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Skywizard
19th February 2015, 17:06
http://archaeology.org/images/News/1502/Paracas-mummies-diet.jpg
TEMPE, ARIZONA—Hair samples taken from 14 mummies discovered in Peru’s Paracas Necropolis of Wari Kayan, and two artifacts made of human hair, have been analyzed by a team made up of Kelly Knudson of Arizona State University, Ann H. Peters of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Elsa Tomasto Cagigao of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. The mummies, each found bound in a seated position and wrapped in a cone-shaped bundle of textiles and finely embroidered garments, were discovered in 1927. The testing has shown that during the last months of their lives, the Paracas individuals ate primarily marine products, and plants such as maize and beans. If they traveled between the inland highlands and the coastal regions, they continued to eat marine products. “By using small samples of hair from these mummies, we can learn what they ate in the months and weeks before they died, which is a very intimate look at the past,” Knudson said.



Source: http://archaeology.org/news/3012-150213-paracas-mummies-diet



peace...

MorningFox
19th February 2015, 17:09
I may very well come across slightly stupid here but... what are marine products? Fish? Plants? A mixture of both? Not very clear.

Ellisa
20th February 2015, 00:46
Marine implies salt water I suppose, and these people would have had to have preserved the marine food that they took with them when travelling in the high inland. That's interesting. I suppose they could dry the fish, shellfish and also seaweed. It would be interesting to know what they died of and where they lived -- coastal or highlands? - or why they were travelling. Like you Fox, I find this post really interesting for what it omits as much as what it says.



Apology--- I have just re-read original and it seems that the people involved would have, perhaps, come from Peru.

A Voice from the Mountains
20th February 2015, 01:49
I would have been more interested in a DNA test and what haplogroup it looked like, but that's another subject I guess.