ANCIENT PERUVIAN RACE TRACED

Evening Star, Issue 23065, 17 September 1938, Page 21

ANCIENT PERUVIAN RACE TRACED

OLDER THAN INGAS Dwelling places, temples, pottery, and metal work of the most ancient civilisations of Peru were uncovered by Dr Wendell C. Bennett, Assistant Curator in the department of anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History, during his recent expedition to that country. The site of the ruins is near the present-day town of Huaraz, in the upper part of the Santa River Valley, at an altitude, of 10,000 feet, between the 'Black and White Cordilleras. . . From evidence found in the tombs, pottery, copper pins, and discs, as well as arrowheads of flint and obsidian, these people of the Recuay civilisation predate one branch of the Tiahuanacan civilisation and the Incan. Using Mean’s method of dating ancient civilisations as applied to the Western World, the Recuay ruins would date around 500 A.n. Dr Bennett found whole villages containing as many as 50 subterranean houses These dwelling places were roofed with tremendous slabs of rock, some of them measuring 12 feet long and three feet wide, and evidently cut from the mountain sides, but how they were cut and transported from the quarries to the village sites is unknown. The Recuays also made their tombs of great slabs of rock fashioned into boxes. Many of the sunken houses extended two stories below the surface and contained five of six rooms on each floor, with narrow passage ways leading from one floor to another and from room to room. It is probable that these people

built their homes in such a manner t» escape the inclement weather which in this region is cold, rainy, and very windy. , , , , Two temples were found, each having three stories above the ground and rising 30 feet in height. As no statue* or carvings were found in the; interior of the temples and no inscriptions on the walls, it cannot be determined Justs what religion these people However, from the positions of a number of stone ipiiraa heads in tjie ruins,these carvings were at one time situated below the cornices of the temples. A large number of carved statues representing human figures were found, scattered throughout. the site. In the ancient village 10 subter* raneah passage ways, but with singll openings, were also discovered,