Archaeological, radiological and biological evidence offer insight into Inca child sacrifice.

WILSON, ANDREW; BROWN, EMMA; VILLA, CHIARA; LYNNERUP, NIELS; HEALEY, ANDREW; CERUTI, MARÍA CONSTANZA; REINHARD, JOHAN; PREVIGLIANO, CARLOS; ARIAS, FACUNDO ; GONZÁLEZ, JOSEFINA; TAYLOR, TIMOTHY

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

NATL ACAD SCIENCES

Lugar: Washington DC, USA; Año: 2013 vol. 110 p. 13322 - 13327

0027-8424

A detailed re-evaluation of three frozen bodies discovered in 1999 near the summit of Volcán Llullaillaco in Northwest Argentina sheds new light on the killing of children as a central part of the Imperial Inca capacocha rite. Capacocha is known in part from later written accounts consequent on the Spanish conquest in AD 1532, but archaeological analysis and the application of new analytical techniques further enhance our understanding of this ritual practice. In this paper we present high resolution diachronic data obtained directly from the children?s hair that implies escalating coca and alcohol ingestion in the lead up to death. In tandem with a detailed forensic reappraisal of the circumstances and context of final placement on the mountaintop using archaeological and radiological evidence we argue that the children were treated differently according to their age, status and ritual role. Finally, we relate our findings to questions of consent, coercion and or compliance in such cases and the highly controversial issue of ideological justification and the pattern of social control established by the Inca state. The discovery of three children entombed within a shrine near the summit of volcano Llullaillaco in northwest Argentina is arguably the best preserved assemblage of natural mummies found anywhere in the world. Their frozen state enables these children to offer direct evidence in a way that few other archaeological finds can. Thus the physical remains of the ~13-year-old Llullaillaco Maiden; the 4-5-year-old Llullaillaco boy and the 4-5-year-old Lightning girl(revised ages derived from unpublished data, courtesy of Villa et al.), combined with a detailed analysis of their posture and placement within the shrine amongst an array of elite artefacts, provides unique insight into the form and duration of these complex Imperial rites. The discovery of the mummies clearly justified their excavation and removal in cognisance of the potential for illegal looting documented at similar sites and the impossibility of providing adequate in situ protection. Nevertheless, given their remarkable state of preservation, it is also clear that any analytical examination must involve the application either of non-invasive or minimally-destructive scientific techniques. Previous biomolecular research has focussed on the health, genetic origins and nutrition status of these children, with segmental analysis of their hair providing detailed information on both status changes (in terms of quality of diet using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis) and locational / altitudinal changes (via changes in sulphur and oxygen isotopes) that indicate likely durations of ritual journeys and possible ceremonial routes. In this paper we amplify our discussion of these ritualised activity sequences in relation to the analysis of diachronic data on alcohol and coca markers also preserved in the sampled hair. Coca and alcohol played a dual role at the end of these sacrificial victims lives: understood within the cultural frameworks of Inca religious ideology, both were associated with elite ritual practice. Coca and alcohol were substances that induced altered states interpreted as sacred, and which could suggest to both victims and those associated with them the proximity of the divine beings whose continued benevolence was underwritten by these rites. From a cross-cultural perspective, the psychologically deadening, disorienting and mood-modifying effects of these psychoactive compounds on child victims should not be downplayed.