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Peruvian skull rewrites history

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LIMA, June 20 (UPI) -- Archeologists in Peru have discovered what they believe to be the earliest victim of a gunshot wound in the Americas.

A 500-year-old skull found in an Incan cemetery outside the Peruvian capital had two holes in it with what experts assert were two holes made by a musket, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

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"There may have been Incas and other native people killed by Europeans before him, but this is our oldest example so far," said Peruvian archaeologist Guillermo Cock, a 20-year veteran of excavations in the region. "This happened at the beginning of a long and difficult history."

According to Cook's estimates and carbon dating, the man likely was shot about 1530, a few years after Francisco Pizarro and his army of conquistadors arrived in Peru.

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