The Spondylus shells were “more valuable than gold for these people,” said Gabriel Prieto, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Florida who directs the excavations at Pampa La Cruz.

True when the Spanish came too. Indigenous peoples liked gold, sure, but they didn’t understand the Spanish lust for it. It was something they made things out of, but in the same way brass is something we make things out of. It was mostly just a shiny metal.

The Spanish could probably have just asked. But I guess then there wouldn’t have been the fun of the Inquisition and the slaughtering.