Nonsacrificial violence at the Huacas de Moche, north coastal Peru

Abstract

The analysis of traumatic injuries provides bioarchaeologists with unique insight into patterns of violence among past human societies. This analysis explores antemortem and perimortem skeletal trauma and what it suggests about the experiences of violence among the Moche of north coastal Peru (A.D. 200-900). Violence among the Moche has been well documented, both by the Moche themselves in their iconographic communications and through the analysis of the skeletal remains of those they sacrificed. These sources provided us with an incomplete view. What has not been studied are the patterns of traumatic injury that affect those who were not among the sacrificed and what these patterns can tell us about the risk of violence among other Moche dead. To this end, the skeletal remains of 96 individuals interred in the Huacas de Moche site were examined. Excavations at this paramount urban centre have recovered remains from tombs located in two distinct contexts, Huaca de la Luna and the urban sector. Given the material investment made into the construction of Huaca de la Luna and its ritual importance particularly as a space where violence was enacted and memorialized, it is hypothesized that those buried within its precincts would have different lived experiences of skeletal trauma than those buried throughout the urban sector. This work finds that although both groups experienced very little accidental trauma, individuals buried in Huaca de la Luna experienced significantly more trauma resulting from interpersonal violence than did those interred in the urban sector. This may suggest that variation in risk of violence was among the biosocial distinctions that defined these groups.

Toward a bioarchaeology of urbanization: Demography, health, and behavior in cities in the past

“…Social status may also impact patterns of traumatic injuries. Gagnon and Castillo (2020) compare patterns of antemortem and perimortem violence between burials in a ritual space and burials in a community cemetery at a Moche site in Peru (200–900 CE). More individuals buried in the ritual space had signs of interpersonal violence, most of which was well healed, suggesting that variation in lived experiences of ritual violence are reflected in the spatial distribution of burials at the site.…”