Archaeologists in Lima, Peru have made a rare discovery of a 500-year-old skull of a man they believe to be the earliest confirmed victim of a gunshot wound in the Americas.

Found in an Incan cemetery outside the Peruvian capital, the centuries-old skull has two holes that are less than an inch in diameter in the back and front. The position of the round holes and some minuscule iron particles indicate that the person most likely was shot and killed by a Spanish musket ball.

The Washington Post quotes Peruvian archaeologist Guillermo Cock as saying, "There may have been Incas and other native people killed by Europeans before him, but this is our oldest example so far."

"This happened at the beginning of a long and difficult history," he added. According to archaeologists, the man was apparently shot about 1530. No such similar evidence of a death by gunshot belonging to this era has been found elsewhere in the Americas.