Construction workers in Bolivia have stumbled upon a mass grave likely containing the remains of hundreds of indigenous miners from the Spanish colonial era, a researcher said on Saturday.
The workers found the remains last week when they started construction on a new building in the “El Minero” district of Potosi, high up in the Andes Mountains.
“We are talking about a common grave found at about 1.8m and the human remains are scattered over an area of 4 by 4m,” said Sergio Fidel, a researcher at a museum belonging to the Tomas Frias University.
While Bolivia was under Spanish rule, Potosi became famous for its massive silver and tin reserves, which started to be mined in the 16th century.
Local indigenous peoples — mainly ethnic Aymara — were commonly put to work as slaves or indentured servants, especially at the famed Cerro Rico (Rich Hill).
The construction workers, who have not received any specialized excavation training, say they found the remains of 400 to 500 people and that there may be many more.
The university got involved when its staff learned that the workers were piling the bones in a heap, leaving them fully exposed.
One hypothesis is that they happened on an indigenous burial ground of slaves and indentured servants who would have worked at the mine in precarious conditions, said Jose Antonio Fuertes, a historian at the National Mint of Bolivia.
Another possibility is the remains could be linked to the collapse of a reservoir in Potosi in the 1600s, which killed about 2,000 people.
The Andean city, once among the world’s biggest, now has a population of just 200,000. Last month, UNESCO placed Potosi and the increasingly unstable Cerro Rico on its World Heritage in Danger list due to “uncontrolled mining operations.”
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