Largest mass child sacrifice event may be tied to El Nino

[Judi Lynn]

BY KAREN GRAHAM 4 HOURS AGO IN SCIENCE

Around 550 years ago, members of the Chimu empire, whose lands encompassed a stretch of desert coast in northern Peru, gathered more than 140 children and 200 baby llamas on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and slaughtered them all.

An accidental discovery of skeletal remains in 2011 on a site formerly known as Huanchaquito-Las Llamas was the precursor to an archaeological excavation that began in 2014.

The delay between the initial discovery and actual examination of the site was held up until the international, interdisciplinary team, led by Gabriel Prieto of the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and John Verano of Tulane University, were able to get sufficient funding for. a proper excavation.

During three years of careful excavation, the archaeologists found that over 140 children, between the ages of 5 and 14 years of age, along with 200 young llamas were ritually sacrificed and buried on a bluff overlooking Peru’s northern shoreline, in the shadow of what was then the capital city of Chan Chan, a large adobe city in the Moche Valley of present-day Trujillo, Peru.

More:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/largest-mass-child-sacrifice-event-may-be-tied-to-el-nino/article/520902

[Laffy Kat]

1. I heard about this on NPR yesterday. Interesting and it also upset me.

Can you imagine the horror those poor children felt. At point they must have realized what was going to happen. This is the type of thing that stays with me. It's history, not a thing I can do about it, but it will still stay with me.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. The kind of awful thing that happens when people believe in magic

[Laffy Kat]

3. Yes. I guess it was an act of desperation to stop the flooding.

And then we have atrocities like the Holocaust and the slaughter of the indigenous Americans. No magic involved there, just greed. bigotry and entitlement.

[Squinch]

4. I love your archeology posts but, man, humans have always sucked, haven't we?