Despite sacrificing people after catastrophic El Niño flooding, ancient societies were generally peaceful

Ancient Peruvians experienced little everyday violence despite catastrophic El Niño events

Ancient communities on Peru’s northern coast experienced surprisingly low levels of everyday interpersonal violence despite enduring catastrophic El Niño events and periods of major environmental disruption, according to a new study. Researchers analysed the skeletal remains of 1,633 people from the Lambayeque Valley, covering more than 3,000 years of the region’s history. Despite repeated episodes of flooding, disrupted food production and poli…

Human sacrifices were rare in ancient Peru, except when weather got violent

Ritual violence was an exception to the rule in the Lambayeque Valley.

Despite sacrificing people after catastrophic El Niño flooding, ancient societies were generally peaceful

To understand how societies might react to climate change, archaeologists look at social responses to extreme climate events in the past—and in some places, that included measures as drastic as human sacrifice. Mass ritual sacrifices along the desert coast of northern Peru have been linked to catastrophic flooding caused by El Niño, which made researchers wonder if such sacrifices were part of a rise in violence driven by resource scarcity. But …