What can be known about Peru’s pre-Incan civilisation?
Recent archaeological discoveries have shed new light on the history of Peru’s Chachapoya people. Until the 1990s most of what we knew about this pre-Columbian culture – referred to as the ‘Warriors of the Clouds’ by the Inca – was based on third-hand stories from unreliable Spanish chroniclers. Even today, the Chachapoya jigsaw has more gaps than pieces. Yet interest and knowledge in the erstwhile civilisation is growing. In 2017, the hilltop Chachapoya ruins of Kuélap were equipped with a cable car and marketed by the Peruvian government as a northern rival to Machu Picchu. Two years later Unesco placed the ‘Chachapoyas sites of the Utcubamba Valley’ on its tentative list of World Heritage Sites being considered for nomination.
The two hundred mummies discovered at the lake were astonishingly well preserved considering how humid the region is. Scientists later discovered that the caves and crags that the Cloud People modified in mausoleums are very cold and dry microclimates, perfectly suited for long term preservation. Scores of human remains, artifacts, and biological remnants were discovered at Kuelap, including hallucinogenic plants, sacrificial animal bones, and stone weapons.
Evidence of violence and fire were discovered at Kuelap, random age and gender skeletons were discovered in scattered, open locations, suggesting they were not interred there, but rather, that they died suddenly in that spot. The two-hundred and thirty mummies are now quietly kept at the Museo Leymebamba, but the remains and artifacts from Kuelap are not being displayed, publicly studied, and their exact location is unknown.