Skeletal and mummified ancient remains from the Atacama Desert in what is now Chile show evidence of a surge of extreme violence tied to the rise of farming, a new study finds.
The team analyzed the remains of 194 people who lived between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 600 in the Atacama Desert, and found that while violence was more prevalent at the beginning of the transition to farming, it persisted even after farming villages had been around for hundreds of years. Moreover, the violence targeted men and women alike.
For instance, one woman appears to have been tortured; the skin on her face was stretched so much that her "mouth" was pulled high above its natural position. This was likely an "intentional act, occurring at the time of death when the skin was still fresh and causing deep agony," the researchers wrote in the study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
