{"id":4315,"date":"2014-07-02T13:43:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T13:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/?p=4315&post_type=story"},"modified":"2020-06-29T16:11:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T16:11:43","slug":"vertical-archaeology","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/vertical-archaeology\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropologist Searches for Answers on a Cliff in Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

[lead]More than a thousand years ago, the Chachapoya people of Peru buried their dead as close to the heavens as possible. On the eastern slope of the Andes, the ancient civilization built elaborate tombs using narrow ledges on cliffs as foundations. In this special place called La Petaca, they placed their mummified ancestors and decorated the mausoleums with colorful pictographs. Curiously, they also laid their dead to rest in adjacent caves in the mountains. UCF Assistant Professor J. Marla Toyne wanted to know more.[\/lead]<\/p>\n

[sidebar background=”#ffffff” position=”left”][photo id=”4563″ title=”vertical archeology sidebar” alt=”Studying La Petaca pictographs on the cliffs near Chachapoya burial sites” width=”220px” position=”right”]The La Petaca pictographs are found on sheer cliffs near Chachapoya burial sites.<\/span>[\/photo][\/sidebar]\u201cThe pictographs are iconic in the region, and more tourists are arriving at La Petaca,\u201d Toyne says. \u201cHowever, very little is known about the site \u2014 the number of tombs, how they were built, who was buried inside \u2014 and our investigation was the first to answer these important questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But to discover these secrets, she would have to learn an entirely new set of skills that she calls \u201cvertical archaeology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArchaeology is a horizontal science \u2014 you dig down through layers of dirt \u2014 but in this case we\u2019ve flipped it and gone vertical,\u201d says Toyne. \u201cWe want to take pictures and make maps and drawings in an environment where we may have to be suspended.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a season of fieldwork in summer 2013, Toyne, graduate researcher Lori Epstein and undergraduate volunteer Armando Anzellini, \u201913<\/strong>, trained with Project Ukhupacha, a group of cave explorers from Spain\u2019s Jaume I University, to master climbing equipment, tie and disengage knots, and learn to rappel. But once they got to the cliff, they encountered an environment with unforeseen dangers.<\/p>\n

[blockquote source=”” cite=”” color=”#0d7c51″]\u201cRocks were falling constantly,\u201d says Toyne of the delicate, crumbling shale that makes up La Petaca\u2019s cliffs. \u201cEvery day was very intense, but my [Spanish] colleagues felt confident that we were trained enough to make these ascents, and that made me feel safe.\u201d[\/blockquote]<\/p>\n

Working under an excavation permit from Peru\u2019s Ministry of Culture, Toyne and her team spent almost 30 days on the cliff, documenting the tombs and gathering skeletons and other artifacts that they processed in an improvised laboratory at a local museum for three weeks afterward. But her work in the region has just begun. Toyne will scout other Chachapoya sites this summer and lead another team of students back to La Petaca in 2015.\u00a0 \u201cWe identified at least 120 human-made structures used as burial places, including open chamber tombs, platforms and, surprisingly, walkways that connected groups of tombs,\u201d Toyne says. \u201cThey likely walked along the rock ledges, cutting stone out to widen the pathways and to get stone to build. Once completed, they filled the tombs by [carrying] up bodies of family members \u2026 adults and children were buried together, including both males and females.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Toyne, the practice of scaling the cliffs of La Petaca provided a meaningful connection to the Chachapoya people she studies. \u201cNothing can really put you in the position of what the ancient people were thinking when they decided to risk their lives to build these structures,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can\u2019t get that by looking at a picture or a map. When you\u2019re up there, you recognize that creating this space for the dead meant a lot to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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