Archaeologists in Peru have found more than a dozen tombs suggesting human sacrifice at sprawling ruins on the northern coast, a seat of power for three ancient cultures and the possible center of a pre-Inca legend.
At Chotuna-Chornancap, a coastal ruin complex in the arid valleys far north of Lima, archaeologists with Peru’s ministry of culture found more than 17 graves dating to at least the 15th century.
“There is at least one fairly high-status tomb,” said Haagen Klaus, a bioarchaeologist at George Mason University has worked at Chotuna-Chornancap before. Klaus told the Guardian that he hopes to analyze the new finds, discovered by the ruins of a temple, to confirm whether the victims were sacrificed.
“It’s not unusual that sacrifices are made to those individuals, sometimes during the funeral or even years or generations afterward,” he said. “But we can see that a number of the individuals that were buried were children – and that does fit into the larger pattern of ritual sacrifice.”
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