At http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/PRN-archaeologist-sets-out-to-validate-2… the legend of Naymlap, founder of a dynasty in ancient Peru, begins with his arrival in a fleet of balse rafts. He came with an idol made from green stone and installed it in a palace he built and went on to live a long and peaceful life. Eventually, he died and his followers regarded him as a god and expected him to return – but of course, this never happened. The dynastyl lasted nine generations, or nine heirs of Naymlap, and it ended when the valley floooded after terribe amounts of rain. The last emperor was tied up and thrown into the Pacific, an offering to the tempestous nature of El Nino. Archaeologists from UCLA have C14 dated the initial occupation level at 650-700AD – and adobe mud bricks of a later period show signs of erosion by a flood of water.
At http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2012/0328-rare-animal-shaped-mo… … Missouri University have taken an interest in the discovery of mounds shaped like animals in Peru because of effigy mounds in their own neck of the woods, such as the Serpent mound of Ohio. The Peruvian mounds are much older – going back 4000 years. BIrds such as the condor, or ducks, orca, and caimans, built using woven baskets to carry and pile up rocks and soil, and it is being suggested they represent figures associated with a zodiacal system in the sky. This has led, to a similar interpretation of the more famous Nazca figures – do they also represent images from the sky?
The monster associated with midsumme, we may note in passing, is a combination f a puma and a caiman (a kind of crocodile) and the research was actually published in the journal Antiquity – well I never.