Bone Detectives
Mystery of the Abandoned Child
S1 • E1 Dec 29, 2007 60m
Scotty travels high in the Bolivian Andes to the site of the ancient city of Tiwanaku, where archaeologists have uncovered the body of a young girl buried in a trash pile in front of an ancient temple. In a culture that revered the dead and buried their children in elaborate ways, this child's body appears to have been abandoned. Was she the child of elite rulers — the victim of a terrible crime? A blood sacrifice as part an ancient ritual offering? Or was she the child of traders who traveled vast distances across the Andes to the highlands, only die in a strange land?