Inca child sacrifice ritual revealed

The bodies of three children found near the summit of a volcano in the Argentinian Andes have shed light on the ritual sacrifices carried out by the Inca people. In a multinational study, examination of the hair by mass spectrometry exposed the presence of cocaine, benzoylecgonine and cocaethylene, indicative of the coingestion of coca leaves and alcohol over a period of time. Along with details from the burial site, it reveals a lot about the status of the children in the time leading up to their sacrificial deaths.

Hair is a remarkable substance in that any drugs or metabolites which make it into the follicle do not degrade. Instead, they rest at a fixed point in the hair, moving away from the scalp as the hair grows. This creates a timeline of drug use that can be revealed by analysis, even after hundreds of years.

The mummified bodies were discovered in 1999 in a shrine and have been removed for safety. The presence of cocaine and cocaethylene, which is only formed by the co-presence of alcohol and cocaine in the body, shows that all three children had taken coca and alcohol. One of the children was a 13-year-old girl, referred to as the Llullaillaco Maiden, and she had taken high levels of coca for 2 years before her death, increasing sharply about one year before death. Alcohol consumption peaked a few weeks before her death. She also held a large quid of coca clenched between her teeth, so was taking coca as she died.

The other children were a 4-5-year-old boy and girl, known as  Llullaillaco Boy and Lightning Girl. They had taken far less coca than the Maiden. Combined with other evidence from the burial site, it shows that the children were treated differently and the younger ones might have been attendants to the Maiden, although this is purely conjecture at the moment.

Image: copyright Johan Reinhard