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Metals had never been found in Chachapoyas before the finding of these two vessels. They might not be as sacred as the Holy Grail, but two metal vessels recently discovered in Chachapoyas are turning heads in regards to understanding the region’s ancient history. “The Finding of these vessels will change the story about Chachapoyas” the Decentralized Department of Culture of the Amazonas head, Jose Santos Trauco Ramos, told El Comercio. The discovery of two silver vessels in the Soloco Purunllacta in Chachapoyas of the Amazonas department are unlike anything the archaeological team has found in its history. Investigations until this...

Caral, the Americas’ oldest civilization, located north of present day Lima, Peru, faced a grave crisis as a result of climate change some 4,000 years ago, archaeologists said. “Droughts were so severe that they could have lasted between 60 and 130 years, which could explain why there were social crises in (civilizations like) Caral, Moche and Tiahuanaco,” archaeologist Ruth Shady, director of the Caral Project, told Efe. Women played leading roles in Caral and a team led by Shady has been working for eight years in Vichama, an urban center near the Vegueta district, in the northern province of Huaura,...

Researchers in Peru have discovered a trio of statuettes they believe were created by the ancient Caral civilization some 3,800 years ago, the culture ministry said Tuesday. The mud statuettes were found inside a reed basket in a building at the ancient city of Vichama in northern Peru, which is today an important archaeological site. The ministry said they were probably used in religious rituals performed before breaking ground on a new building. Two of the figures, a naked man and woman painted in white, black and red, are believed to represent political authorities. The third, a women with 28...

Fifty four years after a Douglas DC-3 crashed in Chile’s Andes – killing all 24 people aboard, including members of a Chilean soccer team and three referees – a team of mountaineers discovered the remains of the crash. The 1961 LAN 301 air crash was deemed at the time one of the world’s major air disasters involving athletes – surpassed maybe only by the 1972 Uruguayan plane crash that stranded members of a rugby in the high Andes. The plane’s whereabouts has been one of the great unsolved aerial mysteries.

Mountaineers in Chile have discovered the wreckage of a plane that went missing more than 50 years ago. Twenty four people died when the aircraft disappeared in 1961 - among them eight players for what was then one of Chile's top football teams. VIDEO at site.

Mummy Hair Reveals Drinking Habits By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Sept. 23, 2004 Mummy hair has revealed the first direct evidence of alcohol consumption in ancient populations, according to new forensic research.The study, still in its preliminary stage, examined hair samples from spontaneously mummified remains discovered in one of the most arid regions of the world, the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru. The research was presented at the 5th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Turin, Italy, this month. “ In modern human hair the levels would generally be in the ranges of social drinking, but we...

Mummified dogs uncovered in Peru By Dan Collins BBC News, Lima Archaeologists in Peru have uncovered the mummified remains of more than 40 dogs buried with blankets and food alongside their human masters. The discovery was made during the excavation of two of the ancient Chiribaya people who lived in southern Peru between 900 and 1350 AD. Experts say the dogs' treatment in death indicated the belief that the animals had an afterlife. Such a status for pets has only previously been seen in ancient Egypt. Hundreds of years before the European conquest of South America, the Chiribaya civilisation valued...

LIMA, Peru -- Even in ancient Peru, it seems dogs were a man's best friend. Peruvian investigators have discovered a pre-Columbian culture of dog lovers who built pet cemeteries and buried their pets with warm blankets and even treats for the afterlife. "They are dogs that were thanked and recognized for their social and familial contribution," anthropologist Sonia Guillen said. "These dogs were not sacrificed." Since 1993, researchers have unearthed 82 dog tombs in pet cemetery plots, laid alongside human mummy tombs of the Chiribaya people in the fertile Osmore River valley, 540 miles southeast of Lima. The Chiribaya were...

Two of the oldest mummies found in Peru - so well preserved that one had an eye and internal organs intact - have gone on display after their discovery by building workers two weeks ago. Officials from the National Institute of Culture said the mummies - a young boy and a man in his mid-30s - were at least 700 years old. They came from a culture that predated the Incas, who dominated a vast swathe of South America from Colombia to Chile until they were toppled by Spanish invaders in the 1530s. Well preserved ... one of the recently...

The Anomalous Aerial Phenomenon Research Department (DIFAA) is scheduled to be formally launched in Lima today at the offices of the Peruvian Air Force with the assistance of the Civilian Advisory Council. The announcement was made by council member Giorgio Piacenza who is also an adviser to the Exopolitics Institute. During his talk he outlined the plans for the new department and emphasised that it would value objective research and employ a number of qualified researchers and scientists.

Pre-Incan Metallurgy Discovered Charles Q. Choi Special to LiveScience Thu Apr 19, 9:50 AM ET Metals found in lake mud in the central Peruvian Andes have revealed the first evidence for pre-Colonial metalsmithing there. These findings illustrate a way that archaeologists can recreate the past even when looters have destroyed the valuable artifacts that would ordinarily be relied upon to reveal historical secrets. For instance, the new research hints at a tax imposed on local villages by ancient Inca rulers to force a switch from production of copper to silver. Pre-Colonial bronze artifacts have previously been found in the central...

As they waited to be sacrificed outside a temple, the victims made no attempt to escape their fate: their throats were cut, they were decapitated and their hearts ripped out. Their hands were not tied and they offered no resistance to the sacrificial knife. A seed containing a potent drug was used to paralyse their bodies, leaving the victims aware of a terrifying ritual that has been revealed for the first time by a dig in the vast pre-Colombian city of Túcume in northern Peru. Archaeologists working in the ruined city of giant pyramids have discovered one of the largest...

Reuters) - Archaeologists in Peru on Thursday said they have unearthed a massive royal tomb full of mummified women that provides clues about the enigmatic Wari empire that ruled the Andes long before their better-known Incan successors. "For the first time in the history of archeology in Peru we have found an imperial tomb that belongs to the Wari empire and culture," lead archeologist Milosz Giersz said. Researchers said the discovery will help them piece together life in the Andes centuries before the rise of the Incan empire, which was written about in detail by the conquering Spaniards. The mausoleum,...

Pre-Inca Ruins Emerging From Peru's Cloud Forests John Roach for National Geographic News September 16, 2004 On the eastern slope of the Andes mountains in northern Peru, forests cloak the ruins of a pre-Inca civilization, the size and scope of which explorers and archaeologists are only now beginning to understand. Known as the Chachapoya, the civilization covered an estimated 25,000 square miles (65,000 square kilometers). The Chachapoya, distinguished by fair skin and great height, lived primarily on ridges and mountaintops in circular stone houses. Sean Savoy, leader of the Gran Saposoa-El Dorado IV Expedition (July-August 2004), points out a stone...

Peru Temple, Mural Hints at Complexity By LESLIE JOSEPHS LIMA, Peru (AP) — The sophisticated design and colorful artwork found in a 4,000-year-old temple unearthed near Peru's northern desert coast suggests that early civilization here was more complex than originally thought, archaeologists said. Ventarron, a 7,000-square-foot site — a bit larger than a basketball court — with painted walls and a white-and-red mural of a deer hunt, points to an "advanced civilization," said the lead archaeologist who excavated the site last week. "We have the use of a construction material that is not primitive," Walter Alva, a prominent Peruvian archaeologist...

Ancient "Human Sacrifices" Found in Peru, Expert SaysKelly Hearn for National Geographic NewsJune 4, 2008 Three possible human sacrifice victims have been found at a 4,000-year-old archaeological site in Peru, an archaeologist says. The apparently mutilated, partial skeletons (see photos) could overturn the peaceful reputation of the Pre-Ceramic period (3000 B.C. to 1800 B.C.) in the Andes mountains—a time generally seen as free of ritualized killing and warfare. Alejandro Chu Barrera, who led the dig, said: "We found two pairs of legs—probably young females around their 20s—and the decapitated body of a young male in his 20s." "They appear to...

EAGER to attract more tourists, the town of Tiwanaku in the Bolivian Andes has spruced up the ancient Akapana pyramid with adobe instead of stone, in what some experts are calling a renovation fiasco. Now, the Akapana pyramid risks losing its designation as a UN World Heritage Site and there is concern the makeover could even cause its collapse. The pyramid is one of the biggest pre-Columbian constructions in South America and a building of great spiritual significance for the Tiwanaku civilisation, which spread throughout south-western Bolivia and parts of neighboring Peru, Argentina and Chile from around 1500 BC to...

Chilean authorities on Sunday issued a red alert -- the most severe in their warning system -- that the Copahue Volcano, high in the Andes mountains on the border with Argentina, might be poised for a significant eruption. In a statement, Chile's Geological and Mining Service stressed that no mandatory evacuations have been ordered around the remote volcano, which lies about 280 kilometers southeast (175 miles) of Concepcion, though the closest roads to it are in Argentina. Even though the seismic activity suggests a minor eruption, the agency decided to raise the alert level because it could not rule out...

Forty year on from the plane crash that changed his life forever, Dr Roberto Canessa still vividly remembers having to eat the flesh of friends to survive. He was one of 16 men who escaped death when their chartered aircraft smashed into the bleak Andes mountains between Chile and Argentina on October 13, 1972. They were rescued 72 days later after Dr Canessa, then a 19-year-old medical student, and another survivor trekked for 10 days to get help.

Billions would have died in the nuclear holocaust. But this was the plan from the Latin American warmonger Che Guevara, who's face is emblazoned on T-shirts around the globe: “What?!” Khrushchev gasped upon reading Castro’s telegram on Oct. 28 1962. “Is he proposing that we start a nuclear war? That we launch missiles from Cuba? But that is insane! Remove them (our missiles) as soon as possible! Before its too late!” instructed the Soviet premier. So much for the Camelot fable of JFK “standing up to the Russians,” during the Missile Crisis Khrushchev “blinked” alright. But at Fidel Castro and...