Desperate to make the torrential rains stop, the Chimú people of Peru offered up their most precious resource to the gods: their future.
The hoofprints of young llamas are preserved in a deep layer of mud around the grave of a sacrificed child at the site of Huanchaquito-Las Llamas in northern Peru. Evidence of heavy rain on the arid coast has led researchers to suggest that the mass sacrifice of hundreds of children alongside baby llamas may have been a desperate response to severe rains and flooding caused by an El Niño event around A.D 1400-1450.
Photograph by Robert Clark
