The colorful pottery created by the ancient Paracas culture, which depicts a variety of abstract forms, people, and animals, would have perked up their drab surroundings on the southern Peruvian coastal desert more than 2,000 years ago. Now, researchers are discovering that these painted pots are also providing important—and surprising—information on the unique science behind the pigments and how connections between the Paracas culture (900-100 B.C.) and other ancient Andean cultures changed over time.

In a paper published today in the journal Antiquity, conservator Dawn Kriss worked with other experts to analyze 14 colorful Paracas ceramics from the collections of the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While the time and location in