Jul

26

A mass sacrifice of children and camelids at the Huanchaquito-Las Llamas site, Moche Valley, Peru

Here we report the results of excavation and interdisciplinary study of the largest child and camelid sacrifice known from the New World. Stratigraphy, associated artifacts, and radiocarbon dating indicate that it was a single mass killing of more than 140 children and over 200 camelids directed by the Chimú state, c. AD 1450. Preliminary DNA analysis indicates that both boys and girls were chosen for sacrifice. Variability in forms of cranial modification (head shaping) and stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen suggest that the children were a heterogeneous sample drawn from multiple regions and ethnic groups throughout the Chimú state. The Huanchaquito-Las Llamas mass sacrifice opens a new window on a previously unknown sacrificial ritual from fifteenth century northern coastal Peru. While the motivation for such a massive sacrifice is a subject for further research, there is archaeological evidence that it was associated with a climatic event (heavy rainfall and flooding) that could have impacted the economic, political and ideological stability of one of the most powerful states in the New World during the fifteenth century A.D.

Laurel Kenner comments:

In Lessons from History, the Durants write that Peru was a happy socialist state until the arrival of the conquistadors in the 16C.

Bo Keely reports:

Iquitos, Peru at the headwaters of the Amazon Rio is the only of two places I've lived in the past 20 years. The other is here in Slab City. I had a trip planned to Peru this month but got a desert skin infection that the jungle would have ravaged. As such, i've lived in the Peruvian Amazon a half-dozen times for months at a stint, all in the jungle hiking and hitchhiking banana boats. The proposed postponed trip was to hitch the rios again doing magic tricks for the natives in putting together a photo-essay. The Peruvian Amazon is my haunt because the people operate very low on the brainstem. Cannibalism and malaria make them perhaps the greatest evolved and toughest humans on the planet. Put succinctly, if one is invited to dinner make sure the host isn't licking his chops. I'll go back, and escape again with magic.

Asindu Drileba is concerned:

Put succinctly, if one is invited to dinner make sure the host isn't licking his chops. I'll go back, and escape again with magic.

You have unlocked a whole new level to what I consider a set of risks people take. Please don't do that again.


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