All the children’s remains show clean, horizontal cuts across the sternum, evidence of heart extraction from the body.
Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of 76 sacrificial children at Pampa La Cruz, near the city of Huanchaco, Peru, as reported by Live Science on October 7. All the remains exhibit clean, horizontal cuts across the sternum, suggesting that ancient people may have opened the chest cavity to extract the hearts, according to Gabriel Prieto, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, who directed the excavation at Pampa La Cruz.
“The children were buried with their feet facing east on top of an artificial mound. We are uncertain why the sacrificial victims were interred in this position,” Prieto stated.
Scientists have conducted numerous excavations at Pampa La Cruz over the past few years. To date, they have discovered 323 child sacrificial victims at this site. Additionally, they found 3 adults and 137 other sacrificial children in the nearby Las Llamas area. The hearts of these children’s remains were also extracted.
76 sacrificial children’s remains found in Peru. (Photo: Huanchaco Archaeological Program).
There may be many more sacrificial children’s remains yet to be discovered near Huanchaco, Prieto noted. He speculated that the number of victims could exceed 1,000.
The team of experts needs to conduct carbon dating on the 76 newly discovered remains. However, previous findings at Pampa La Cruz indicate that the victims lived around the years 1100 – 1200. During this period, Chimu culture thrived in the region.
Inside the 60 x 20 m mound, researchers also found silver and copper squares that may have been sewn into the children’s clothing, along with ear decorations and Spondylus shells. The Spondylus shells “were more valuable than gold to these people,” Gabriel Prieto stated. They could only be found further north, in the territory of Lambayeque, a civilization known for its skilled metalworkers.
The presence of the shells is the first clue linking this burial mound to Lambayeque. Based on further analysis of 76 other victims found in 2022 at the same site, researchers determined that all victims exhibited cranial deformation, where the pliable skulls of infants were elongated using boards or head wraps. This practice was performed by the Chimus, but to a lesser degree of deformation. The higher intensity of cranial deformation suggests that the victims may have originated from Lambayeque.
The children and their families may have been conquered by the Chimus and brought to Pampa La Cruz to construct their irrigation system. The Chimus expanded their agricultural activities into areas that were not naturally fertile, requiring complex irrigation systems to cultivate food in the Pampa La Cruz region. After these irrigation canals were completed, the children may have been sacrificed.
The reason for the Chimu’s large-scale child sacrifices at Pampa La Cruz remains unclear. However, as the Chimus also built an artificial irrigation system and new agricultural fields nearby, some victims might have been sacrificed to “sanctify” this agricultural system, according to Prieto.
Inhabitants living in Huanchaco during the first millennium also practiced human sacrifice. This suggests that the Chimus may have continued a long-standing tradition in the region, according to Richard Sutter, a professor of anthropology at Purdue University Fort Wayne and a member of the archaeological team working in Huanchaco.
Scholars have also documented other instances of child sacrifice in the Andean region, but what is notable about Pampa La Cruz is the scale of the sacrifices, remarked Peter Eeckhout, a professor of archaeology and pre-Columbian art at the Free University of Brussels.
“This is a remarkable site with the potential to help us better understand what occurred in ancient times. I believe the reasons for the sacrifices may be related to cultural responses to environmental changes, such as phenomena like El Niño,” biocultural archaeologist Catherine Gaither stated.
