“Sowing” Children in Arid Lands Irrigated with Artificial Hydraulic Canals in the Moche Valley, 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.

The discovery of hundreds of sacrificed children in the North Coast of Peru, has opened new opportunities to study ritual violence in ancient societies. Current studies have identified that mass sacrificial events were performed at moments of sociopolitical and economic instability due to climatic anomalies such as ENSO events. More recently, it has been suggested that child sacrifice was performed as part of a sanctioned violence program executed to exert sociopolitical control by the Chimu elites. In 2022, excavations in a new sector at Pampa la Cruz, Huanchaco, uncovered a set of 48 sacrificed children buried in direct association with artificial irrigation canals and agricultural fields built by the Chimu state. In this paper, it is suggested that child sacrifice could have played a symbolic role to “energize” the fields and crops by pouring young blood on the newly artificially irrigated lands. In addition, the discovery of Spondylus shells and miniatures of silver artifacts in association with the sacrificed children, indicate more sophisticated sacrificial ceremonies in order to increase crop production. Parallels with Inca cosmology is employed to establish the ideological principles of such sacrifices and the role played by children in Chimu economy.

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): 38159.0