[Aztlan] MUCH MORE ON HEADLESS NAZCA MAN

Wed Jun 6 21:33:41 CDT 2007

Decapitated Man Found in Peru Tomb With Ceramic "Replacement" Head
Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News
June 6, 2007

A headless skeleton found in a Peruvian tomb is adding new wrinkles  
to the debate over human sacrifice in the ancient Andes.

The decapitated body was found in the Nasca region, named for the  
ancient civilization that thrived in southern Peru from A.D. 1 to 750.

Known for producing giant "Nasca lines" in the earth that depict  
figures only visible from the sky, the culture is also noted among  
archaeologists for practicing human sacrifice and displaying modified  
human heads called trophy heads.

But experts have been divided over whether the heads were taken from  
enemies in war or from locals offered up for ritual sacrifice.

In 2004 Christina Conlee, an archaeologist at Texas State University,  
found a rare headless skeleton in a tomb sitting cross-legged with a  
ceramic "head jar" placed to the left of the body.

The age and condition of both the body and the jar, which is painted  
with two inverted human faces, suggests that the victim was killed in  
a rite of ancestral worship, Conlee said.

"This research is important because it provides new information on  
human sacrifice in the ancient Andes and in particular on  
decapitation and trophy heads," she said.

The skeleton appears to belong to a 20- to 25-year-old male and bears  
gruesome evidence of the decapitation, including cut marks indicating  
that the bone was fresh when damaged, she added.

"Someone spent quite a bit of effort cutting off the head," mostly  
likely with a sharp obsidian knife, Conlee noted.

Ritual or War?

The burial site, called La Tiza, contains only the third known Nasca  
head jar found with a decapitated body.

Head jars have been found at other Nasca sites and are often  
associated with high-status burials, though scientists know little  
about their function.

Conlee determined that both the jar and skeleton found at La Tiza  
date to the Middle Nasca period, from A.D. 450 to 550, but the  
artifacts were found in a cemetery from the Early Nasca period, from  
A.D. 1 to 450.

This placement suggests that the killing was an act of ancestral  
worship and that the sacrifice was meant to honor the forebears  
buried in the cemetery, Conlee said.

"This man may have been sacrificed in order to appease the ancestors  
of the community and therefore ensure continuation of life at the  
villages," she explained.

"This person was sacrificed during Middle Nasca, which was a time of  
great change," Conlee added. "It is known that throughout the Andes  
human sacrifice was performed in times of change to give gods an  
important gift to allow the people to continue."

The archaeologist also noted that the head jar is painted with the  
reversible image of a human face that can be seen right-side up or  
upside down, suggesting that the jar might have been meant as a  
substitute for the victim's missing head.

"The La Tiza head jar was a rather literal replacement and reflects  
the Nasca belief that a person needed to have a head when he entered  
the afterlife," Conlee said.

The jar also bears evidence of having been used before the burial.  
Conlee said that decorations on head jars suggest they were used for  
both human- and crop-fertility rituals.

"Head jars often have images of plants growing out of them,  
suggesting a direct link to agriculture fertility, as well as a  
desire to continue the fertility of the people in the community," she  
said.

Conlee reports her discovery in this month's issue of Current  
Anthropology.

John Verano, an expert in Nasca culture and archaeologist from Tulane  
University, praised the find.

(Verano is a grantee of the National Geographic Society's Committee  
for Research and Exploration. National Geographic News is a division  
of the National Geographic Society.)

"This is an unusual and well-documented discovery, as few headless  
Nasca skeletons are known," he said.

But Verano held out the possibility that the La Tiza victim may have  
been a casualty of war.

"One alternative explanation is that this might simply have been  
someone who had been killed and decapitated in a raid and whose body  
subsequently was recovered by relatives who gave it a proper burial,  
with a ceramic vessel replacing his lost head," he said.

"But it's a great find, whatever happened to this poor guy."

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