Peru's Mass Grave Mystery

High in the cloud forests of Peru the stone walls of a mysterious mountaintop fortress rise out of the jungle. These 60-foot walls are filled with the bones of vanished people called the Chachapoya, or the Cloud Warriors. Now, we join a team of archaeologists led by Alfredo Narvaez as they uncover some startling evidence about this mysterious civilization. They find over eighty bodies piled at one end of Kuelap, stacked between houses, lying where they fell not carefully buried like all of the other bones that have been excavated at Kuelap. These people were killed when no one was left to bury them. Alfredo and his team have uncovered the largest mass grave in Peru and believe they may have finally found the secret to Kuelaps last stand. Once the bodies are carefully removed from Kuelap, well join physical anthropologist Marla Toyne. Shell be studying the up to 16,000 bones found at Kuelap to try and determine how these last citizens of Kuelap died whether by disease, sacrifice, war, or conquest by the Inca or the Spanish. Its an elaborate puzzle of bones, but what we find could solve the mystery of one of the South Americas most mysterious ancient civilizations and massive monuments.

The pyramids of Americas were built more than 2,000 years ago by a people who vanished long ago. Little is known about these builders and the purpose of the pyramids has been a mystery until now. Were they temples to the gods or sacrificial altars?



From AD 800 to the mid-1500s Chachapoya Indians lived high in the Andes and became a culture of warriors, and shamans, traveling a network of trade routes between the coast and the Amazon.


It took an intense struggle by the powerful Incan empire to gain control of the fiercely independent Chachapoya tribes.Anthropologist Marla Toyne studied up to 6,000 bones found at Kuelap, Peru to try and determine how these last citizens of Kuelap died - whether by disease, sacrifice, war, or conquest by the Inca or the Spanish.



From AD 800 to the mid-1500s they lived high in the Andes and became a culture of warriors, and shamans, traveling a network of trade routes between the coast and the Amazon. It took an intense struggle by the powerful Incan empire to gain control of the fiercely independent Chachapoya tribes.