First Mummies May Have Been Inspired by Field of Corpses

sciencehabit writes with a story about a field strewn with corpses in shallow graves. From the article: "Trekking through Chile's Atacama Desert 7000 years ago, hunter-gatherers known as the Chinchorro walked in the land of the dead. Thousands of shallowly buried human bodies littered the earth, their leathery corpses pockmarking the desolate surroundings. According to new research, the scene inspired the Chinchorro to begin mummifying their dead, a practice they adopted roughly 3000 years before the Egyptians embraced it."

Comments

Re:ok sure but..

[Penguinisto]

Hard to say, really. They may still be out there, or they may have been rounded up and (mostly) buried when the region was converted to Christianity back in the 16th-17th century or so. Probably a bit of both, considering that scientists are still stumbling across the things.

Hell, for all we know, they may have suffered the same fate as all too many Egyptian mummies, which were used as literal firewood and train boiler fuel, among other things.