The archaeologists returned the following year during the January-to-April dry season and unearthed a second burial every bit as rich as the first. That alone would have been the find of a lifetime. By 2010 Mayo and her team had dug a pit 16 feet deep and discovered the remains of a warrior-chieftain bedecked in gold - two embossed breastplates, four arm cuffs, a bracelet of bells, a belt of hollow gold beads as plump as olives, more than 2,000 tiny spheres arranged as if once sewn to a sash, and hundreds of tubular beads tracing a zigzag pattern on a lower leg. The results identified a circle of long-forgotten graves. But now she was overwhelmed.ĭetermined to uncover new evidence of the ancient society she had been studying since graduate school, Mayo and her team began geophysical surveys in 2005 at a site known as El Caño, named for a waterfall on one of the area’s many rivers. In a grassy, sun-parched field in central Panama, gold was coming out of the ground so fast that archaeologist Julia Mayo was tempted to yell, “Stop, stop!” For years she had been working for this moment, waiting for it. But no matter how much evidence is unearthed, puzzles still cry out to the curious, enticing them to continue excavating, sifting through the clues, and searching for a meaning. The ruins of cities and settlements, rich in artifacts, can be just as stunning as the luxury-filled graves of elites - especially when new evidence overturns earlier notions of what we held true. They might hypothesize that a field dotted with monoliths may hold the graves of warrior-chiefs, but are nevertheless awestruck when shovels and trowels suddenly reveal skeletons covered in gold accessories. But while archaeologists seek to answer questions scientifically, they’re not immune to the wonder of big discoveries. Part of the lure of archaeology is the unknown, the feeling that anything’s possible. It is reprinted courtesy of National Geographic Books. The following is excerpted from Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs, to be published by National Geographic Books on November 2.