New Excavations at Sipán

From K. Kris Hirst,

Friday June 8, 2007
Published by About.com: Archaeology

An international project involving the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán, the University of Milan and the Caritas of Peru, has begun an extensive set of excavations at the Moche culture site of Sipán in May 2007 that will go on through the end of the year. The excavations are directed by the Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who first excavated at Sipán in the 1980s.

Located in the lower Lambayeque Valley of the northern coast of Peru, Sipán is one of the most well known archaeological sites in the world, an administrative and religious center of the Moche culture, and best known for the discovery of several burials of elite residents, including el Señor de Sipán (or Lord of Sipán). The tombs included funerary assemblages that matched the clothing and accessories of individuals illustrated in Moche iconography, fine-line ceramic and mural art thought to represent important sacrificial and religious/political rites.

The 2007 investigations will be focused on the pyramids of Sipán, to excavate them more fully and determine the best method of preserving them. One important reason for the excavation was the realization of the effects of el Niño (ENSO). Researchers believe that although the changing climate has worn the appearance of the pyramids to soft-edged hills, the detailed architecture of the adobes may be revealed with additional excavation. If so, they need to be preserved from further damage. Similar work has been effected at the Lima culture site of Huaca Pucllana, which revealed the intricately designed adobe walls that researcher Antonio Aimi (University of Milan) describes as 'an Escher pattern'.

At the same time, the project will construct a sewage and water treatment plant to develop Sipán as a tourist location and improve the plight of the people in the region. The project is being conducted by Caritas (the unidad ejecutora), Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan (Walter Alva), the Milan University (Antonio Aimi and Emilia Perassi), with sponsorship by the Italy-Peruvian Fund (FIP).

• Sipán, more on the site
• Moche Civilization
• Sipán, Peru Cultural website developed with Walter Alva (Spanish)
• Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán
• Caritas of Peru
• After 10 years, the new excavations in Sipán, (Spanish and English versions) Antonio Aimi

Information in InkaNatura

• Info about Sipan
• Chiclayo and Sipan Tour Programs
• Sipan photo gallery
  

Archaeologists study headless body in Peru

Published by Science Daily
SAN MARCOS, Texas, May 30 (UPI) -- U.S. archaeologists say a recently excavated headless Peruvian skeleton has expanded their understanding of ancient Andean rituals.

Images of disembodied heads are widespread in the art of Nasca, a culture based on the southern coast of Peru from about 1 A.D. to 750 A.D. Despite that evidence and the discovery of many trophy heads in the region, only eight headless bodies have been recovered with evidence of decapitation, said Christina Conlee of Texas State University.

Conlee's analysis of the recently excavated headless body from the site of the ancient community of La Tiza provides important new data on decapitation and its relationship to ancient ideas of death and regeneration.

"Human sacrifice and decapitation were part of powerful rituals that would have allayed fears by invoking the ancestors to ensure fertility and the continuation of Nasca society," Conlee said. "The decapitation of the La Tiza individual appears to have been part of a ritual associated with ensuring agricultural fertility and the continuation of life and rebirth of the community."

She details her findings in the June issue of the journal Current Anthropology.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

First Amazon-Andean Crop Plant Transfer And Corn Processing In Peru 3600-4000 Years Ago

Source: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Date: March 7, 2006

Published by Science Daily — Mouthwatering Peruvian cuisine like causa (mashed yellow potatoes layered with avocado and seafood) and carapulcra (dried potatoes and pork/chicken in peanut sauce) combine food crops from Amazon basin rainforests and Andean highlands. Smithsonian archaeologists and colleagues presenting in the prestigious journal, Nature1, uncover the first definitive evidence for this culinary, cultural link: 3600-4000 year-old plant microfossils and starch grains.

Heading to the supermarket to pick up some corn flour, a couple of tomatoes or a can of beans usually doesn't conjure up the notion of 10,000 years of agricultural development in the Americas--a transition from hunter-gatherer cultures to agricultural cultures actively developing and trading new food crops. But this transition is still inadequately understood. New excavations and a growing collection of plant microfossil remains rapidly adds pieces to this puzzle.

A multidisciplinary team excavated a stone house at Waynuna, north of Arequipa on the western slope of the Andes and analyzed plant remains from three grinding stones.
Arrowroot from the Amazon. Starchy arrowroot (Maranta sp.) tubers don't grow in the Andean highlands. So the presence of tiny Arrowroot starch grains and phytoliths on the grinding stones and in associated sediments means that people were moving tubers from lowland Amazon rainforest sites east of the Andes west to the Waynuna site.

Maize from Mexico. Maize (Zea mays) cultivation also swept through the Americas in the millennia following its domestication from Teosinte, a wild ancestor from Mexico's tropical Balsas river valley, some 9000 years ago. At the Waynuna site, maize starch grains were the most common plant remains on the grinding stones. Phytoliths derived from the leaves of maize provided evidence that maize was grown at the site. The shape and grinding damage of maize particles suggests that two races of maize--one used as flour and another, popcorn or dent corn variety--were probably grown and processed at the site. The Waynuna house is older than any of the other sites in Peru where maize has been found and sets back the date of maize cultivation and processing in the region by ~1000 years.

Obsidian trade. The Waynuna site perches on the shoulders of Cerro Aycano, the northernmost point of one of the Andes' richest sources of obsidian. Ample archaeological evidence shows that preceramic peoples moved obsidian from the mountains down into the Amazon basin, so it is not surprising that travelers eventually introduced new foods to residents of this upland area.

Multiproxy microfossil analysis of starch grains and phytoliths is proving to be an extremely important tool--applied to stone tool surfaces and associated sediments, to new sites and to sites where warm, wet climates have destroyed larger plant remains. Future work is expected to yield a better understanding of the domestication and trade of peanuts, manioc and achira, staples depicted in the stone iconography of the first great cultures to develop in a region where amazing cooking is still the standard.

###
The research team included members from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the University of Maine, Orono, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, along with Ithaca College in the U.S. and the Museo Contisuyo, Moquegua and the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Alameda, in Peru. This work was funded by a grant from the Heinz Charitable Trust Latin American Archaeology Program, FERCO, the Office of the Provost, Ithaca College, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), a unit of the Smithsonian Institution with headquarters in Panama City, Panama, furthers our understanding of tropical nature and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. http://www.stri.org/

Ref. Perry, L., Sandweiss, D., Piperno, D., Radmaker, K., Malpass, M., Umire, A. and de la Vera, P. 2006. Early maize agriculture and interzonal interaction in southern Peru. Nature, 2 March, 2006.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Predators Keep The World Green, Ecologists Find

Source: Duke University
Date: February 28, 2006
Published by Science Daily — Predators are, ironically, the key to keeping the world green, because they keep the numbers of plant-eating herbivores under control, reports a research team lead by John Terborgh, a professor of environmental science at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.

Their findings confirm the answer to one of ecology's oldest and thorniest questions: why is the world green? It also seems to put to rest a competing theory that plants protect themselves from herbivores through physical and chemical defenses.

The researchers drew their conclusions from study of a Venezuelan valley flooded 20 years ago by a hydroelectric project.

The research, reported in the March 2006 issue of the British Ecological Society's Journal of Ecology, was supported by the National Science Foundation. The paper was co-authored by Terborgh, Kenneth Feeley and Bradley Balukjian from Harvard University, Miles Silman from Wake Forest University, and Percy Nuñez of Universidad Nacional "San Antonio de Abad" de Cusco in Peru.

Their results support the so-called "green world hypothesis," first proposed in 1960 by United States scientists Nelson Hairston, Frederick Smith and Lawrence Slobodkin. Despite being almost 50 years old, the green world hypothesis has been almost impossible to test until now.

"Since the landmark paper by Hairston et al, ecologists have been debating whether herbivores are limited by plant defenses or by predators," wrote the authors. "The matter is trivially simple in principle, but in practice the challenge of experimentally creating predator-free environments in which herbivores can increase without constraint has proven almost insurmountable."

However, the researchers realized that the hypothesis could be tested on a vast hydroelectric project.

Within Venezuela's Caroni Valley, an area of 4,300 square kilometres was flooded in 1986 to create a lake (Lago Guri) containing hundreds of islands that were formerly fragments of a continuous landscape.

Terborgh and his team monitored the vegetation at 14 sites of differing size. Nine of the sites were on predator-free islands, while the others were on the mainland or on islands with a complete or nearly complete suite of predators.

They found that, by 1997, small sapling densities on small islands were only 37 percent of those of large land masses and by 2002 this had fallen to just 25 percent. Most of the vertebrates present in regional dry forest ecosystem had disappeared from small islands, including fruit eaters and predators of vertebrates, leaving a hyperabundance of generalist herbivores such as iguanas, howler monkeys and leaf-cutter ants.

"Mere numbers do not do justice to the bizarre condition of herbivore-impacted islets," the authors wrote. "The understory is almost free of foliage, so that a person standing in the interior sees light streaming in from the edge around the entire perimeter. There is almost no leaf litter, and the ground is bright red from the subsoil brought to the surface by leaf-cutter ants.

"Dead twigs, branches and vine stems from canopy dieback litter the ground, and in places lie in heaps. But in striking contrast with this scenario of destruction, the medium islands presented a relatively normal appearance."

Besides proving that the green world hypothesis is correct, Terborgh's team's results have important implications for the debate raging in many countries over reintroduction of top predators such as wolves. "The take-home message is clear: the presence of a viable carnivore guild is fundamental to maintaining biodiversity," the authors wrote.

Information collected for the Journal of Ecology report is a five-year update of results published by Terborgh and 10 other scientists in the Nov. 30, 2001, issue of the journal Science.

"The Science article reported on the first plant census we did, involving 15,000 plants, but it only gave us a snapshot in time," Terborgh said in an interview. "We could see that there were huge differences between the little islands that didn't have any predators on them, and larger islands that did have predators. But we couldn't say much about where that was going to go in the future.

"This article reports on the re-census," he added. "Indeed, during that five-year interval the populations of small, sapling-level plants continued to decline quite radically. And there's no question that the vegetation on these islands is just in a state of collapse."

A drought that began in 2001 and reached extreme levels in 2003 has now ended the study, Terborgh reported.

"By 2003, the lake level had dropped 26 meters," he said. "By then, I think only three of the islands were left surrounded by water. That ended the experiment because it allowed the animals to redistribute themselves in their own fashion. The overcrowded populations of the plant-eating animals that had been the object of our studies simply dispersed.

"The fundamental premise of the whole project was our ability to study predator-free space, and that condition was no longer met. In one period in 2003 we found six different predators on islands that previously had no predators."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Duke University.

Almodovar project is in ruins

Published in Guardian Unlimited
By Pamela Rolfe
May 17, 2007

CANNES -- Pedro Almodovar's production company El Deseo announced Wednesday it has started production on a docudrama about the discovery of the tomb of El Senor de Sipan, the ruler of ancient Peru's ruins, after acquiring exclusive audiovisual rights to the archeological dig.

Months after James Cameron's "The Last Tomb of Christ" documentary stirred controversy by claiming it had discovered the bones of Jesus Christ and his family, El Deseo has started preproduction on the feature-length film in co-production with Explora Films.

Documentary specialist Jose Manuel Novoa will direct the film that will combine the dig's discoveries with a re-creation of Sipan's life with elaborate set designs, including a pyramid and costumes.

According to El Deseo, the tale of the man who ruled Peru some 1,700 years ago includes sackings, murders and intrigue "in the purest style of adventure film."

Spanish pubcaster Television Espanola and the Spanish Geographic Society are supporting the project, which boasts a $1 million budget.

Calling it the "the main archeological discovery of the 20th century in America, comparable to the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb," El Deseo said it anticipates news in the coming months that will make headlines worldwide.

Archeologist Walter Alva discovered the tomb some 20 years ago and is heading the dig, which has already unearthed new graves, temples and multicolored facades.

Disoriented Penguin Reaches Peru's Shore

Published in Guardian Unlimited
Sunday May 13, 2007 2:31 AM

LIMA, Peru (AP) - A "disoriented'' Magellanic penguin swam ashore on Peru's coast, some 3,100 miles north of his home in the frigid waters of southern Chile.

The penguin got lost while looking for food, Peru's National Resource Institute was quoted as saying in El Comercio newspaper Saturday.

"It seems he was disoriented and got lost in the sea due to the different ocean currents,'' said Wilder Canales, who heads the National Paracas Reserve in southern Peru. "In his endless search for food, he casually climbed up on our shores, something that has never happened before.''

Television images showed scientists at the nature reserve treating an injury to the penguin's right wing that was apparently caused by a fishing net.

Peruvian authorities are trying to coordinate with their Chilean counterparts to return the penguin to its home waters.

An Ancient Inca Tax And Metallurgy In Peru

Source: American Chemical
SocietyDate: April 24, 2007

Published by Science Daily — Scientists in the United States and Canada are reporting the first scientific evidence that ancient civilizations in the Central Andes Mountains of Peru smelted metals, and hints that a tax imposed on local people by ancient Inca rulers forced a switch from production of copper to silver.

Their study is scheduled for the May 15 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

The University of Alberta's Colin A. Cooke and colleagues point out that past evidence for metal smelting, which involves heating ore to extract pure metal, was limited mainly to the existence of metal artifacts dating to about 1,000 A.D. and the Wari Empire that preceded the Inca.

The new evidence emerged from a study of metallurgical air pollutants released from ancient furnaces during the smelting process and deposited in lake sediments in the area.

By analyzing metals in the sediments, the researchers recreated a 1,000-year history of metal smelting in the area, predating Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors by 600 years. Their findings show that smelters in the Morococha region of Peru switched from production of copper to silver around the time that Inca rulers imposed a tax, payable in silver, on local populations.

Article: "A Millennium of Metallurgy Recorded by Lake Sediments from Morococha, Peruvian Andes"

Cuzco, Inca Valley merit exploration

Published in ContraCostaTimes.com
By Sara Benson
LONELY PLANET
Article Launched: 04/22/2007 03:14:14 AM PDT
The high-flying Andean capital of Cuzco is the gateway to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, South America's premier tourist destination. Each year more than a million foreign visitors pass through Q'osqo (as it's known in the indigenous Quechua language), but few pause long enough to explore this Peruvian city once ruled by Inca kings and Spanish conquistadors.
Start at the nerve center of the colonial city, the Plaza de Armas. Once the site of an Inca palace, for centuries it has been lorded over by La Catedral, a jewel box of art that blends Catholic beliefs with indigenous Andean traditions. In Marcos Zapata's "The Last Supper," roast cuy (guinea pig) is a featured dish in the holy Christian feast.

Narrow alleyways beside the plaza are buttressed by complexly crafted Inca stonework. During ancient times the Incas' chosen Virgins of the Sun were housed behind these walls. Nearby are the ruins of Qorikancha, the "Golden Courtyard," once the Inca empire's richest temple. Before it was looted by Spanish conquistadors, some say it was literally covered in gold.

Pre-Columbian art

Exquisite artifacts from Peru's varied ancient cultures are displayed in the Museo de Arte Precolombino (Pre-Columbian Art Museum), housed in a Spanish colonial mansion built over a sacred Inca site. The more modest Museo Inka harbors mummies, pottery, jewelry and the world's largest collection of queros (Inca ceremonial drinking vessels). Andean highland weavers demonstrate their craft in the courtyard.
With their eyes set solely on Machu Picchu, many visitors miss not only the back streets of Cuzco, but also El Valle Sagrado, the "Sacred Valley" of the Incas. Lying just outside the city, the idyllic valley is flush with archaeological ruins, hot springs, colonial towns with quaint cobblestone streets, hectic highland markets and wide-open countryside ripe for adventure sports.

Valley of Incas

The most convenient jumping-off point is Ollantaytambo, where trains to Machu Picchu stop. An Inca village that has been inhabited continuously since the 13th century, Ollantaytambo is overshadowed by the ruins of a massive temple and fortress where the Incas made their last stand against the Spanish conquistadors before retreating deep into the Amazon jungle. The town's Museo CATCCO hosts artisan workshops and ethnographic exhibits on kaleidoscopic highland festivals.

The fertile Inca agricultural terraces of Moray and salt pans of Salinas are a short taxi ride from Urubamba, the valley's hub for adventure sports. Outfitters can arrange rides on graceful Peruvian paso horses, hot-air-balloon flights and paragliding over the Andes or guided hikes, bird-watching trips and river-rafting adventures.

The markets of Pisac and Chinchero attract hundreds of foreign visitors and Peruvian villagers alike. Pisac's Sunday market is filled with tour buses and locals in traditional dress, while the town's clay-oven bakeries are famous for their castillos de cuyes (miniature guinea pig castles). The ruins of Pisac's Inca citadel, with ceremonial baths and honeycomb tombs, is perched above the dizzying Rio Kitamayo gorge. The hamlet of Chinchero has a less frenzied Sunday market, but also an exquisite colonial church and a local archaeology museum.

Inca fortress

The valley's most famous site, Saqsaywaman, is a challenging uphill walk from Cuzco's Plaza de Armas along a winding Inca road. The imposing fort is known not only for its zigzag fortifications, but also for the grand pageantry of the Inti Raymi festival, an Inca winter solstice celebration, held every June 24.

Wherever you spend an extra day or two en route to Machu Picchu, you won't regret it. Little-known ancient ruins, colonial treasures and vibrant Andean villages await.

If you go


Places to stay: Uphill from Cuzco's Plaza de Armas, Hostal Rumi Punku (www.rumipunku.com, 011-51-84-22-1102, doubles from $40) has authentic Inca stonework, a rooftop terrace and a Finnish sauna. The 99-room Novotel Cusco (www.novotel.com, 011-51-84-58-1030, doubles from $130) inhabits an elegant colonial courtyard, where each of the historic wing's rooms are unique. Next to the Qorikancha ruins, Hotel Libertador Palacio del Inka (www.libertador.com.pe, 011-51-84-23-1961, doubles from $190) is an opulent mansion -- Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro once slept here -- set upon rock-solid Inca foundations.

Places to eat: Cuzco's cobblestone streets are full of inviting eateries. In a garden courtyard with a crackling fire pit, Pachapapa (Plaza San Blas 120) serves classic Peruvian dishes, from Cuzquenan lamb stew to roasted wild trout with quinoa pancakes, plus fruity pisco (Peruvian brandy) cocktails. Inka Panaka (Tandapata 140) nearby is the place for nouveau Andean cooking. The more casual Inkafe Cafe (Choquechaca 140) specializes in regional fare, including hard-to-find highland desserts. The sophisticated restaurant Map Cafe, in the courtyard of the Museo de Arte Precolombino, serves such eclectic gourmet delights as guinea pig confit and alpaca steaks.

Ancient Peruvian metallurgy studied

Published by ScienceDaily.com

EDMONTON, Alberta, April 19 (UPI) -- A Canadian-led study has reported the first scientific evidence that ancient Peruvian civilizations in the central Andes Mountains smelted metals.

The study by the University of Alberta's Colin Cooke and colleagues also determined that a tax imposed on local people by ancient Inca rulers might have forced a switch from production of copper to silver.

The researchers said prior evidence of metal smelting was limited mainly to the existence of metal artifacts dating to about 1,000 A.D. and the Wari Empire that preceded the Incas. The new evidence emerged from a study of metallurgical air pollutants released from ancient furnaces during the smelting process and deposited in lake sediments.

By analyzing metals in the sediments, the researchers recreated a 1,000-year history of metal smelting in the area, predating Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors by 600 years.

The findings suggest smelters in the Morococha region of Peru switched from producing copper to silver about the time Inca rulers imposed a tax, payable in silver, on local populations.

The study is scheduled for the May 15 issue of the American Chemical Society's semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

New Archaeological Findings On Political Power In Peru

Source: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Date: March 25, 2007

Published by Science Daily — A team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the University of Almería has completed its second part of the "Proyecto La Puntilla", an archaeological expedition to the Peruvian province of Nazca, where last year it discovered a new type of construction. The latest findings show that a new political power based on the exercise of violence emerged on the south coast of Peru two thousand years ago. There was a State in which an aristocracy, based in Cahuachi, exercised its dominion on other, poorer communities in the Nazca Valley. The team has also observed practices such as cranial deformation.

The excavations at the necropolis of El Trigal have uncovered new information on the repercussions of the emergence of the State in southern Peru. The archaeologists have found that El Trigal graves are very simple, in contrast with the extravagant tombs of the aristocracy around Nazca.

The situation shows the poverty that existed among the community in El Tribal. The dominant group in the State of Cahuachi imposed the transfer of wealth through taxes and other means. This explains the poverty of those living in the area of La Puntilla.

A settlement was established in El Trigal about 3000 years ago. Several centuries later, this had become an economically strong community with a vast network of relations with other territories. This hypothesis is backed up by the presence of valuable Spondylus shells (probably from the distant coasts of what today we know as Ecuador), obsidian (from the mountains), and craft tools, such as the boat decorated with the style known as Ocucaje 8 (possibly manual workers in the north).

However, the necropolis excavated in El Trigal, dated as being from the first century AD, represents a later period of decline and pauperisation in the community, coinciding with the emergence of Cahuachi.

This data confirms that 1900 years ago a State existed in the Nazca Valley based in the monumental settlements of Cahuachi, where pyramids were built. Those governing Cahuachi belonged to one of the groups who shared control over the south coast of Peru, such as the aristocratic group described in the Paracas necropolis (near Pisco), in the same area.

The dominant class in Cahuachi controlled the communities in the Nazca Valley using violence, forcing the communities to economically sustain the group in power. Between those communities were those that occupied the area known as La Puntilla, to the east of Nazca, where the research team has been excavating for the past two years.

Cranial deformation

One of the key findings at the necropolis was that some of the bodies found in the tombs have undergone certain manipulations. One such manipulation was cranial deformation in order to obtain an "elongated skull", and this has been observed in one of the corpses.

This practice took place during childhood by using wooden objects to put pressure on the skull. "Elongated skulls" are characteristic of the aristocracy buried in the tombs in Paracas, and a number of studies suggest that this treatment was a way of distinguishing dominant groups. This is why it is so significant that this characteristic has been found in an individual buried at the necropolis of a poor community in the Nazca Valley.

This discovery opens up a series of other questions: Is this the member of a family belonging to the dominant group? Or is the practice unrelated to a person's affiliation with a group? Was it a way of identifying individuals who took part in specific activities (for example, shamanism)?

In another tomb, another interesting case has been found. Alongside the corpse of a woman, they have found the legs and feet of another individual. We know that decapitation and dismemberment were frequent among the first states of the region, so we cannot discard the possibility that this was an intentional act.

The fieldwork in this second part of the "Proyecto La Puntilla" ended in December, and the material and human remains uncovered are now being studied. The research will be amplified through a programme to analyse the DNA in order to find evidence on the affiliation of those individuals buried at the necropolis.

The "Proyecto La Puntilla" is funded by the General Directorate for Fine Arts and Cultural Assets of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and by the Catalan Department of Education and Universities. The project is also recognised by the National Institute for Culture of Peru. The research team consists of archaeologists and students from Spain, Peru, Chile, Argentina, France and Italy.

New Understanding Of Human Sacrifice In Early Peru

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals
Date: August 26, 2005

Published by Science Daily — A study published in the August/October issue of CurrentAnthropology, reports on new archaeological evidence regarding theidentities of human sacrifice victims of the Moche society of Peru.

The Moche was a complex society whose influence extended over mostof the North coast of Peru between AD 200 and 650. They are widelyknown for their life-like mold-made ceramics, beautiful metallurgy, mudbrick pyramids, and iconographic depictions of one-on-one combatbetween Moche warriors. In recent years archaeologists had uncoveredevidence of the sacrifice of adult males at a number of Moche pyramids.What has remained unclear until now is who these sacrificial victimswere. Largely due to the nature of iconographic depictions of Mochecombat most scholars have speculated that the sacrifices were largelyrituals among local Moche elites, the primary goal of which was toprovide human victims for sacrificial ceremonies.

However, this newly published study by Richard Sutter and Rosa Cortezcompares genetically influenced tooth cusp and root traits for theMoche sacrificial victims from a pyramid at the Moche capital withthose of other North Coast populations. The findings of thisarchaeological comparison indicate that the sacrificial victims werenot local Moche elite. Instead they were likely warriors captured fromnearby valleys. When this result is considered in light of otherarchaeological and skeletal lines of evidence it suggests that theMoche populations in each valley were characterized by territorialconflict and competition with one another.

Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research,Current Anthropology is a transnational journal devoted to research onhumankind, encompassing the full range of anthropological scholarshipon human cultures and on the human and other primate species.Communicating across the subfields, the journal features papers in awide variety of areas, including social, cultural, and physicalanthropology as well as ethnology and ethnohistory, archaeology andprehistory, folklore, and linguistics. For more information, please seeour website: www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA

"The Origins and Role of the Moche (AD 1-750) Human SacrificialVictims: A Bio-Archaeological Perspective." Richard Sutter and RosaCortez. Current Anthropology 46:4.