Proteomic Sex Estimation of a Gendered Sacrificial Context in Pampa la Cruz, North Coast of Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ritual Violence and Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes: New Directions in the Field" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Protocols of ritual violence result from an interplay of political structures with multiple social factors, including roles of gender and age. These patterns often manifest as a biological sex-bias in sacrificial bioarchaeological contexts. In the Chimu Pampala Cruz site (AD 1050–1520), 86 individuals were interred surrounding three high-status nonadult individuals with ages ranging from 6 to 15 years old. One of the high-status individuals had highly preserved male gendered clothing. A full analysis of the context requires accurate sex assignment of the individuals, both high-status and associated sacrificed nonadults, that could test the alignment of sex and gender as well as any sex bias among associated nonadult sacrificial victims. Anatomical markers are ambiguous for this age and not informative. Proteomic sex estimation was therefore attempted to resolve the biological sex of the high-status individuals and quantify sex-bias among the associated sacrificial victims. Proteomic sex estimation of the male gendered individual was male biological sex, confirming cisgender, due to unambiguous detection of the biomarker peptides from the Y-chromosome form of amelogenin. Extension of proteomic sex estimation to other individuals will highlight other relevant factors such as sex bias among associate sacrificial nonadult victims.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ritual Violence and Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes: New Directions in the Field   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37963.0