Ethnohistoric sources record that the Incas made regular offerings to honor and appease their gods, and that these occasionally included human sacrifices (Rowe 1946). The best known example is that of qhapaq hucha, the offering of children on high mountain peaks (see discussion in Chapter 40 in this volume). Many high altitude sacrifices have been discovered, increasing in recent years as a result of surveys and excavations conducted by international research teams (Reinhard and Ceruti 2000; Ceruti 2003, 2004). These qhapaq hucha sacrifices provide a rare opportunity to directly compare archaeological evidence to ethnohistoric accounts of the practice. Questions raised by these new discoveries have led to the application of novel analytical methods to examine questions such as the geographic origin of the children and the offerings placed with them (Reinhard and Ceruti 2000; Bray et al. 2005, see also Tung, this volume).
The Incas also were reported to have made child sacrifices to Pachacamac and to other deities (Figure 52.1) (Guaman Poma de Ayala and Pease G. Y. 1980; MacCormack 1991; Cobo 1990). To date no archaeological evidence has been found to confirm the sacrifice of large numbers of children mentioned by some Spanish chroniclers (Bauer 1998; D’Altroy 2002), but isolated child burials that may be sacrifices have been found at a number of pre-Inca archaeological sites, suggesting that the offering of children in ritual contexts might have great antiquity in South America (Benson 2001).
Dedicatory offerings of humans, in the form of intact and recently sacrificed individuals or secondary deposits of skeletal remains, are known from both coastal and highland Andean archaeological sites. The best known examples are from the site of Chan Chan in the Moche Valley on the north coast of Peru, where dedicatory burials of young women were found under doorways and ramps in the royal palaces or ciudadelas (Andrews 1974; Day 1982). Similar offerings have been reported from Chimu centers in other valleys, indicating that this was a widespread practice not limited to the capital city (Keatinge and Conrad 1983; Bruce 1986). Chan Chan stands apart, however, for its royal burial platforms constructed of cells containing hundreds of sacrificed females. These platforms represent dedicatory sacrifice on a scale unknown elsewhere in the South American archaeological record (Pozorski 1980; Conrad 1982).
In the southern Andes, the site of Tiwanaku also has produced archaeological evidence of human dedicatory offerings (Blom and Janusek 2004; Blom, Janusek, and Buikstra 2003). These are found in two distinct contexts, and appear to represent very different offering rituals. The first group is associated with Tiwanaku’s most imposing monument, the Akapana, and consists of disarticulated and semi-articulated remains of humans and camelids, associated in one case with fragments of fine ceramics. Some of the human bones show evidence of surface exposure and damage from carnivores, suggesting that they were left exposed for a period of time prior to burial. Cut marks and fracture patterns on the bones indicate that the victims had been intentionally dismembered, and missing elements and groupings of skulls suggest that the remains were manipulated in complex ways before being buried. The remains are mostly of young males, and their treatment suggests that they may have been sacrificed enemies.
Other deposits of human remains found in Akapana East (an architectural compound east of the Akapana) were distinctive in their postmortem treatment, deposition, and context. In this case the human remains showed evidence of de-fleshing and grouping into bundles that were carefully buried in a small mound associated with a series of superimposed, carefully prepared floors that sealed the compound’s contents. Blom and Janusek (2004)
Figure 52.1. Early Colonial Period depiction of an Inca ruler sacrificing a child to Pachacamac. (Guaman Poma de Ayala 1980, I: 266 [268])
Suggest that these offerings may represent ancestral remains that were curated and then carefully buried in the enclosed and private space of this compound. While the Akapana and Akapana East seem to represent very different rituals, both are dedicatory offerings associated with architectural construction.
World History
