Chilean Students Discover 7,000-Year-Old Mummy

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A group of Chinchorro mummies -dated bet
A group of Chinchorro mummies — dated between 5000 B.C. and 3000 B.C. — are on display during the exhibition "Arica, a Thousand-Year-Old Culture," on Aug. 27, 2008, in the cultural center of the La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, ChileClaudio Santana —AFP/Getty Images
By David Stout

Chilean students participating in an archaeological dig on Saturday near the Peruvian border hit paleontological gold after discovering the remains of a 7,000-year-old Chinchorro mummy.

Officials from the Chilean National Heritage Office were sent to the dig site in Chile’s Morro de Arica to commence a complete investigation into the recovered remains.

A large number of historical artifacts have reportedly been forced to the surface in swaths of the northern parts of the country following a massive 8.2 earthquake that rocked the area in April, according to AFP.

Mummies from the Chinchorro culture are among some of the oldest preserved cadavers to have ever been discovered.

[AFP]

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