80 Ancient "Cloud Warrior" Skeletons Found in Peru Fort

[Judi Lynn]

80 Ancient "Cloud Warrior" Skeletons Found in Peru Fort
Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News

September 26, 2007
The remains of 80 members of an ancient civilization have been unearthed in the ruins of a fortress high in the Peruvian Andes, an archaeologist has announced.

The skeletons bear evidence of extremely quick deaths, the bodies having been found where they fell, without burial, reported Alfredo Narváez, director of Peru's Kuélap Archaeological Complex Restoration and Conservation project.

The remains were discovered in the fortress of Kuélap, a mountain stronghold of the Chachapoya, a culture known as the "cloud warriors" that thrived in Amazonian cloud forests from the 9th to the 15th century A.D.
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"The apparently violent deaths of these individuals and potential association with Inca pottery, as press reports suggest, could shed light on either the Inca conquest of the Chachapoya or on the events at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca."
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"This find is really as important as any similar discovery might be at Machu Picchu," he added. "However, where the two mountaintop sites rival one another in scale and majesty, we probably know considerably less about Kuélap."

More:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070926-peru-bodies.html