Peruvian skull rewrites history

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.

"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.