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The
finding in northern Lima's Carabayllo district suggests the site
may have been a cemetery for children who died from severe
anemia resulting from a climate event that would have hit local
agriculture, according to early analysis.
"Nutritional stress might have caused the children's mortality
rate, explaining why we found more burials of infants in these
cemeteries," said Jesus Bahamonde Schreiber, archaeologist for
gas company Calidda.
Six of the bundles - found around 100 meters (300 ft) from a
previous discovery of 28 graves - belonged to children and two
to adults, he added.
Schreiber said they are believed to be between 1,100 and 800
years old, which would link them to the pre-Inca Ychma and
Chancay cultures that developed in what is now northern Peru and
along its central coastline.
Best known for the picturesque mountain-top royal Inca retreat
of Machu Picchu, which draws millions of tourists every year,
Peru was home to various pre-Hispanic cultures that thrived in
the centuries before the Inca empire rose to power.
Some 400 huacas - ancient tombs or monuments - and other
archeological ruins can be found in residential neighborhoods of
metropolitan Lima.
(Reporting by Anthony Marina; Writing by Marco Aquino and
Carolina Pulice; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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