September
27
/ 2018
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute via Science Daily Buried alive. Butchered. Decapitated. Hacked. Mutilated. Killed. Archaeologist Samuel K. Lothrop did not obfuscate when describing what he thought had happened to the 220 bodies his expedition excavated from Panama's Playa Venado site in 1951. The only problem is that Lothrop likely got it wrong. A new evaluation of the site's remains by Smithsonian archaeologists revealed no signs of trauma at or near time of death. The burial site likely tells a more culturally nuanced story. A Modern Re-examination The "long-overdue" re-examination of the Playa Venado site, which dates to 500-900 AD and is located near the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, revealed no evidence of ritual killing, said Nicole E. Smith-Guzmán
