EL CURACA, PERU—La Brújula Verde reports that an international project led by Poland’s University of Wroclaw has shed new light on the pre-Inca cultures of southern Peru. The project has focused on sites in the Atico River Valley and the adjacent Pacific coast. At the site of El Curaca, the team uncovered a cemetery of the Chuquibamba (Aruni) culture (ca. a.d. 1000–1450) consisting of collective tombs arranged in circular pits with stone-lined walls. One grave contained the remains of 24 men, women, and children who had been interred with an elaborate collection of funerary offerings, including ceramic, bone, and stone artifacts as well as delicate textiles. Skeletal analysis revealed that all of the individuals suffered traumatic injuries that caused their deaths. The researchers suspect that the group all perished during an armed conflict. Because of the great care taken in their burial and the significant quality of the grave goods, it is believed that the deceased were honored as heroes by the surviving community, perhaps after they ultimately emerged from the confrontation as victors. To read about a previously unknown practice for honoring deceased members of an Indigenous community on Peru's southern coast, go to "Dignity of the Dead."
