Pictures: Mass Grave of Children, Llamas Found in Dune

Offering to the Ocean?
Photograph by Mariana Bazo, Reuters
Seen earlier this month, archaeologist Oscar Gabriel Prieto kneels by the 800-year-old skeleton of a child recently unearthed near a fishing village in Peru. The skeleton was among the bones of 42 children discovered in a shallow grave on a sand dune near the town of Huanchaquito.
Alongside the children were 76 skeletons of camelids—most likely llamas but possibly alpacas—perhaps intended to transport the victims to the afterlife, researchers say.
Prieto's team suspects the children were killed as part of a religious ceremony by the Chimú culture. Famed for irrigation advances, the Chimú occupied the northern and central coasts of Peru from about A.D. 1100 to 1500, when the culture was conquered by its neighbors, the Inca.
The newfound mass grave is just over half a mile (a kilometer) from the ancient Chimú capital of Chan Chan.
"That's what makes this so interesting. Up to this point, all the Chimú ritual sacrifices and ceremonies in this area were made within Chan Chan," said Prieto, an archeology graduate student at Yale University.
"Now it's clear that they were using the landscape" in their rituals as well. The team thinks the children and animals may have been sacrificed as part of a fertility ritual associated with the ocean.
"In the north coast of Peru, the ocean is very closely tied to agriculture," Prieto said, "because the temperature of the water can determine whether there will be rain or not."
(Also see "Ancient Tomb Found in Mexico Reveals Mass Child Sacrifice.")
—Ker Than
Published September 26, 2011
Child Sacrifice
Photograph by Mariana Bazo, Reuters
Hair still covers the skull of a Chimú child who may have been sacrificed more than 800 years ago as part of a fertility ritual tied to the sea.
Clothing was also preserved on the 42 sacrificed children, allowing the victims to be identified as Chimú. "The techniques used to weave those textiles are clearly Chimú patterns," Prieto said.
Based on the roughly one dozen child skeletons that have been examined so far, the team thinks each child was killed with a strong slash across the chest by a hatchet or other blade. The victims' broken rib cages suggest an executioner pried them open for removal of the hearts, likely to be offered as the most spiritually valuable part of the person (interactive heart).
The cavity, though, wasn't empty for long. "We found a number of burned pieces of cloth in the area of the heart," Prieto said—a mysterious practice that neither he nor anthropologist William Isbell of New York's Binghamton University, who was not involved in the discovery, had ever seen before.
(Related: "'Chilling' Child Sacrifices Found at Prehistoric Site.")
Published September 26, 2011
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Photograph by Mariana Bazo, Reuters
Archaeologists brush sand away from the remains of 42 children and 74 llamas or alpacas sacrificed as part of a religious ceremony more than 800 years ago in what's now Peru.
The ages of the children ranged from about 6 to 18, although most of them were in their early teens, Prieto said.
It's still unclear what sex each child was or what social class the children came from. DNA and bone analysis could help answer these questions in the future, the team says.
(Related: "Inca Sacrifice Victims 'Fattened Up' Before Death.")
Published September 26, 2011
Working Animal
Photograph by Mariana Bazo, Reuters
The remains of a sacrificed child and animal are partially concealed in the shallow grave where they were buried more than 800 years ago as part of a ritual sacrifice in Peru. Most likely a llama, the animal may be an alpaca, though Prieto said more tests would be needed to be sure.
In many ancient Andean cultures, llamas were believed to transport the souls of the dead to the afterlife, so it's not surprising that the animals would be killed alongside the children, Prieto said. However, it's unclear why there were nearly twice as many animals sacrificed as humans.
(Photos: Mummy Bundles, Child Sacrifices Found on Pyramid.)
Published September 26, 2011
Bone Density
Photograph by Mariana Bazo, Reuters
An archaeologist prepares the bones of a llama or alpaca found at the 800-year-old Chimú grave site for cataloging. Prieto and his team were excavating a nearby Chimú site when a local villager suggested they investigate some human skulls that had been found in a sand dune.
"He said, 'Trust me, trust me. You have to come,'" Prieto recalled. At the site, the team quickly uncovered about six children's skeletons, and upon further investigation discovered many more.
Binghamton's Isbell said he would like to see more evidence to corroborate the theory that the victims were Chimú, but that there seems to be little doubt that the humans and animals were killed as part of some religious ritual.
"If the sternum is cut and the ribs are pried apart and textile is wadded up inside the rib cage, that's pretty indicative" of a sacrifice, Isbell said. (Explore an interactive human body.)
Isbell said he would be also interested to know the sex of the children, since the Inca—the Chimú's neighbors and enemies—were known to sacrifice mainly females and sometimes girls and women belonging to a special nunlike class who were raised as offerings.
(Related: "Inca 'Skull Surgeons' Were Highly Skilled."
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Published September 26, 2011
Stripped of Rights
Photograph by Mariana Bazo, Reuters
Wooden statuettes showing a prisoner being escorted by Chimú warriors are exhibited in the Museum of Huaca de La Luna in Trujillo, Peru.
The Chimú were known to completely strip war captives—usually young men—of their weapons and regalia before sacrificing the prisoners, Binghamton University's Isbell said.
But the skeletons at Huanchaquito do not appear to be from this type of sacrifice, Isbell added.
"This is not the kind of sacrifice indicated by the discovery," he said. For one thing, the Chimú didn't typically take children as war captives. For another, Chimú war prisoners are usually found with their hearts intact.
More: Human Sacrifice Chamber Found in Peru (Pictures) >>
Published September 26, 2011