Dozens of tombs filled with up to 40 mummies each have been
discovered around a 1,200-year-old ceremonial site in Peru's Cotahuasi
Valley.
So far, the archaeologists have excavated seven tombs containing at least 171 mummies from the site, now called Tenahaha.
The
tombs are located on small hills surrounding the site. "The dead,
likely numbering in the low thousands, towered over the living," wrote
archaeologist Justin Jennings, a curator at Toronto's Royal Ontario
Museum, in a chapter of the newly published book "Tenahaha and the Wari
State: A View of the Middle Horizon from the Cotahuasi Valley"
(University of Alabama Press, 2015).
Before
rigor mortis set in, the mummies had their knees put up to the level of
their shoulders and their arms folded along their chest, the
researchers found. The corpses were then bound with rope and wrapped in
layers of textiles. The mummies range in age from neonate fetuses to
older adults, with some of the youngest mummies (such as infants) being
buried in jars. While alive the people appear to have lived in villages
close to Tenahaha.
Bits and pieces of mummies
The
mummified remains were in poor shape due to damage from water and
rodents. Additionally, the researchers found some of the mummies were
intentionally broken apart, their bones scattered and moved between the
tombs. In one tomb the scientists found almost 400 isolated human
remains, including teeth, hands and feet.
"Though many individuals
were broken apart, others were left intact," Jennings wrote in the
book. "People were moved around the tombs, but they sometimes remained
bunched together, and even earth or rocks were used to separate some
groups and individuals." Some grave goods were smashed apart, while
others were left intact, he said.
Understanding the selective destruction of the mummies and artifacts is a challenge. "In the Andes, death is a process, it's not as if you bury someone and you're done," Jennings told Live Science in an interview.
For
instance, the breakup and movement of the mummies may have helped
affirm a sense of equality and community. "The breakup of the body, so
anathema to many later groups in the Andes, would have been a powerful
symbol of
communitas (a community of equals)," wrote Jennings
in the book. However, while this idea helps explain why some mummies
were broken up, it doesn't explain why other mummies were left intact,
Jennings added.
A changing land
Radiocarbon dates and pottery analysis indicate the site was in use between about A.D. 800 and A.D. 1000, with the Inca rebuilding part of the site at a later date.
Tenahaha,
with its storerooms and open-air enclosures for feasting and tombs for
burying the dead, may have helped villages in the Cotahuasi Valley deal
peacefully with the challenges Peru
was facing. Archaeological research indicates that the villages in the
valley were largely autonomous, each likely having their own leaders.
Research
also shows that between A.D. 800 and A.D. 1000 Peru was undergoing
tumultuous change, with populations increasing, agriculture expanding
and class differences growing, Jennings said. At sites on the coast of
Peru,archaeologists have found evidence for violence, with many people
suffering cranial trauma (blows to the head), Jennings said. In some areas of Peru,
scientists have found pottery containing drawings of fanged teeth and
human trophy skulls (skulls that could have been taken in battle) the
researchers note.
At
Tenahaha, however, there is little evidence for violence against humans,
and pottery at the site is decorated with what looks like depictions of
people smiling, or "happy faces," as archaeologists referred to them.
Tenahaha
may have served as a "neutral ground" where people could meet, bury
their dead and feast. As such, the site may have helped alleviate the
tensions caused by the changing world where these people lived, Jennings
said.
"It's a period of
great change and one of the ways which humans around the world deal with
that is through violence," Jennings said in the interview. "What we are
suggesting is that Tenahaha was placed in part to deal with those
changes, to find a way outside of violence, to deal with periods of
radical cultural change."
Excavations
at the site were carried out between 2004 and 2007 and involved a team
of more than 30 people from Peru, Canada, Sweden and the United States.
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