Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-17T20:27:56.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Unique Infant Mortuary Ritual at Salango, Ecuador, 100 BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2019

Sara L. Juengst*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina–Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC28283, USA
Richard Lunniss
Affiliation:
Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Avenida José María Urbina, Portoviejo, Ecuador
Abigail Bythell
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina–Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC28283, USA
Juan José Ortiz Aguilu
Affiliation:
Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Avenida José María Urbina, Portoviejo, Ecuador
*
(sjuengst@uncc.edu, corresponding author)

Abstract

The human head was a potent symbol for many South American cultures. Isolated heads were often included in mortuary contexts, representing captured enemies, revered persons, and symbolic “seeds.” At Salango, a ritual complex on the central coast of Ecuador, excavations revealed two burial mounds dated to approximately 100 BC. Among the 11 identified burials, two infants were interred with “helmets” made from the cranial vaults of other juveniles. The additional crania were placed around the heads of the primary burials, likely at the time of burial. All crania exhibited lesions associated with bodily stress. In this report, we present the only known evidence of using juvenile crania as mortuary headgear, either in South America or globally.

La cabeza humana fue un símbolo importante para muchas de las antiguas culturas sudamericanas. A menudo, las cabezas aisladas se incluían en contextos funerarios, representando enemigos, personas importantes y “semillas” simbólicas. Las excavaciones realizadas en Salango, un sitio ritual ubicado en la costa central de Ecuador, durante 2014–2016, revelaron dos montículos funerarios en el perímetro norte del santuario, con una cronología de 100 aC. Entre los 11 entierros recuperados, dos infantes tenían cráneos adicionales, depositados alrededor de sus respectivas cabezas, probablemente durante el rito funerario. Todos los cráneos presentaron lesiones asociadas con malnutrición y enfermedades infecciosas. En este informe presentamos los únicos ejemplos de este rito funerario en el mundo. Sugerimos algunas explicaciones preliminares acerca de por qué la gente de Salango llevó a cabo esta práctica.

Type
Report
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Allen, Catherine J. 1988 The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Arnold, Denise, and Hastorf, Christine A. 2008 Heads of State: Icons, Power, and Politics in the Ancient and Modern Andes. Left Coast Press, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Baitzel, Sarah 2018 Parental Grief and Mourning in the Ancient Andes. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 25:178201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, Elizabeth P. 2001 Why Sacrifice? In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by Benson, Elizabeth P. and Cook, Anita G., pp. 120. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Blom, Deborah E. 2005 Embodying Borders: Human Body Modification and Diversity in Tiwanaku Society. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24:124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blom, Deborah E., and Couture, Nicole C. 2018 From Wawa to “Trophy Head”: Meaning, Representation, and Bioarchaeology of Human Heads from Ancient Tiwanaku. In Social Skins of the Head: Body Beliefs and Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by Tiesler, Vera and Lozada, María Cecilia, pp. 205221. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Bonogofsky, Michelle 2011 The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head: Decapitation, Decoration, and Deformation. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourget, Steve 2001 Children and Ancestors: Ritual Practices at the Moche Site of Huaca de la Luna, North Coast of Peru. In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by Benson, Elizabeth P. and Cook, Anita G., pp. 93118. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Bushnell, Geoffrey H. S. 1951 The Archaeology of the Santa Elena Peninsula, Southwest Ecuador. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bythell, Abigail 2019 A Paleopathological and Mortuary Analysis of Guangala Burials from Salango, Ecuador (100 BCE–800 CE). Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.Google Scholar
Conlee, Christina A. 2007 Decapitation and Rebirth: A Headless Burial from Nasca, Peru. Current Anthropology 48:438445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, Craig, Scheuer, Louise, and Black, Sue 2016 Developmental Juvenile Osteology. 2nd ed. Academic Press, San Diego, California.Google Scholar
Di Capua, Constanza 2002 Las cabezas trofeo: Un rasgo cultural en la cerámica de La Tolita y de Jama-Coaque y un breve análisis del mismo rasgo en las demás culturas del Ecuador precolombino. In De la imagen al icono: Estudios de arqueología e historia del Ecuador, edited by Capua, Constanza Di, pp. 2393. Abya-Yala, Quito.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez Usillos, Andres 2011 El eje del universo: Chamanes, sacerdotes y religiosidad en la cultura Jama Coaque del Ecuador prehispánico. Ministerio de Educatión, Cultura y Deporte, Madrid.Google Scholar
Isaacson, John S., and Zeidler, James A. 1998 Accidental History: Volcanic Activity and the End of the Formative in Northwestern Ecuador. In Actividad volcánica y pueblos precolombinos en el Ecuador, edited by Mothes, Patricia, pp. 4172. Abya-Yala, Quito.Google Scholar
Jastremski, Nicole. A. 2006 Analysis of Osteological Remains from Salango, Ecuador, with Comparisons to Four Other Coastal Ecuador Sites. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.Google Scholar
Klaus, Haagen D., Turner, Bethany L., Saldana, Fausto, Castillo, Samuel, and Wester, Carlos 2016 Human Sacrifice at the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex: Traditions and Transformations of Ritual Violence under Chimu and Inka Rule. In Ritual Violence in the Ancient Andes: Reconstructing Sacrifice on the North Coast of Peru, edited by Klaus, Haagen D. and Toyne, J. Marla, pp. 178210. University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar
Lewis, Mary E. 2018 The Paleopathology of Children: Identification of Pathological Conditions in the Human Skeletal Remains of Non-Adults. Academic Press, San Diego, California.Google Scholar
Lunniss, Richard M. 2001 Archaeology at Salango, Ecuador: An Engoroy Ceremonial Site on the South Coast of Manabí, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London.Google Scholar
Lunniss, Richard M. 2008 Where the Land and the Ocean Meet: the Engoroy Phase Ceremonial Site at Salango, Ecuador, 600–100BC. In Pre-Columbian Landscapes of Creation and Origin, edited by Staller, John Edward, pp. 203248. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lunniss, Richard M. 2016 Investigaciones arqueológicas en Salango: Nuevos aportes al estudio de un antiguo sitio sagrado. ReHuSo 1(2):138.Google Scholar
Lunniss, Richard M. 2019 Huaca Salango: A Sacred Center on the Coast of Ecuador. In Andean Ontologies: New Archaeological Perspectives, edited by Lozada, María Cecilia and Tantaleán, Henry, pp. 4978. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Masucci, Maria A. 1992 Ceramic Change in the Guangala Phase. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, University Park, Texas.Google Scholar
Norton, Presley, Lunniss, Richard, and Nayling, Nigel 1983 Excavaciones en Salango, provincia de Manabí, Ecuador. Miscelánea Antropológica Ecuatoriana 3:972.Google Scholar
Prieto, Gabriel, Verano, John W., Goepfert, Nicolas, Kennett, Douglas, Quilter, Jeffrey, LeBlanc, Steven, Fehren-Schmitz, Lars, Forst, Jannine, Lund, Mellisa, Dement, Brittany, Dufour, Brittany, Tombret, Olivier, Calmon, Melina, Gadison, Davette, and Tschinkel, Khrystyne 2019 A Mass Sacrifice of Children and Camelids at the Huanchaquito-Las Llamas Site, Moche Valley, Peru. PLoS ONE 14(3). DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0211691.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sofaer, Joanna R. 2006 The Body as Material Culture: A Theoretical Osteoarchaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stothert, Karen E. 1993 Un sitio de Guangala temprano en el suroeste del Ecuador. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Tiesler, Vera, and Lozada, María Cecilia 2018 Introducing the Social Skins of the Head in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes. In Social Skins of the Head: Body Beliefs and Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by Tiesler, Vera and Lozada, María Cecilia, pp. 118. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Toyne, J. Marla 2018 A Childhood of Violence: A Bioarchaeological Comparison of Mass Death Assemblages from Ancient Peru. In Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology, edited by Beauchesne, Patrick and Agarwal, Sabrina C., pp. 171206. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Tung, Tiffiny A., and Knudson, Kelly J. 2010 Childhood Lost: Abductions, Sacrifice, and Trophy Heads of Children in the Wari Empire of the Ancient Andes. Latin American Antiquity 21:4466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Bethany L., Klaus, Haagen D., Livengood, Sarah V., Brown, Leslie E., Saldaña, Fausto, and Wester, Carlos 2013 The Variable Roads to Sacrifice: Isotopic Investigations of Human Remains from Chotuna-Huaca de los Sacrificios, Lambayeque, Peru. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 151:2237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ubelaker, Douglas H. 1983 Human Skeletal Remains from OGSE-MA-172: An Early Guangala Cemetery Site on the Coast of Ecuador. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 73(1):1626.Google Scholar
Ubelaker, Douglas H. 1989 The Estimation of Age at Death from Immature Human Bone. In Age Markers in the Human Skeleton, edited by Işcan, Mehmet Yaşar, pp. 5570. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois.Google Scholar
van Kessel, Juan 2001 El ritual mortuorio de los aymara de Tarapacá como vivencia y crianza de la vida. Chungara 33:221234.Google Scholar
Van Voorhis, Laura 2015 Land of Contrast: Osteological Analysis of Human Remains from Salango, Ecuador, and a Comparison of Paleopathologies between Coastal and Highland Sites in Ecuador. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.Google Scholar
Verano, John W. 2001 The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in Ancient Peru. In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by Benson, Elizabeth P. and Cook, Anita G., pp. 165184. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Verano, John W. 2016 Holes in the Head: The Art and Archaeology of Trepanation in Ancient Peru. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Weismantel, Mary 2015 Many Heads Are Better Than One: Mortuary Practice and Ceramic Art in Moche Society. In Living with the Dead in the Andes, edited by Shimada, Izumi and Fitzsimmons, James L., pp. 76100. University of Arizona Press, Tempe.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Image

Juengst et al. supplementary material

Juengst et al. supplementary material 1

Download Juengst et al. supplementary material(Image)
Image 630.5 KB
Supplementary material: Image

Juengst et al. supplementary material

Juengst et al. supplementary material 2

Download Juengst et al. supplementary material(Image)
Image 945.1 KB