Clues from the mists of time (Peru's ancient 'cloud warriors,' Chachapoya mountaintop site)

[Judi Lynn]

Clues from the mists of time




Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times

This is the where the “cloud warriors” of ancient Peru once lived.Known from
colonial chronicles as tall and fierce warriors who long resisted the Inca,
the Chachapoya were also far-ranging merchants and powerful shamans. Recent
digs at this majestic site have turned up scores of skeletons and thousands
of artifacts, shedding new light on these myth-shrouded early Americans.

Peru's ancient 'cloud warriors' put their dead in towering walls. The Chachapoya gave way to the Inca and Spanish, but first they flourished.
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 5, 2008
Kuelap, Peru

~snip~
The "cloud warriors" of ancient Peru are slowly offering up their secrets -- and more questions. Recent digs at this majestic site, once a stronghold of the Chachapoya civilization, have turned up scores of skeletons and thousands of artifacts, shedding new light on these myth-shrouded early Americans and one of the most remarkable, if least understood, of Peru's pre-Columbian cultures.

Among the arresting findings: the practice of incorporating the dead into defensive walls; the use of stone missiles to repel invaders; the discovery of gargoyle-like stone carvings; and the civilization's sudden collapse, possibly in a final, purifying conflagration.

Though almost everyone knows about the Inca and Machu Picchu, relatively few have heard of the Chachapoya or visited their domain, a vast swath of Amazon headlands and breathtaking cloud forests on the slopes of the Andes. This walled settlement, among the largest monuments of the ancient Americas, rivals the Incas' Machu Picchu in scale and grandeur.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fg-cloud5jan05,1,3653071.story?coll=la-latinamerica

[L. Coyote]

1. You can se this dig location in Google Earth, plus other circular towers

Kuelpa, Chachapoya Fortress
-6.4195 -77.9237