Chile Tribe Mummified Babies Dead of Arsenic
Reuters
CNN International
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San Miguel De Azapa (Chile):
Living in the harsh desert of northern Chile's Pacific coast more than 7,000 years ago, the Chinchorro fishing tribe mysteriously began mummifying dead babies -- removing internal organs, cleaning bones, stuffing and sewing up the skin, putting wigs and clay masks on them.
The Chinchorro mummies are the oldest known artificially preserved dead, dating thousands of years before Egyptian mummies, and the life quest of the archeologists who study them is to discover why this early society developed such a complex death ritual.
Archeologist Bernardo Arriaza, who studies the Chinchorro at the University of Tarapaca in Chile's northernmost city Arica, launched a daring new theory this year."I was reading a Chilean newspaper that talked about pollution and it had a map of arsenic and lead pollution, and it said arsenic caused abortions.
I jumped in my seat and said, 'That's it,"' Arriaza said.Arriaza says high levels of arsenic in the water in the region, which persist to this day, meant more premature births, stillbirths, spontaneous abortions and higher infant mortality among the Chinchorro.He posits the Chinchorro began preserving dead babies to express personal and community grief and later began mummifying adults as well, and the practice became more elaborate.
Since the 1960s archeologists have excavated more than 100 delicate, diminutive bodies, many preserved intentionally.
Nov 24, 2005
Reuters
CNN International
______________
San Miguel De Azapa (Chile):
Living in the harsh desert of northern Chile's Pacific coast more than 7,000 years ago, the Chinchorro fishing tribe mysteriously began mummifying dead babies -- removing internal organs, cleaning bones, stuffing and sewing up the skin, putting wigs and clay masks on them.
The Chinchorro mummies are the oldest known artificially preserved dead, dating thousands of years before Egyptian mummies, and the life quest of the archeologists who study them is to discover why this early society developed such a complex death ritual.
Archeologist Bernardo Arriaza, who studies the Chinchorro at the University of Tarapaca in Chile's northernmost city Arica, launched a daring new theory this year."I was reading a Chilean newspaper that talked about pollution and it had a map of arsenic and lead pollution, and it said arsenic caused abortions.
I jumped in my seat and said, 'That's it,"' Arriaza said.Arriaza says high levels of arsenic in the water in the region, which persist to this day, meant more premature births, stillbirths, spontaneous abortions and higher infant mortality among the Chinchorro.He posits the Chinchorro began preserving dead babies to express personal and community grief and later began mummifying adults as well, and the practice became more elaborate.
Since the 1960s archeologists have excavated more than 100 delicate, diminutive bodies, many preserved intentionally.
Nov 24, 2005
