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This episode was suggested by my mom. If you'd like to suggest a topic, you can do so at Facebook and Instagram at morbid curiosity podcast, on Twitter at morbid podcast, and on our website, www.morbidcuriositypodcast.com. This episode contains discussions of ritual violence and the deaths of young children and adults. If that's not something you want to hear about, this may be a good episode to skip.
Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved. Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is Hallie, and this is the Morbid Curiosity podcast.
Most people have heard of the Inca culture, made famous by their high-altitude civilization in the Andes Mountains of Peru. What people don't often realize is that the Inca were the last of many Andean civilizations that existed before European contact. These cultures occupied both the highlands and coastal areas of what is now Peru. They were all unique in their style and traditions, but there were several key features that permeated the various cultures.
Irrigation and farming, metallurgy, textile production, and human sacrifice. Many cultures around the world sacrificed humans, and sometimes children, to their gods for a multitude of reasons. It was quite prevalent among the ancient societies of Meso and South America. The Inca are well-known for their Kapakocha sacrifices, where a child was ritually killed high up in the Andes Mountains after months, possibly years, of preparation.
It's these specially chosen children that have been found mummified by the dry, cold conditions of the mountains. You can hear more about these ice mummies by listening to the MCP's Ice Mummies of Peru episode. In this episode, we're going to focus on the child sacrifice traditions of cultures that occupied the coastal regions of Peru, namely the Chimu civilization. Before we delve into the topic of child sacrifice, however, some context about the area and the Chimu is needed.
Coastal Peru is a desert coast. However, the many rivers running down from the Andes Mountains carved fertile valleys into the sandy soil, which are flat and well-suited to irrigation. Agriculture and fishing were staples of human life in the area, so societies developed in these valleys and along the coast. One of the earliest cultures to occupy coastal Peru was the Karazupay civilization, which emerged around 3500 BCE and faded around 1800 BCE.
Another was the Chavin culture, which arose around 900 BCE and persisted until 200 BCE, spreading from the highlands down to the coast. Religion, metallurgy, textiles from llama and alpaca wool, and agricultural irrigation developed and intensified during Chavin occupation. The culture that rose after the Chavin were the Nazca, who are famous for the enigmatic and gargantuan earthworks they left in the Nazca desert. The Nazca arose around 100 BCE on the southern coast of Peru.
Around the same time, the Moche culture developed on the northern coast. The Moche were a collection of culturally united but politically autonomous polities, or city-states, that inhabited the Moche Valley and neighboring valleys. Two of their most famous monuments are the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna, translated as the Temple of the Sun and the Moon. Huaca means sacred place and is a term used for many types of sacred ancient Andean places.
For the Moche, a Huaca was a raised platform with a complex of buildings and courtyards on it. Between these two Huacas, a mass grave was found containing 40 men between 15 and 30 years old. Their corpses had been deliberately mutilated. The Moche practiced many complex rituals, which included human sacrifice, dismemberment and disarticulation of the victims, and exposure of their corpses.
These practices have been confirmed as human sacrifice rituals thanks to the iconography on many painted pottery vessels and the mass graves of their victims. I'll go into detail on how to identify human sacrifice in the archaeological record in a moment. The Moche also excelled at agricultural irrigation, textile production, and pottery. The culture faded around 700 CE.
From the ruins of the Moche, the Chimu culture, also called the Chimu civilization, arose in about 900 CE. The Chimu empire was a conglomeration of different cultures from surrounding valleys that made up what modern archaeologists would call a kingdom. Some of the cultures joined willingly, others were conquered. The Chimu empire was the largest kingdom in the late intermediate period of Peru, encompassing around 1,000 kilometers or 620 miles of coastline.
Their capital city was Chan Chan, which sits just west of modern Trujillo, around 550 kilometers northwest of Lima. The archaeological ruins of Chan Chan suggest the Chimu had a very blunt social hierarchy. It appears there were four levels of society, with the king and his family ruling from within walled complexes called ciudadelas. The next level down was the bureaucracy, then artisans.
The lowest level was made up of the people who actually did all the intensive work, such as farmers, fishermen, and laborers. The last structure built in each ciudadela was a burial platform where the ruler and their family were buried. After their death, the ruler's ciudadela became their mausoleum. Everyone moved out and the complex was closed off to all but their closest kin, who maintained the structure inside.
The next king had to build their own ciudadela with their own funds. This type of inheritance is called split inheritance. A large bureaucracy existed due to the control of information, such as religious and administration officials. These elites also handled the organization, storage, and distribution of food and other goods to the rest of society.
They lived in the ciudadela with the royals. The majority of ciudadela citizens were artisans, which lived in groups according to their profession. Both men and women were artisans and were not allowed to change professions once they were born into them. Regular citizens lived outside the ciudadela walls.
Organized by the administrators, large workforces built irrigation canals and farmed the fertile river valleys. Hydraulics were created to keep the valleys damp enough for crops. Walk-in wells and reservoirs were built to store water in case of drought. The intensive farming and hydraulic work joined all the valleys occupied by the Chimu together to form a complex empire.
Around 1,000 CE, a change in normal ocean and weather conditions called El Niño occurred, reducing the availability of marine resources and the agricultural conditions due to heavy rains. Many of the irrigation canals were destroyed, forcing the Chimu to develop long-distance trade with people further inland and expand their agricultural works. This isn't the only time El Niño had a massive impact on the Chimu, and it will be important later in this episode. The origin of the name El Niño dates to the 1800s, when fishermen on the Pacific coast of South America noticed that a warmer-than-usual ocean current appeared every few years.
The number of fish dropped drastically, negatively affecting the food supply and livelihood of the communities of coastal Peru. Fishing was much better in the years of La Niña, when the cold water from the deep ocean rose, a phenomenon called upwelling, bringing with it rich nutrients that attracted more fish to the coast of Peru. El Niño usually occurred around Christmas time, so they named it El Niño, which means the boy in Spanish, in reference to the birth of Christ. Scientists call this phenomenon the El Niño Southern Oscillation Cycle.
Both El Niño and La Niña have global impacts on weather, ecosystems, and economies. The interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere alters weather around the world and can result in severe storms, drought, or flooding, causing a lack of fish and famine. These changes often have secondary impacts, such as political and social strife, as communities struggle to survive on limited resources. Episodes of El Niño and La Niña typically occur every 2 to 7 years, but not on a regular schedule.
They generally last 9 to 12 months, but can sometimes last for years. One can imagine the social impact if food supplies were depleted for years due to an unusually long El Niño event. The Chimu were one of the largest unified states in South America at the time, superseded only by the Inca, who conquered them after a long struggle in 1470 CE. We know some things about the Chimu thanks to the Inca, who described them to the Spanish conquistadors, who in turn conquered the Inca only 50 years after the Inca conquered the Chimu.
While it seems extreme and abhorrent to modern society, human and animal sacrifice was a common practice throughout ancient Andean civilization. In general, sacrifice of some sort is a major component of many religions. The word sacrifice comes from Latin, from a combination of the word sacer, meaning sacred, and facere, to make, together, to make sacred. A sacrifice is something If you like this podcast, why not sponsor the MCP by becoming a patron on Patreon?
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And now, back to the podcast. Before we can talk about the mass grave sites, it's important to know how archaeologists identify ritual sacrifice in human remains. There are subtle differences that separate a religious ritual sacrifice from a mass execution. Lots of technology is involved with identifying the victims and learning about their lives, which gives hints about why they were chosen as sacrifices.
A key feature of identifying ritual sacrifice in human remains is repetition. Ritual is a recurrent pattern of behavior that stands outside normal daily procedure. A violent human or animal death that is repeated, for example, found in multiple layers of an archaeological site or associated with a specific type of architecture or feature, is likely a ritual sacrifice. Similarly, the mode of death will likely be repeated because it's part of a larger ritual that would have a right and wrong way to proceed.
Cut marks to specific locations on multiple victims are a good example of this. Human remains all dispatched in the same way is indicative of ritual sacrifice. There may also be specific paraphernalia associated with the body, such as a uniform or perhaps a specific type of jewelry or grave goods that are only found in that context. There will also be repetition in the choice of victim.
Usually only a certain age or sex group will be represented in a sacrificial assemblage. Only young women or only young male warriors, or perhaps a person and a specific animal, such as a llama. Many times the targeted group may not be identifiable by bones alone. DNA testing or stable isotope analysis might be needed to discover why the victim was chosen.
I'll talk more about this in a moment. Other things bones might be able to reveal are the health of the victim and any injuries they might have had. This could potentially reveal social status or occupation. There's a combination of other things to look for when identifying a human sacrifice in archaeology.
Post-mortem treatment of the corpse can be very revealing. Every culture treats their dead a certain way, for example, by burying them in a cemetery. Sacrificial victims are rarely given the same treatment after death as a regular deceased human. While regular corpses might be wrapped in a shroud and buried, sacrificial victims might be left exposed to the air or have specific body parts removed before the bodies are disposed of.
Surface cracking, bone bleaching, and the presence of fly larvae would indicate exposure. Similarly, the location a sacrificial victim is deposited is not likely to be in a regular cemetery context. It might be found in an architectural structure, a central location with wide open space around it for an audience, or perhaps an isolated, secretive location. Another thing that gives major support to a hypothesized ritual sacrifice victim is existing iconography of the sacrifice being performed within the greater culture.
For example, the Moche decorated a variety of their pottery vessels with scenes of a human sacrifice being performed. These vessels were found all over the geographic locations that they occupied. Technology is needed to work out other evidence that supports human sacrifice. Analysis of pollen remains in the soil can determine if the bodies were deposited at the same time every year.
Soil texture and composition can tell us about the weather at the time the body was deposited. DNA can determine if victims are related to one another, were a specific sex, or a certain ancestral descent. Stable isotope analysis can determine the geographic location the victim came from. For example, if they were local or from further afield, perhaps an area that was conquered by the sacrificing culture or from a place sacred to them.
It could also reveal the victim's diet, which could give suggestions as to the victim's social status, as high-quality food would have been reserved for the elite class. A change in diet right before their death could also indicate that they were fed a special diet in preparation for their sacrifice, as was the case with the Capacocha child sacrifices. CT scans and X-rays can reveal internal injuries that would otherwise be invisible to osteologists. Radiocarbon dating of organic materials can determine chronological age.
Related scientific fields can add still more details that support or detract from a hypothesized case of human sacrifice. Meteorologists, geologists, and oceanographers might be able to determine if the climate or weather changed suddenly, which would affect agriculture and in turn society. Historians may have access to written sources that mention sacrificial practices of the people in the area. This was the case with the Inca, whose Capacocha practices were documented by the conquistadors.
The two Chimu sites of human sacrifice I'm about to discuss were a complete surprise to archaeologists. Unlike the Inca and Moche, there wasn't a lot of iconography representing human sacrifice for the Chimu. There are murals in Chan Chan that seem to represent human sacrifice, but there wasn't enough evidence in the archaeology to say that it was something they did regularly. The two sites are in close proximity to one another.
One is in Huanchaco, a city northwest of the seaside resort town of Trujillo. The other site, which is much smaller and was also discovered first, is in Huanchacito, which means Little Huanchaco, and is in an area of Huanchaco. The ancient site of Chan Chan is around a mile away from both sites. Huanchaco functioned as a port for Chan Chan, but it was also occupied by the Moche and Inca.
The first discovery occurred in 2011. People in the area of Huanchacito, which is locally known as Las Lamas, noticed human bones poking out of an eroding sand dune about 1,000 feet from the ocean. Archaeologist and Huanchaco local, Gabriel Prieto, was working on another site in the area and was alerted. He quickly noticed that the bones belonged to children and that there were a lot of them.
Large-scale excavations quickly began, with financial support from the National Geographic Society. As the archaeologists dug, more and more bodies were revealed. By the end of the excavations in 2016, the remains of 137 children between the ages of 5 and 14 had been revealed. In addition, 3 adults and over 200 llamas were also discovered.
All appeared to have been deposited at the same time, as they were all in the same layer of soil. Pollen and geological analysis showed that the layer of soil was soaked with rain at the time, which is very unusual for the area. Preserved footprints were also found in the same layer, those of children, adults, and llamas. The footprints suggested that the children had walked to their final resting place from the direction of Chan Chan, possibly in procession.
Also preserved by the arid climate and salty soil were textiles, some hair and skin, and the red cinnabar pigment that was smeared over the faces of the victims. The children's remains were arranged in groups of three, all of similar age. The bodies were placed on their back or side, with flexed legs, facing northwest toward the sea. The llamas were placed on top of or next to them, facing east toward the Andes mountains.
During paleopathological analysis, a pattern emerged. Both the children and the llamas had cut marks on their sternums or breastbones and broken or displaced ribs. The cut marks were eerily consistent, indicating a practiced hand had created them. It's been suggested that the cut marks may indicate that their hearts were removed.
Cranial modifications identified on some of the skulls suggested that some of the children came from different regions. Artificial cranial modification, or deformation, also sometimes called cradleboarding, is a process in which an infant's skull is wrapped tightly in order to force the skull to grow in a more elongated shape. This was a marker of identity, more common among the Lambayake, Yacatepec, or Chicama Valley peoples, all of whom lived further north. Isotopic analysis confirmed that the children came from diverse geographic locations.
Radiocarbon dates indicated a timeframe of about 1400 to 1450 CE, near the end of the Chimu Empire, just before the Inca conquered the area. The findings were published in National Geographic Magazine in 2018. John Verano, co-leader of excavations and a biological anthropologist at Tulane University, stated that the child sacrifice and chest mutilation had not been seen before amongst the Chimu. The research team hypothesized that it was indeed a case of human sacrifice, and because of the scale of the sacrifice and the intense rain at the time, it was likely a desperate act to try and stop a lengthy and destructive episode of El Nino by appeasing the gods.
About 1.5 kilometers away to the northwest of the Las Lamas site, but still in Huanchaco, another mass burial was unearthed in 2016. Gabriel Prieto also excavated this site, which is often called the archaeological zone of Pampa La Cruz. Excavations of two artificial mounds, probably huacas, revealed more remains of children, many with similar cuts to their sternums and broken ribs. Environmental and soil conditions enabled the preservation of textiles, which is fortunate as many of the Human sacrifice, especially that of children, was an integral part of Chimu culture and that it was unknown before in the archaeology because these sacrifices were done on mass in a single location.
John Verano stated that despite the ubiquity of human sacrifice in South and Central America among the Inca, Aztec, and Maya, there is no record or archaeological evidence of child sacrifices of this magnitude anywhere else. The Pampa la Cruz site is by far the largest mass child sacrifice site in history so far. The scale of these sacrificial events is shocking. As there was no written language in Peru at the time, we will likely never know for sure why these children were sacrificed.
The archaeologists and anthropologists who have excavated the sites have some hypotheses. The location may have been sacred. Moche sacrificial rituals were also performed at Pampa la Cruz, evidenced by 31 adult burials between 40 and 45 years old who show signs of a violent sacrificial death by a blow to the face. Both site locations face the sea, the source of much of the culture's food, as well as the legendary origin of the first Chimu king, Tikanamo.
Both sites were also close to agricultural fields and irrigation works. They could have been consecration rituals, blessing the fields, or perhaps trying to protect them. Both sites contain a layer of deposition that was very wet. This suggests the sacrifices may have had something to do with the rains caused by El Nino, likely to try and stop them in order to save the crops.
Ice cores and nearby lake bed samples give climate data consistent with this theory. During the time of the Chimu, the Hanchaco area saw a long drought and then several major El Nino episodes. The sacrifices could be due to these episodes or cultural upheaval caused by them. Whatever the reason, these were costly rituals.
In most cultures, human life is considered the most valuable offering that can be made, and a young life, the most valuable of all. Children are the future of the culture. The Chimu were sacrificing their future to save their present. As many of the children came from further afield, it's possible they were willing victims, sent by all the peoples of the Chimu state in a desperate attempt to communicate with the gods.
Willing or not, the Chimu must have felt that this was the only way to save all their people from destruction. Human sacrifice is fascinating. It's more than ritualized murder. The whole process is done with purpose and is imbued with sacred meaning.
The sacrifices are often accompanied by elaborate rituals, which can include pre- and post-mortem activities. These rituals are meant to ensure the victim is transformed into something the gods can use, consecrated, prepared for the divine. In human sacrifice, the thing sacrificed is life. The life of a few is sacrificed to save or protect the many.
The price paid was high, which means the situation must have been dire. It's these desperate times and what is done in them that spark our imaginations and unlock our morbid curiosity. The Morbid Curiosity Podcast is produced by H. Lloyd.
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