Archaeologists Find Creepy 2,400-Year-Old Puppets Atop El Salvador Pyramid

A recent discovery at the top of a pyramid in El Salvador challenges the notion that pre-Columbian Salvadorans were isolated from more advanced civilizations. A pair of archaeologists has unearthed five 2,400-year-old ceramic figurines at the top of the largest pyramid of the San Isidro archaeological site. As detailed in a study published today in the journal Antiquity, the artifacts suggest that the pre-Columbian people of El Salvador were indeed connected to other civilizations, challenging the notion that they were less developed than their neighbors. At the top of the pyramidal structure, University of Warsaw’s Jan Szymański and Gabriela Prejs unearthed what may have been a funerary deposit. Instead of human remains, however, they found five ceramic figurines, three of which have articulated heads akin to modern dolls. “This finding is only the second such a group found in situ [on site in original position], and the first to feature a male figure,” Szymański explained in an An ... Read full article.