In Panama, they found a grave more than 1,000 years old

Archaeologists have found in Panama a burial site more than a thousand years old, in which human remains were lying together with gold objects and ceramics. This was reported to AFP by the head of the study, reports Phys.org.

The discovery was made at the archaeological site of El Caño (El Caño) in the district of Nata - about 200 kilometres southwest of Panama City. The area has been under investigation for about two decades and traces of pre-Columbian cultures have been found there before.

According to archaeologist Julia Mayo, the skeletal remains found were surrounded by gold objects and vessels with traditional ornaments, indicating that people of high social status were buried in the tomb. The estimated date of the tomb's construction is between 800 and 1000 AD.

Mayo noted that the person buried with the gold probably had the highest status in the group. Items found near him include two bracelets, two earrings and a breast ornament (pectoral) with images of bats and crocodiles.

The El Caño monument is associated with societies that lived in the central provinces of Panama sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries. Mayo added that the site had been used as a necropolis for about 200 years, and nine similar tombs had previously been found at the site.

Panama's Ministry of Culture called the new find important for the study of pre-Columbian societies of the Central American isthmus. According to experts, such burials show that for these communities death was not perceived as an end, but as a transition in which social status continued to play a major role.