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Gas workers were digging to lay a pipeline in a street on the outskirts of Peru’s capital when they uncovered a burial site believed to be up to 1,000 years old with eight bundles of funeral belongings, most of them thought to have belonged to children.
The discovery of bones, alongside relics such as ceramics and wooden tools, in northern Lima’s Carabayllo district suggests it may have been a site where the children were buried dating to pre-Hispanic times, although further lab analysis will be carried out to better understand the findings, according to Peruvian media.
An archaeologist at gas company Cálidda, Jesus Bahamonde, told reporters Friday that among the eight bundles found so far were what the archaeologists believe to be the remains of six children and two adults, wrapped in cloth along with artifacts as burial offerings.
He said they probably date back to the pre-Inca Ychsma culture that was formed in the valleys of modern-day Lima centuries ago.
“We are recovering those leaves of the lost history of Lima that is just hidden under the tracks and streets,” Bahamonde told the Associated Press.
Archaeologist Mercedes Vara, who examined the latest findings at the excavated site in Lima, told Spanish news agency EFE that the remains were wrapped in cotton and leaves.
Lima is home to hundreds of archaeological or sacred sites, where ruins have offered a deeper look at the past, including the health, cultural and societal conditions of Indigenous civilizations.
Earlier this year, archaeologists made another surprising discovery in Lima: the remains of a nearly 1,000-year-old mummy with a head of well-preserved brown hair. And in June, researchers uncovered a mummy believed to be about 3,000 years old during another excavation in the city of some 10 million residents.
1,000-year-old mummy with long brown hair unearthed in Peru
In recent years, archaeologists in Peru were reported to have excavated what they said was the site of the largest known child sacrifice, including about 140 children killed in the middle of the 1400s, with scientists suggesting they were sacrificed in response to catastrophic weather.
Victoria Bisset contributed to this report.