peoples who lived in this area between 2,500 and 1,500 years ago.
The ancient drawings, collectively known as the Nazca Lines, cover an estimated 170 square miles of this arid terrain.
Many of the figures are visible only from an aerial viewpoint, leaving researchers puzzled about the purpose of this huge artistic display.
Now, an international team of researchers from Japan and Peru have discovered 168 previously unknown geoglyphs in this Peruvian desert, including depictions of humans, birds, orcas, cats, snakes, and camel relatives, according to a statement from Yamagata University released on Friday.
The figures date back nearly 2,000 years, according to preliminary research, and were identified with the help of high-resolution aerial images captured by drones during field surveys from June 2019 to February 2020.
Many of the newly discovered geoglyphs are relatively small, measuring only ten to 20 feet across, which kept them hidden from past searches.
One of the most memorable figures looks to be a bearded man with an Anton Chigurh-style haircut, but the new haul also includes a wide variety of animals, from marine mammals to birds, reflecting the ecological richness of the area thousands of years ago.
Researchers led by Masato Sakai, an archaeologist and anthropologist at Yamagata University, made the discovery in collaboration with Jorge Olano, a Peruvian archaeologist based at Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
These breakthroughs follow the 2012 establishment of the Institute of Nazca, a research center in the area supported by Yamagata University.
Sakai and his colleagues are hopeful that their efforts will uncover many more of these enigmatic drawings in the coming years, perhaps revealing new insights into the meaning of this natural desert canvas to the people who lived here long ago.
Long-lost ancient mural rediscovered in northern Peru after more than a century
A team of student archaeologists has rediscovered a 1,000-year-old multicoloured mural depicting a deity surrounded by warriors which were last seen a century ago in northern Peru.
Swiss archaeologist Sâm Ghavami with his team of Peruvian students at the Huaca Pintada in northern Peru.
Known as the Huaca Pintada, the 30-metre-long wall painted with fantastical images depicting mythical scenes was first found in 1916 by a band of treasure-hunting tomb raiders in Illimo near the city of Chiclayo.
The full splendour of the mural was captured in photographs taken at the time by Hans Heinrich Brüning, a German ethnographer whose work galvanised the archaeological study of the pre-Columbian ruins and relics in the region.
But then the grave robbers destroyed part of the wall after being forbidden from looting their find, and the site fell back into obscurity.
More than a century went by until a Swiss-Peruvian team led by Sâm Ghavami from the University of Fribourg decided to take on the mystery and rediscover the lost mural which had disappeared from view under carob trees and undergrowth.
Sâm Ghavami uses a brush to reveal the mural.
“When we got access to the site, it was a huge relief,” Ghavami, 33, told the Guardian by phone from northern Peru. One of the main challenges was accessing the site which is located on private land, he explained. It took two years to persuade the fiercely protective landowning family to allow them to excavate.
The Swiss archaeologist and some 18 Peruvian students began excavations in 2019, thanks to a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation. After a pause in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they were able to continue in 2021 completing the dig in November this year.
A detail from the mural.
“The first time we saw the huge wall, it was by just scratching the sand,” said Ghavami. “We could see the walls were unexcavated.” In the final two months of the dig, the team rediscovered the murals that had been lost during Brüning’s time, as well as new panels stretching some 11 to 12 metres that had not been uncovered by the looters.
“It was a lot of work,” said Ghavami. “No one could see its monumentality when it was covered by trees.
“When that was cleared away, people start to see it in a new way,” he added.
Archaeologists believe the mural dates back to the Lambayeque culture of the 9th century AD. It was buried in a pyramidal mound in La Leche valley near another site called Túcume, in the Lambayeque region.
“It’s the most exciting and important find of recent years,” said Luis Jaime Castillo, an archaeology professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. “The long-lost murals of Huaca Pintada have been recuperated after more than 100 years.”
The excavation site is on private land near the city of Chiclayo.
“The depictions have a mixture of Mochica and Lambayeque iconography,” said Castillo. The Mochica civilization flourished in the region between AD100 and 700. “They show a transition, and maybe changes in the cosmologies.
“They give us a unique opportunity to contemplate the ancient societies of northern Peru, their deities and myths,” he added.
For now, the site has been covered up to preserve it but Ghavami – who is writing his doctoral thesis about the sociocultural changes that occurred in Lambayeque at the time when the mural was made – would like it to be restored to its former glory and, eventually, opened to the public.
Archaeologists In Peru Unearth 800-year-old Mummy Buried In Underground Tomb In Lima
Recently on Peru’s central coast, archaeologists have discovered a mummy that is thought to be approximately 800 years old. The remains of the mummy were believed to match an individual who belonged to a society that flourished prior to the Inca Empire which rose to power during the 1400s.
Archaeologists claimed that the society was settled between Peru’s coastline and mountains, Sky News reported.
According to archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna of the State University of San Marcos, the mummified remains have been unearthed in an underground structure in the suburbs of Lima, the capital city of the nation.
However, the gender of the mummy has yet to be determined, as per the Independent. Further, archaeologist Dalen Luna claimed that the fossils belong to a person who has lived in the nation’s high Andean area.
‘The main characteristic of the mummy is that the whole body was tied up
“The main characteristic of the mummy is that the whole body was tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face, which would be part of the local funeral pattern,” Sky News reported, citing archaeologist Dalen Luna. He went on to explain that after evaluating carbon dating, more exact dates will be obtained. Further, it has been reported that Ceramics, vegetable remnants, as well as stone tools were also discovered within the tomb with the mummy.
As per the Sky News, hundreds of archaeological places are found in Peru which are from civilizations that existed during and after the Inca Empire. From the south of Ecuador and Colombia to central Chile, the empire ruled over the southern half of South America.
25 individuals were discovered in Peru’s ancient city of Chan Chan
Furthermore, earlier this month, archaeologists unearthed the bones of 25 individuals in Peru’s ancient city of Chan Chan.
According to BBC, the bones were excavated in a 10-square-meter area in what was once the Chim empire’s capital.
The collective grave, according to experts, was a burial location for Chim royalty. As per archaeologist Sinthya Cueva, the majority of the bones belonged to young women, all of them were under the age of 30.
According to local media, the burial also included roughly 50 pieces of pottery.
According to the British news organisation, even though the Chim was notorious for performing human sacrifices, particularly those of children, archaeologist Jorge Meneses Bartra claimed there was no confirmation that individuals found in the cemetery died as a result of human sacrifice, BBC reported.
One of the bones’ placements, according to Meneses, indicated that it was buried quickly after the individual died.
DNA Study Reveals Human Migration Routes in South America
The Americas were the last continent to be inhabited by humans. An increasing body of archaeological and genomic evidence has hinted at a complex settlement process. This is especially true for South America, where unexpected ancestral signals have raised perplexing scenarios for the early migrations into different regions of the continent.
The Alcobaça archaeological site, in which the skeletal remains of Brazil-12 (northeast Brazil) were unearthed.
Many unanswered questions still persist, such as whether the first humans migrated south along the Pacific coast or by some other route. While there is archaeological evidence for a north-to-south migration during the initial peopling of the Americas by ancient Indigenous peoples, where these ancient humans went after they arrived has remained elusive.
Using DNA from two ancient human individuals unearthed in two different archaeological sites in northeast Brazil – Pedra do Tubarão and Alcobaça – and powerful algorithms and genomic analyses, Florida Atlantic University researchers in collaboration with Emory University have unravelled the deep demographic history of South America at the regional level with some unexpected and surprising results.
Not only do researchers provide new genetic evidence supporting existing archaeological data of the north-to-south migration toward South America, but they also have discovered migrations in the opposite direction along the Atlantic coast – for the first time. The work provides the most complete genetic evidence to date for complex ancient Central and South American migration routes.
Among the key findings, researchers also have discovered evidence of Neanderthal ancestry within the genomes of ancient individuals from South America. Neanderthals are an extinct population of archaic humans that ranged across Eurasia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.
Results of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (Biological Sciences), suggest that human movements closer to the Atlantic coast eventually linked ancient Uruguay and Panama in a south-to-north migration route – 5,277 kilometres (3,270 miles) apart. This novel migration pattern is estimated to have occurred approximately 1,000 years ago based on the ages of the ancient individuals.
Findings show a distinct relationship among ancient genomes from northeast Brazil, Lagoa Santa (southeast Brazil), Uruguay and Panama. This new model reveals that the settlement of the Atlantic coast occurred only after the peopling of most of the Pacific coast and Andes.
“Our study provides key genomic evidence for ancient migration events at the regional scale along South America’s Atlantic coast,” said Michael DeGiorgio, Ph.D., co-corresponding author who specializes in human, evolutionary, and computational genomics and is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science within FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. “These regional events likely derived from migratory waves involving the initial Indigenous peoples of South America near the Pacific coast.”
Researchers also found strong Australasian (Australia and Papua New Guinea) genetic signals in an ancient genome from Panama.
“There is an entire Pacific Ocean between Australasia and the Americas, and we still don’t know how these ancestral genomic signals appeared in Central and South America without leaving traces in North America,” said Andre Luiz Campelo dos Santos, Ph.D., first author, an archaeologist and a postdoctoral fellow in FAU’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
To further add to the existing complexity, researchers also detected greater Denisovan than Neanderthal ancestry in ancient Uruguay and Panama individuals. Denisovans are a group of extinct humans first identified from DNA sequences from the tip of finger bone discovered around 2008.
“It’s phenomenal that Denisovan ancestry made it all the way to South America,” says John Lindo, Ph.D., a co-corresponding author of the article who specializes in ancient DNA analysis and is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Emory University. “The admixture must have occurred a long time before, perhaps 40,000 years ago. The fact that the Denisovan lineage persisted and its genetic signal made it into an ancient individual from Uruguay that is only 1,500 years old suggests that it was a large admixture event between a population of humans and Denisovans.”
Previously at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, dos Santos and colleagues uncovered the remains of the two ancient humans from northeast Brazil, which date back to at least 1,000 years before present, and sent them to Lindo for DNA extraction and subsequent genomic sequencing and analyses. Raw data were then sent to FAU for computational analysis of the whole genome sequences from northeast Brazil.
Researchers compared the two newly sequenced ancient whole genomes from northeast Brazil with present-day worldwide genomes and other ancient whole genomes from the Americas. As of the publication date of the article, Lindo says that only a dozen or so ancient whole genomes from South America have been sequenced and published, in contrast to hundreds from Europe.
Apart from the occurrence of mass burials in the sites that yielded the samples from northeast Brazil, Uruguay, southeast Brazil and Panama, there is no other evidence in the archaeological record that indicate shared cultural features among them. Importantly, the analyzed ancient individuals from southeast Brazil are about 9,000 years older than those from northeast Brazil, Uruguay and Panama, enough time for expected and noticeable cultural divergence. Moreover, northeast Brazil, Uruguay and Panama, though more similar in age, are located thousands of kilometers apart from each other.
“This groundbreaking research involved many different fields from archaeology to biological sciences to genomics and data science,” said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean, FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science. “Our scientists at Florida Atlantic University in collaboration with Emory University have helped to shed light on an important piece of the Americas puzzle, which could not have been solved without powerful genomic and computational tools and analysis.”
Study co-authors are Amanda Owings, Ph.D., Emory University; Henry Socrates Lavalle Sullasi, Ph.D., Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil; and Omer Gokcumen, Ph.D., State University New York at Buffalo.
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia de Pernambuco.
Ancient “Trophy Head” Child Was High On Psychedelic Cactus Before Ritual Sacrifice
A Nazca trophy head, once belonging to a child (who kinda looks like Elon Musk).
A child who had the honour of being made into a trophy head by the ancient Nazca culture of southern Peru was drugged up on a mescaline-containing cactus prior to being sacrificed, a new analysis has revealed.
The same study also found evidence of ayahuasca use among other mummified individuals from the Early Nazca Period – which ran from 100 BCE to 450 CE – and therefore provides the earliest archaeological evidence for the consumption of these two psychedelic plants.
Though the use of hallucinogenic substances was common throughout South America in pre-Columbian times, little is known about which concoctions were ritually consumed during the Early Nazca Period. To investigate, researchers analyzed hair samples from 22 individuals from three separate Nazca sites.
Famous for their incredible geoglyphs – known as the Nazca Lines – the Nazca were also prolific collectors of trophy heads. So far, about 150 such heads have been discovered, although scholars are unsure if these were removed from the shoulders of sacrificial victims or enemy warriors during battle.
Among the 22 specimens assessed in the study were four trophy heads, including a child of unknown sex, an adult female and two adult males.
When conducting their analysis, the study authors searched for metabolites of the coca plant – such as cocaine and benzoylecgonine – as well as mescaline and other compounds found in the psychedelic Amazonian brew ayahuasca.
A Nazca trophy head belonging to a female victim.
Reporting their findings, the researchers explain that “the level of the mescaline in the child’s hair suggested a high consumption of the San Pedro cactus.” Named after Saint Peter – who holds the keys to heaven – San Pedro has been used as a sacrament by Indigenous Andean cultures for millennia. Interestingly, the psychedelic cactus is also known by its Quechua name “Huachuma”, which roughly translates as “removing the head”.
At the same time, the authors discovered that the female victim had chewed coca leaves, while neither of the adult male trophy heads showed any signs of drug use.
Based on these findings, the researchers speculate that the woman and child may have been ritually sacrificed before having their heads removed and that their consumption of coca and San Pedro might have formed part of the ceremony.
In contrast, the male heads may have been captured during warfare, thus explaining why these victims were not supplied with any substances before being dispatched.
This hypothesis is supported by evidence that the more recent Inca civilization gave ayahuasca to child sacrifice victims as an anti-depressant while they awaited their fate. However, as the study authors note, “this is the first proof that some of the victims transformed into trophy heads were given stimulants prior to their death.”
Turning their attention to the 18 remaining Nazca specimens, the researchers found ayahuasca compounds in the hair of two further individuals. Concentrations of these substances in the hair of one mummy “far exceeded any previously investigated ancient samples, suggesting a possible shamanistic occupation of this individual.”
Coca metabolites, meanwhile, were present in five samples, including a six-month infant who probably ingested the substance via its mother’s breastmilk.
Collectively, these findings represent the earliest evidence for the use of San Pedro and ayahuasca, while also confirming for the first time that coca leaves were present on the southern Peruvian coast during the Early Nazca Period.
