Sandweiss Interviewed for ‘Nature’ Mummification Article
The journal Nature interviewed University of Maine anthropologist Dan Sandweiss for an article about possible explanations for why hunter-gatherers in Chinchorro
communities in northern Chile and southern Peru mummified their dead 7,000 years ago, long before the Egyptians. Sandweiss, who also is dean and assistant provost of UMaine graduate studies, said a lack of evidence makes it difficult to prove that favorable environmental conditions at the time resulted in population growth, which led to the artificial preservation of corpses, as hypothesized in a recent research article by a Chilean ecologist.
Contact: George Manlove, (207) 581-3756