The jug, called an olla, bears the unique knobs and painted patterns of the Gallina, a culture that lived in the region for about 200 years before suddenly disappearing around A.D. 1275.

A clue to the people's fate may be found in the nearby bones. The jug was found intact under the crushed pelvis of a man in his late 30s who had been brutally beaten.

According to Greg Nelson, an anthropologist from the University of Oregon who examined the remains, the man had suffered a fractured skull, jaw, forearm, and thighbone, and several broken ribs.

The murder scene is grimly consistent with the few other Gallina sites that have previously been excavated, Nelson added.

"[In] most of what we're finding, someone came through and killed them," he said. "If you find a Gallina site and there's skeletons in it, they were killed."

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