Adán Umire, an archaeologist from the Catholic University in Arequipa, Peru, and Sarah Robinson, a physical anthropologist from Cambridge University in England, retrieve human remains more than 4,500 years old from the Kilometer 4 site on the desert coast at Ilo, Peru, in August 1994. .

Photograph by Karen Wise.

Excavation of this multiple burial site took more than 5 weeks because of the need to compile careful documentation, including photographs, diagrams, measurements, and written descriptions of every fragment of bone and associated artifact. Members of the research team, who come from Peru, the U.S., and other countries, contribute expertise on a variety of topics, such as the origins of ancient stone tools, the identification of prehistoric plants and animals, and the history of textiles.