"Golden Chief" Tomb Treasure Yields Clues to Unnamed Civilization
National Geographic News, December 21, 2011
Newfound tombs in Central America are yielding thousand-year-old gold,
gems, and even hints of murder by pufferfish. But the real treasure is
the excavation's clues to the unnamed civilization of the so-called
golden chiefs of Panama, archaeologists say. "It's really a very
spectacular find. ... probably the most significant" for this culture
since the 1930s, when the nearby Sitio Conte site, also in central
Panama, yielded a wealth of gold artifacts, anthropologist John Hoopes
said. Until now, Sitio Conte provided the only major evidence of the
golden-chiefs culture, which can be traced from about A.D. 250 to the
16th century, when Spanish conquerors arrived on the scene.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111221-gold-panama-cano-chiefs-t\
ombs-science/
