Peru Ruins May Hide Mummies

Jan. 19, 2007 — While on a hunting trip last year in a remote, forested part of Peru, family members Octavio, Merlin and Edison Añazco literally bumped into something extraordinary: an enormous ruin including a ceremonial platform, a football field-sized plaza, a watch tower and other architectural remains.

Keith Muscutt, an independent researcher, heard about the find and recently explored the eastern Andes site, which will make its television debut on the Discovery Channel’s new "Chasing Mummies" series early next year.

The related footage, produced in collaboration with GRB-Entertainment, may show mummies, as Muscutt believes the structures were built by the ancient Chachapoya civilization, known for its mountainside tombs and the mummies within them.

While the ruin — nicknamed The Penitentiary — may have been some kind of mausoleum, Muscutt thinks the large structures served another purpose. The plaza alone is 200 feet by 300 feet.

"My guess is that it was a ceremonial place where rituals were performed," said Muscutt, associate dean of arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "Parades, dances, theatrical events, large feasts or other gatherings may have taken place at the site."

He told Discovery News that a decorative area within the ruin, known as a frieze, is typical of the pre-Columbian Chachapoya civilization.

The Chachapoya, which means "cloud people," flourished in the upper Amazon from the ninth to the fifteenth century, before they were overwhelmed by the Inca Empire and then destroyed by epidemic diseases brought by the Spanish conquistadors.

The find may change how we see the arc of Peruvian history. Traditionally, experts have believed early Amazonian highlanders were very advanced, while lowlanders were simple hunter-gatherers.

Since the newly found structures are at a lower elevation, they throw a wrench in this theory.

Now Muscutt suspects there was a high level of culture in the Amazon basin.

Since the structures were not built on a mountaintop, they would have been left relatively undefended. He suspects the Chachapoya either had full control of the region, or engaged in cooperative trading with neighboring groups.

The region may have supported farming of coca leaves, stimulants that served important social and religious functions in ancient Peru.

Warren Church, associate professor of anthropology and archaeology at Columbus State University, has explored Peru and nearby locations.

"The discovery of this apparent pre-Columbian ruin is a piece of a puzzle that does not fit," Church told Discovery News. "The ruins are so big that they are screaming for attention."

While Church agreed that the frieze might be Chachapoya, he said the rest of the structures are the "classic Cuzco style" attributed to the Incans.

He suspects the Inca Empire mobilized labor, including Chachapoya individuals, to build the complex. Still, he conceded that the Chachapoya alone, or even another group, might have been solely responsible for the ruins.

"As of now, no permanent settlement has been found near the site, so it is a real head scratcher," Church said. "If there was not a settlement, then perhaps it was constructed for periodic agricultural or coca trade and processing, or it was a center for lowland/highland encounters."

He added, "I have to wonder what in the world else is in that forest? A lot more work has to be done there."