At https://phys.org/news/2019-08-archaeologist-unearths-history-mississippi… … the archaeology of the Mississippi River Valley is becoming clearer in spite of the intense agriculture taking place, now and in the past. The Mound Culture is involved – and at the link we have one archaeologists view of how it all came about.
Over at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7401963/ … the discovery of 227 sacrificial victims in Peru, aged from 4 to 14, has caught the attention of the media. This one has also sparked an assumption. We are told they were sacrificed to dark forces in order to stop bad weather. They all face the ocean – in the direction of the Pacific winds bringing in El Nino – or La Nina, rain or drought. In point of fact the archaeologists do not know why they were sacrificed and a connection with the harvest of El Nino (or lack of a harvest to be more exact) is simply an educated guess. One may suppose that hunger called for desperate measures but other factors, unbeknown, may come into play. Appeasement of the gods was probably why they were sacrificed – and the ancient Americans had some dreadfully demanding deities it would seem – but were they anymore demanding than Yahweh, Chemosh, or Baal?