Search

We tested the hair of seven mummies housed at the Museo Regional de Iquique, northern Chile, to investigate evidence of mercury exposure in the Atacama Desert. Five mummies represent local inhumations and two came from a special burial known as capacocha, at Cerro Esmeralda, Iquique, northern Chile. The capacocha was a ritual of vital importance to both religious and political affairs wherein specially chosen children of both sexes were sacrificed throughout the Inca state. The cause of death of the two victims is unknown. Toxic cinnabar pigment has been found in the garments of the two Cerro Esmeralda sacrificed capacocha mummies. Using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), we evaluated if LA-ICP-MS was useful to discriminate between biogenic exposure and diagenesis of mercury. The capacochas inhumations’ hair presented a median level of 11.8 µg/g Hg vs.0.68 µg/g Hg found in non-capacocha mummies. We discuss these elevated levels of mercury in capacocha samples studied across and longitudinal sections of hair strands to elucidate possible endogenous consumption or perimortem contamination. We conclude that Cerro Esmeralda victims were subject to both external contamination and endogenous accumulation due to chronic Hg poisoning during the months-long capacocha ritual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important rituals in the Inca Empire was the capacocha. It required the most prestigious sacrificial offering of male and female children and young women who were characterized by their beauty and purity. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a bio-anthropological analysis of the remains of five individuals sacrificed on the summits of Ampato and Pichu Pichu during this ritual. Various methods (bone analysis and radiography) were applied in the investigation due to the diverse states of preservation of the remains. Four individuals were in the same age category: 6–7 years old. The individual Pichu Pichu #2 was sacrificed at age 3.5 years, which makes him the youngest capacocha sacrifice currently known. Results show proper development of the victims’ bodies, the presence of stress markers related to the early childhood period, and, in the case of the Ampato boy, malformation of the cervical vertebrae. The studies of the Pichu Pichu and Ampato sacrifices confirm their widespread origins, privileged position, and high social status. They show that the victims were well-nourished and had proper body growth compared to juveniles from the lower social strata in different cemeteries in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most impressive examples of an Inca capacocha ceremony was discovered during an archaeological expedition to the summit of Misti volcano in 1998. The offerings at the site included several human sacrifices, along with fine ceramics and figurines made from gold, silver, and Spondylus sp. shell. One of the two burials appeared to contain the bones of males and the other of females. The sex was established based on the contents of the graves, because the fragile skeletal material had been badly affected by volcanic activity and exact identification was difficult to make in situ. To limit the risk of damage, the bones were excavated together with the surrounding soil and transported in frozen blocks to the Museo Santuarios Andinos of Universidad Católica de Santa María in Arequipa. This material was the object of a bioarchaeological investigation in February and March 2018. The results revealed that at least eight individuals had been buried in the graves. The findings have increased our understanding of the age categories and physical condition of the individuals chosen to be sacrificed during the capacocha ritual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the carbon (13C/12C), nitrogen (15N/14N), oxygen (18O/16O), hydrogen (2H/1H) and sulfur (34S/32S) stable isotope values measured in the hair of a female individual from north‐western Argentina. The analysis of segments of this tissue allows for the recording of the diet and migratory changes with a short time resolution. The sample is from a mummified young female individual discovered in Chuscha mount, Salta province. It was found at more than 5000 masl, in a mountain sanctuary of the Inca expansion (capacochas). The paper discusses the paleodiet and mobility patterns of this individual in the period before her death, focusing on the isotopic variations in a limited time scale. The results indicate that the individual moved from a different region to the place where she was sacrificed. Furthermore, in the last year the individual was alive, a shift in the isotopic composition of the food consumed is detected: a variation in the importance of C4 over C3 resources is evident. The results are compared with the isotopic estimations for other children and young people recovered in archaeological contexts associated with capacochas to infer variability in the geographical trajectories covered during their last months of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theme of this essay is the bullroarers and the sibilant ropes that accompanied the ceremony of founding the capacocha alliance and oracle to and on the top of the Llullaillaco volcano (6739 masl, province of Salta, Argentina). Crossing data of Inca archaeology, colonial documentation and ethnographic record, I return to the theme of boas as one of the Inca emblems because a garment of the women's dress of the entourage - the tubular tissue to which the bullroarers are attached - represents another ophidian from the same family: the machacuay. Their whistles were reproduced by the men, making the ropes that they carried with them and with which they had already participated in another ceremony in Cusco. The human voice had to add the stories guided by these sounds. With plates, tubular fabric, ropes and stories updated, sound and visually, the History of the means used by the Inca to put under the Cusco government the other non- Cusqueño without confronting war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This study investigates two key variables-residential context and subsistence-among sacrificial victims dating to the Late Horizon (A.D. 1450-1532) in the Huaca de los Sacrificios at the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex in north coastal Peru. We investigate whether aspects of sacrifice in this distant coastal province mirrored that found in Inca heartland contexts such as the capacocha, or remained more typical of coastal sacrificial traditions. Stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope values were characterized in bone carbonate, bone collagen, and hair keratin to estimate geographic residence during the decade before death and diet in the decade, versus months, before death. Bone δ18Ocarbonate values have a mean (±SD) of 26.8 ± 1.1%, bone δ13Ccarbonate values −6.7 ± 1.7%, and bone δ13Ccollagen values 11.8 ± 1.3%; bone δ15Ncollagen values have a mean of 11.5 ± 1.3%. Combined hair δ13Ckeratin values have a mean of −12.8 ± 1.6%, and hair δ15Nkeratin values 10.8 ± 1.3%. In contrast to contemporaneous coastal and highland contexts, we are unable to identify immigrants among the sacrificed individuals or changes in diet that indicate provisioning with a standardized diet leading up to death. Instead, results suggest that victims were local to the area, but consumed moderately variable diets consistent with local subsistence patterns. These findings suggest a distinct pattern of human sacrifice in the Late Horizon and underscore the regional and temporal variation in sacrificial practices in the central Andes. Am J Phys Anthropol 151:22-37, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Human sacrifice in the Inca Empire at times took the form of the capacocha, a sacrificial rite involving the most beautiful children in the empire. In this study, we investigate a possible capacocha at the pre-Columbian site of Choquepukio in the Cuzco Valley of Peru. During excavations at Choquepukio in 2004, seven children (aged 3–12 years) were discovered buried together; accompanying them was an elaborate assemblage of high status artifacts similar to those from other recent archaeological finds that are believed to be capacocha sacrifices. Since colonial documents indicate that capacocha children were selected from diverse regions of the empire, we initiated a radiogenic strontium isotope analysis to determine the origins of the children found at Choquepukio. Our analysis showed that, indeed, two children in the assemblage had non-local origins. When considered together, the osteological, archaeological, and isotopic evidence suggest that a capacocha event occurred at Choquepukio, representing the only lower-elevation capacocha to have been found in the Cuzco region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]