Archaeologists say they have found evidence of the world’s largest single case of child sacrifice at a pre-Columbian site in northern Peru.
Experts who led the excavation told The Associated Press on Friday that the site, known as Las Llamas, contains the skeletons of 140 children, who were between the ages of five and 14 when they were ritually sacrificed during a ceremony about 550 years ago.
The site also contained the remains of 200 young llamas apparently sacrificed on the same day.
The burial site is located near the modern day city of Trujillo, and was apparently built by the ancient Chimu empire.
It is thought the children were sacrificed as floods caused by the El Nino weather
pattern ravaged the Peruvian coastline.
