Squatters issue death threats to archaeologist who discovered Caral

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/03/squatters-ancient-ruins-peru-death-threats-archeologist-caral

52 21 6 years ago

“They called the site’s lawyer and said if he continued to protect me they would kill him, along with me, and bury us five metres below the ground,” said Shady, 73. “Then they killed our dog as a warning. They poisoned her, as if to say, look at what will happen to you,” she said.
In July, squatters using a heavy digger knocked down adobe walls and tore up the ground destroying ancient ceramics, tombs containing mummies, textiles and household remains, before police and the site’s staff were able to stop them.
The squatters are believed to belong to a single extended family, and claim the land was given to them in the 1970s during Peru’s controversial agrarian land reform which was pushed through by a leftist military dictatorship.

What a mess...

arithmomachist• 6 years ago

What a crazy story! I suspected this was, under the surface, the tale of a douchey foreign archaeologist pissing off the locals, but no. Ruth Shady Solis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Shady) is Peruvian, and teaches at the National University of San Marcos in Lima.

The "family of squatters" who bring in a backhoe kind of sounds like Ammon Bundy's clan.

jessehorne3• 6 years ago

I think comparing the squatters to Ammon Bundys family and supporters is completely ignorant. I'm not hoping to insult you but I do wish you would go and do a bit more research, my friend. I cannot agree with Ammon on several things but this is a grossly misguided comparison.

driverdan• 6 years ago

You're right. The Bundys are lawless domestic terrorists. These people don't sound like terrorists.

spoonjim2• 6 years ago

Governments need to get a lot tougher with squatters like these or the Bundy’s. What are all those tanks and fighter jets for? Just send in the team and get the squatters out in cuffs or bags. A government is barely a government if it can’t control its own territory.

acct7763• 6 years ago

Please be sarcasm.

spoonjim2• 6 years ago

Why? If there is no law there is no government.

johnohara• 6 years ago

“There is message there that we, human beings, should live in harmony between ourselves and nature,” Shady concluded. “We are living through this pandemic, in part, due to our mistreatment of nature.”

What does this mean? What part? Endangered Pangolins? Horseshoe bats from Guangdong? Bat research in general? Lab mistakes in Wuhan? What?

Please publish your findings if you have specific scientific insight into how SARS-CoV-2 started, especially as it relates to the harmonious balance between ourselves and nature.

Squatters issue death threats to archaeologist who discovered Caral

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