Investigating a child sacrifice event from the Inca heartland |
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| Authors: | Valerie A Andrushko Michele R Buzon Arminda M Gibaja Gordon F McEwan Antonio Simonetti Robert A Creaser |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Anthropology, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent Street, New Haven, CT 06515, USA;2. Department of Anthropology, Purdue University, 700 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA;3. Instituto Nacional de Cultura-Cusco, Calle San Bernardo S/N, Cusco Peru;4. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Wagner College, One Campus Road, Staten Island, NY 10301, USA;5. Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA;6. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada;1. University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA;2. PI of the 2014/14/M/HS3/00865 research project and head of the research group that prepared this article, Institute of Archaeology, Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, Poland;3. University of Warsaw, Poland;4. Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Peru;1. Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL, 32803-1631, United States;2. Anthropology Department, 12th and Lewis Streets, Laramie, WY, 82071, United States;3. Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Robinson Hall B Room 305, 4400 University Dr., Mailcode 3G5, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, United States |
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| 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. |
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