ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
Archaeological, radiological, and biological evidence offer insight into Inca child sacrifice.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pilgrimage to sacrifice: Mechanisms, causes, and time of death of the Western Andean Capacocha of the Southern Tawantinsuyu.Science advances · 2026Article
- Stable isotope evidence for the participation of commoners in Inka khipu production.Science advances · 2025Article
- Fermented beverages in prehispanic Chile: a comprehensive review of their phytochemistry, traditional medicinal uses, bioactivity, and social aspects.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Review
- Direct evidence of the use of multiple drugs in Bronze Age Menorca (Western Mediterranean) from human hair analysis.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Inferring Cultural Landscapes with the Inverse Ising Model.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Limited Response of Indigenous Microbes to Water and Nutrient Pulses in High-Elevation Atacama Soils: Implications for the Cold-Dry Limits of Life on Earth.Microorganisms · 2020Article
- Article
- Ancient medicinal plants of South America.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- A mass sacrifice of children and camelids at the Huanchaquito-Las Llamas site, Moche Valley, Peru.PloS one · 2019Article
- Article
- Evidence of neurofibromatosis type 1 in a multi-morbid Inca child mummy: A paleoradiological investigation using computed tomography.PloS one · 2017Article
- Growth of high-elevation Cryptococcus sp. during extreme freeze-thaw cycles.Extremophiles : life under extreme conditions · 2016Article
- The complete mitogenome of a 500-year-old Inca child mummy.Scientific reports · 2015Article
- Tracing the dynamic life story of a Bronze Age Female.Scientific reports · 2015Article
- Frozen Mummies from Andean Mountaintop Shrines: Bioarchaeology and Ethnohistory of Inca Human Sacrifice.BioMed research international · 2015Review
- Invasive versus Non Invasive Methods Applied to Mummy Research: Will This Controversy Ever Be Solved?BioMed research international · 2015Review
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Abstract
Examination of three frozen bodies, a 13-y-old girl and a girl and boy aged 4 to 5 y, separately entombed near the Andean summit of Volcán Llullaillaco, Argentina, sheds new light on human sacrifice as a central part of the Imperial Inca capacocha rite, described by chroniclers writing after the Spanish conquest. The high-resolution diachronic data presented here, obtained directly from scalp hair, implies escalating coca and alcohol ingestion in the lead-up to death. These data, combined with archaeological and radiological evidence, deepen our understanding of the circumstances and context of final placement on the mountain top. We argue that the individuals were treated differently according to their age, status, and ritual role. Finally, we relate our findings to questions of consent, coercion, and/or compliance, and the controversial issues of ideological justification and strategies of social control and political legitimation pursued by the expansionist Inca state before European contact.
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