There are various ethnohistoric accounts of the execution of captives in celebrations following Inca military conquests, as well as reprisal killings in response to acts of resistance or rebellion (D’Altroy 2002; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1999; Rowe 1946). Trophies made by the Incas from the skulls, long bones, teeth and skin of slain enemies were also described by chroniclers (Rowe 1946). The execution of captives is an activity quite different from offering children and valuable objects to shrines and deities, and “human sacrifice” is perhaps not an appropriate term to describe these killings. While captured enemies may have been dispatched as “offerings” to gods, the execution and mutilation of captives clearly functioned as a powerful means to humiliate and terrorize enemies, such as in the case of the Inca conquest of the Collas, whose leaders’ heads were severed and placed in a special building in Cuzco called the Llaxaguasi, where the heads of other conquered enemies were displayed (Sarmiento de Gamboa 1942: chap. 37). Retaliatory massacres also served to cement Inca conquests and discourage resistance (Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1999: 73-79).
The treatment of the bodies of executed captives may provide some insight into how these victims were viewed in their societies. Careful burial with sumptuary goods would imply that the victim had been transformed into an offering of value, as was the case with dedicatory burials of women at Chan Chan. In contrast, desecration of the corpse by mutilation, exposure to scavengers, burning, or denial of ritual burial conveyed a different message. A mass burial of mutilated corpses found at the site of Pacatnamu on the north coast of Peru is a good example of the latter (Figure 52.4). Here the mutilated remains of executed captives (as marked by ropes around their ankles) were thrown into the bottom of a trench at the entrance to a ceremonial precinct, and left exposed to flies and other scavengers (Faulkner 1986; Rea 1986; Verano 1986). In this case, the prominent display of the decomposing bodies of the victims and the denial of proper burial was clearly intentional.
Figure 52.4. Pacatnamu mass burial (Jequetepeque Valley, north coast, Peru), during excavation of the second layer of skeletal remains (Group II). (John Verano)
Figure 52.5. Moche sacrificial victims incorporated within the construction fill of Plaza 3C at Huaca de la Luna, Moche Valley, north coast, Peru. (John Verano)
The Moche of northern coastal Peru also took male captives and sacrificed them at their major ceremonial centers. The remains of captives killed by the Moche at the Huaca de la Luna either were left exposed on the surface to be buried by windblown sand or mud (during episodes of rainfall) (Bourget 1997, 2001; Bourget and Millaire 2000; Verano 2001, 2001), or were incorporated in the fill of plazas during their construction (Figure 52.5) (Verano and Tufinio n. d.). The only objects found in association with the skeletons were fragments of ceramic vessels shaped like seated captives. The incorporation of victims’ remains in Moche ceremonial architecture has also been recorded at the site of El Brujo in the Chicama River Valley, where a portion of the femur of a dismembered victim was imbedded in the north fagade of Huaca Cao, in a frieze depicting the presentation and sacrifice of captives (Figure 52.6).
To date, the largest sample of executed captives comes from a Late Intermediate Period site, Punta Lobos, located in the Huarmey Valley, north coastal Peru. The Punta Lobos sacrificial site was discovered in 1998 on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean by archaeologist Hector Walde. His excavations recovered the shallow burials of nearly 200 individuals. Previous clandestine digging had disturbed a portion of the site, but more than one hundred bodies were found in context. Their wrists and ankles were bound with rope or cloth, and cloth blindfolds were found still in place on many of the individuals. Cause of death was easily determined: their throats had been slashed repeatedly, as indicated by multiple cut marks across the lower cervical and upper thoracic vertebrae, and on the clavicles and first ribs (Figure 52.7). The majority of the victims were found lying face down in the sand; and some lay on their sides.
Other than a few fragments of Spondylus shell, no offerings were found directly associated with the bodies. A small pit found on an adjacent hillside contained simple offerings, including ceramics of a local style, a fishing net, and food, apparently an offering made to the victims by relatives. Punta Lobos is unusual for its location on an isolated hillside with no associated architecture. It is also unusual in that although most victims
Figure 52.6. a. Polychrome frieze on the north fagade of Huaca Cao Viejo. b. The proximal end of a human femur found imbedded in the feet of one of the figures. Cut marks around the neck of the femur indicate that it was taken from a body while flesh still present. El Brujo Complex, north coast, Peru. (John Verano)
Figure 52.7. Execution by slashing the throat left cut marks across the body of the first thoracic vertebra. Entierro 12, Punta Lobos, Huarmey Valley, north coast, Peru. (John Verano)
Are young males, children as young as seven years and old men are also present. This is a different demographic profile from the sacrifices at Pacatnamu and at the Huaca de la Luna, where all victims were adolescent or young adult males—an age range appropriate for captured warriors. Punta Lobos appears to represent a mass execution of another sort, possibly a reprisal killing. Radiocarbon dates place the event at ca. AD 1250-1300 (2 sigma calibrated), which coincides with the estimated date of conquest of the Huarmey Valley by the Chimu (Mackey and Klymshyn 1990). The Punta Lobos victims thus may represent a Chimu response to local resistance (Verano and Walde 2004; Verano and Toyne 2005).
World History
