Peruvian mass grave unearthed where 60 people were sacrificed 1,100 years ago

Originally posted by Flavian

Thank you for the response. Now i actually think about it, it seems obvious! Makes me wonder though how many sites have been "misread" over the years by people not properly taking things into account.

South America must be a nightmare for that. We see with the favellas in Brazil just how quickly different layers of the sub strata are exposed though top soil erosion (where trees have been removed owing to population). With such huge variety in South America, is must be a blooming nightmare working out the topograhpy and erosion rates before even getting on to any actual archeology!

Its always a problem even with the new laser and computer mapping softwares. Just a bit of jargon

Excavation Levels

Archaeologists do not excavate each unit in its entirety, and excavation proceeds by systematic levels or depth intervals. Four different methods include:

Natural or Stratigraphic Levels: Excavation reverses the natural order of deposition at a site by proceeding downwards one stratum at a time. Soil color, texture, and content are used to define different depositional levels.

Contoured Arbitrary Levels: The archaeologist picks an arbitrary depth (5 cm, 10 cm, etc.) to which the entire unit is excavated, paralleling the natural slope of the ground surface.

Simple Arbitrary Levels: Levels are defined by arbitrary depths below datum. When a level is completed, all four corners and the center of the unit will be the same depth below datum.

Combined Natural and Arbitrary Levels. Using both natural and arbitrary levels can be a flexible and practical method depending on the stratigraphic levels present in the unit.

A Constant Volume Sample (CVS) will be taken for every level excavated at the site. A CVS enables archaeologists to find tiny artifacts (e.g., flakes, fish bones, seeds) that would normally pass through the 1/8-inch mesh used for screening.

Site for excavation info

Sorry wrong thread.

reply to post by Hanslune


yes horse 'like' animals were in the americas,but they were much smaller,and were arouond about 15000 years ago,and there is no evidence that they were domesticated.

iId love to see some carbon dating on those horse remains ,I 've been a big proponent of horses surviving in the Americas to Colonial times , and this comes close to vindicating my assertions

reply to post by reficul


www.talkorigins.org...

reply to post by RollaFarmBoy29


wow! you must have been pouring over some older threads,cause this one is from last dec.!!!
thanx for the late reply!!!

reply to post by Xcathdra


According to Wiki ( i know, apologies to all) the Sican culture was prone to significant climate events (droughts and floods) and was also linked to the Mocha culture, which fell around 800 AD (not too far chronoligically from the time speculated for this find) - so there are a couple of possible reasons for the sacrifices. Appeasing angry gods to bring more or less rain or to appease gods that brought about collapse of mother culture. Well, it seems plausible to me anyway!

Sican Culture

Every time I see a thread title like this it reminds me just how far back the higher ups have been offing people.
Neat read none the less.

reply to post by reficul


Haha, I had horses on the mind that night, and decided to look up any thread about them.