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Thousands of Inca Mummies Unearthed
kgarcia writes "National Geographic has an article about one of the most important archeological discoveries about the Incas in recent times. As much as 10,000 mummies were discovered in an ancient Incan graveyard, in cocoons containing as much as 7 mummies per bundle."
It also sounds as though there is some major construction going on down there. Even in the US, where we have laws like ARPA (Archaeological Resource Protection Act) and the NHPA (National Historic Preservation Act), construction projects, mining, and agriculture tend to be considered more important than archaeology (or "respect for the dead"). They may be moving a lot of bodies, but there are two choices:
1) move those bodies, then study them and perhaps reinter them somewhere OR
2) let the bulldozers destroy the lot.
Which would you choose?
Rhapsody in Numbers
Wouldn't it be ironic if the 10,000 dead were killed by a plague and the virus had survived this long, only to wreak havok on the world?
The article mentioned that the mummies were about 500 years old (2002-500 = 1502). This puts them in the ground just about the time Columbus was in the area. If there was a plague is likely something they caught from Europeans. So it's something we already had.