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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

‘Spines on posts’ hint at ancient devotion to the dead

Indigenous people in what is now Peru partially re-assembled human skeletons, perhaps after desecration by European tomb robbers.
Vertebrae-on-posts from the Chincha Valley, Peru.

Nearly 200 reed posts strung with human vertebrae have been documented in the Chincha Valley of western Peru. Credit: Colleen O’Shea

Centuries ago, people living on South America’s Pacific Coast stacked the remains of human spines onto reed sticks — a practice that could have served to piece together the damaged skeletons of their dead1.

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Nature 602, 186 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00234-z

References

  1. Bongers, J. L., Mejía, J. G., Harper, T. K. & Seidensticker, S. Antiquity https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.180 (2022).

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