South American History

Chinchorro mummy at San Miguel de Azapa Museum in Arica, Chile

What Have the World’s Oldest Mummies Kept Under Wraps?

Researchers are making digital reconstructions of the 7,000-year-old bodies, which face rapid deterioration from microbes

In Mexico's Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, America's most beloved native insect faces threats from illegal loggers and avocado growers.

The Best Way to Protect the World’s Forests? Keep People in Them

Instead of kicking indigenous groups out, let them continue to manage these lands effectively, argues a new report

A Colombian man cries during a June 20 peace protest in Bogotá.

After 52 Years, the War Between Colombia and the FARC Will End

Four out of five of the decades-long conflict's dead were civilians

10,000 Scrotum Frogs Found Dead Near Lake Titicaca

Over 10,000 of the world's largest water frogs were found dead along the Coata River, a tributary of the heavily polluted lake

Sumando Ausencias (2016)
Doris Salcedo

An Artist Blanketed Bogota’s Bolívar Square With the Names of Victims of Colombia’s Civil War

Remembering the dead as the country struggles to make peace

Campsite Places Humans in Argentina 14,000 Years Ago

Excavations at the site Arroyo Seco 2 include stone tools and evidence that humans were hunting giant sloths, giant armadillos and extinct horse species

Colombian Statue Heads Home After 80 Years

The slab figure disappeared from Colombia's National Musuem in 1939

This image shows a scrap of the indigo-dyed fabric (right) and a diagram of the cloth (left), highlighting the blue stripes.

Earliest Evidence of Indigo Dye Found at Ancient Peruvian Burial Site

The dyed fabrics represent the earliest known use of indigo in the world, predating Egyptian samples by about 1,600 years

Temple where the remains of a body and two important hieroglyphic slabs were discovered in Xunantunich

Rare Maya Burial Temple Discovered in Belize

Excavations at Xunantunich have uncovered the remains of a body and hieroglyphics that tell the story of the snake-head dynasty

Peru Cracks Down on Illegal Gold Miners

A boom in outlaw mining activity in the last five years is polluting rivers, poisoning people and destroying forests in the Peruvian Amazon

An artist's rendition of the Rio Olympics facilities for the 2016 Summer Games. Some of the media accommodations were apparently built on top of remnants of Brazil's slave history.

The Media Village at the Rio Olympics Is Built on a Mass Grave of Slaves

As Brazil looks forward to an Olympic future, it buries its past

Browse Though the Amazon's 12,000 Tree Species in This New Master List

Gotta count 'em all

Researcher Ricardo Godoy conducts an experiment with a member of the Tsimane

Researchers Travel to the Amazon to Find Out if Musical Taste is Hardwired

Members of the Tsimane tribe showed no preference between consonant and dissonate tones, meaning Western music is probably not biologically based

Two canal workers pose in the cut

Commemorate the Panama Canal's Expansion With These Photos From Its Construction

The Panama Canal is opening a third lane to accommodate new mega cargo ships, a feat almost—but not quite—as impressive as building the original

Lightning over Lake Maracaimbo, November 2015

NASA Announces World's New Lightning Hotspot

The electric capital tops the charts with lightning storms 297 nights per year

Paleontologists Matt Lamanna and Ruben Martinez with the skull of Sarmientosaurus

Newly Discovered Dinosaur Species Had Great Eyesight and a Droopy Head

Sarmientosaurus weighed as much as two elephants but had a brain the size of a lime

21 Million Years Ago, Monkeys May Have Floated to North America on Rafts

Fossil teeth in Panama show monkeys made it to Central America, probably on floating mats of vegetation

An Incan mummy found at Mount Llullaillaco, Argentina, in 1999, which was used in the study

What Mummy DNA Reveals About the Spread and Decline of People in the Americas

Researchers have pieced together how humans spread from Alaska to Argentina and the extent of devastation from the introduction of European disease

Genes of Ancestral Peanuts May Help Feed the World

Researchers have sequenced the genome of peanuts and its ancient cousins, which could lead to disease and drought-resistant varieties

Lake Titicaca in myth is the birthplace of humanity, and the people who live on its shores depend on it for their livelihoods.

What Are North American Trout Doing in Lake Titicaca?

The famous lake between Bolivia and Peru is struggling due to pollution, overfishing and the misguided intentions of almost 100 years ago

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