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National Museum of Natural History Newsletter for Teachers
Vol. 12 No. 1 Winter 1990
THE MOCHE: PROFILE OF AN ANCIENT PERUVIAN PEOPLE
[Editor's Note: A recent discovery of a
royal tomb at Sipan has focussed public-
attention on the Moche, an ancient but
little-known Peruvian culture [see National
Geographic reference]. Numbering as many
as 50,000, the Moche were an agricultural
people who resided along the northern coast
of Peru as early as 1,200 years before the
Inca. In one of the world's driest deserts,
they diverted streams from the adjacent
Andes into a large network of irrigation
canals to grow corn, beans, squash, peanuts,
peppers, potatoes, and manioc as well as
avocados and other fruit. They kept guinea
pigs and ducks, herded llamas for wool and
meat, raised crawfish in the irrigation
canals, and fished and hunted sea lions from
boats. Their territory stretched over 220
miles along the coast and included towns of
up to 10,000 inhabitants: warriors, priests,
nobles, artisans, traders, servants,
farmers, and fishermen. To house their dead
they built platforms topped with pyramids,
today called huacas . Moche art and tech-
nology were comparable in sophistication to
that of the Maya, their contemporaries.
Beautiful gold and copper metal work, inlays
and beads of turquoise, shell and coral,
woven materials, and richly decorated
ceramics depicting everyday scenes,
warfare, and ritual have been uncovered in
the tombs. However, unlike the Maya, the
Moche did not develop a writing or glyph
system. John Verano, a Smithsonian
physical anthropologist who assisted at the
excavation, shares what he has learned
about the appearance, health, and lifestyle
of these ancient Peruvians.]
Ongoing excavations at the site of Sipan,
directed by Peruvian archaeologist Dr.
Walter Alva, are revealing a wealth of new
Page 2 Anthro Notes
information about the ancient Moche
civilization. Over the past several years, I
have had the good fortune to be able to
work with Dr. Alva in Peru, helping to
analyze the skeletal remains from the Sipan
tombs and other sites.
Ancient Peoples of the Coast
The Moche are one of several ancient
civilizations that developed in the coastal
valleys of northern Peru. The Moche
Kingdom dominated the north coast from
about A.D. 100 to A.D. 750. Their culture
disappeared some 700 years before the Inca
Empire began expanding out of the southern
highlands. Best known for their beautiful
ceramics and expressive art style, the Moche
also left evidence of their relatively brief
florescence in the form of numerous mud-
brick pyramids, which still dot the river
valleys of the north coast today.
Human occupation of the coast of Peru goes
back many thousands of years. Survival in
the otherwise inhospitable coastal desert of
Peru is made possible by a scries of seasonal
rivers and streams that carry water down
from the western slopes of the Andes
Mountains. These rivers turn the narrow
coastal valley floors into green oases, a stark
contrast to the surrounding barren desert.
Ancient peoples of the coast learned several
thousand years ago to draw water off of
these rivers into irrigation canals, turning
desert into productive agricultural land.
Over the centuries many technological
advances were made in canal building,
eventually leading to complex irrigation
networks, which linked several valleys of
the North Coast and provided productive
agricultural land for thousands of coastal
inhabitants.
When the Spanish conquistadors first passed
through the northern coastal valleys in the
1530's, they marvelled at the size and
sophistication of the irrigation networks.
Strangely, however, these first European
visitors found many valleys only sparsely
populated, and numerous agricultural fields
abandoned. What the Spanish did not know
at the time was that a devastating disease,
probably smallpox, had spread through the
Inca Empire some ten years earlier, taking
thousands of victims with it. Smallpox,
which had swept like wildfire through the
Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and
then down through Ecuador and Peru, was
one of the most deadly of the many
infectious diseases brought from Europe to
the New World in the 16th century. New
World peoples, who had no immunity to the
disease, died by the thousands. The epidemic
which swept through Peru in the 1520's
killed the Inca Emperor and his legitimate
heir and led to a bitter civil war between
contenders for the throne. It was this
divided and traumatized empire that
Francisco Pizarro and his soldiers boldly
conquered in 1532.
Conquistadors and Huaqueros
By the end of the 16th century, disease,
conquest, and social disruption had forever
changed the face of the North Coast of
Peru. The last of its great civilizations had
collapsed, and much of its rich past was lost
before it could be recorded by historians.
Conquistadors who had sacked the last of
the gold and silver from the storehouses and
temples of the Inca, then turned to the
pyramids and burial places of the Inca's
ancestors. Hoping to find the buried
treasure of former Kings, they plundered
pyramids and ancient burial grounds up and
down the coast of Peru. Historians have
recently found early colonial documents
requesting formal permits from the Spanish
crown to "mine" pyramids for gold. And
mine them they did—teams of hundreds of
forced laborers were used to tunnel into
these structures. The scars of 16th and 17th
century looting can still be seen at many
coastal sites today. In the Moche valley on
the north coast of Peru, a particularly
determined group of "miners" in search of
gold even diverted a river to cut into the
center of a large pyramid.
The tradition of grave robbing, which began
during the early colonial period,
unfortunately has continued for centuries
in Peru. "Huaqueros" as they are com-
monly known today, are professional grave
robbers, many of whom make a lifetime
career of digging up ancient graves and
selling the artifacts. Although the looting
and destruction of archaeological sites is
strictly prohibited by law in Peru, the
limited resources of police and local
government officials are simply not
sufficient to control the activity. Realizing
the importance of preserving and studying
its rich pre-Columbian heritage, the
Page 3 Anthro Notes
Peruvian government actively supports
archaeological research, both by Peruvian
and foreign scholars. Such research is
gradually bringing to light a long and
fascinating sequence of pre-Columbian
cultural development.
Reconstructing the Past
Peruvian archaeology traces its roots to the
late nineteenth century, when archaeologists
began making the first systematic attempts
to reconstruct the prehistory of the region.
Many of these early excavations focused on
coastal Peruvian sites because of the
exceptional preservation of perishable
materials. The coast of Peru is one of the
driest deserts in the world, receiving
measurable rainfall only on rare occasions.
Such dry conditions make for excellent
preservation of plant remains, textiles, and
wooden objects—things rarely encountered
by archaeologists working in other areas of
the world. Bodies buried in the hot, dry
sand become naturally mummified,
providing physical anthropologists like
myself with rare glimpses of details such
as ancient hair styles and body decoration
(a number of tattooed mummies are known
from coastal Peru). I will never forget a
naturally mummified dog I helped excavate
at an archaeological site on the North Coast
several years ago. Some time around A.D.
1300, the dog's owner had carefully wrapped
the pet in a cloth shroud and buried it
outside the wall of a desert city. Seven
hundred years later when we unwrapped the
shroud, the dog was perfectly preserved,
with ears standing straight up and lips
drawn back in a permanent snarl.
Despite the destruction of many
pre-Columbian cemeteries by artifact
hunters, physical anthropologists have been
able to make some important discoveries
about the physical characteristics of ancient
Peruvians, both by studying skeletal
material left behind by grave robbers, and
increasingly in recent years, by working
side by side with archaeologists conducting
scientific excavations. Over the past seven
years, I have been fortunate to participate
in the excavation of several important
Moche sites along Peru's North Coast.
Previous skeletal studies have
characteristically focussed on only a few
isolated sites. Through my study of the
skeletal remains, it has been possible to
acquire large collections that permit us for
the first time to make observations of
Moche health, diseases, and demography on
a population level.
Physical Anthropology of the Moche
Until recently, the physical charac- teristics
of the Moche people were known to us
primarily through the way they depicted
themselves in ceramic sculpture and painted
murals. Their physical remains had received
surprisingly little attention by physical
anthropologists. Part of my recent research
has concentrated on the study of Moche
skeletal remains recovered over the past
five years from excavations and surface
collections at the site of Pacatnamu
(pronounced Pah-caht-nah-moo), a major
pre-Columbian ceremonial center. These
collections, which are now housed in a
research facility in Trujillo, Peru, constitute
the largest sample of well-documented
human skeletal remains ever recovered from
the Peruvian North Coast and are, therefore,
a valuable resource both for the study of
physical variation among prehistoric coastal
populations, and for understanding patterns
of health and disease among ancient Andean
peoples.
The Pacatnamu Skeletons
The Moche skeletal collections from
Pacatnamu pertain to the final phase of the
Moche Kingdom (Moche V), and date to
approximately A.D. 500-750. The skeletal
sample we have recovered to date is
comprised of 65 burials excavated from a
single cemetery, 26 burials encountered
in other parts of the site, and surface
collections (approximately 590 specimens)
made from three large Moche cemeteries
recently damaged by looters.
Life Expectancy in Moche Times
In both the large surface-collected sample
and the smaller number of individuals
recovered from Moche tombs at Pacatnamu,
males and females were present in about
equal numbers. Although individuals of all
ages, from children to people over 50, were
represented, skeletal remains of infants and
young children were rare in the surface
collections and infants were under-
continued on p. 14)
Page 14 Anthro Notes
("Moche" continued from p. 3)
represented in the excavated burials.
Remains of children are more fragile and
preserve less well than bones of adults,
although it is possible that not all infants
and children were buried in cemetery areas.
In the cemetery, which we excavated
completely, the remains of 67 individuals
were recovered. Almost a third of these
(20) were under 5 years old, while only 4
individuals were represented in the child
and adolescent age range (ages 5-19). This
age distribution is consistent with the
U-shaped mortality curve commonly
observed in living human populations,
where probability of death is highest during
the first year of life, declines during early
childhood and adolescence, and climbs
sharply again in the adult years. Of the
individuals who died after childhood, about
one third lived to a mature middle age,
dying between 35 and 49 years. But a
significantly larger proportion of males (12
out of 23) died as adolescents (15-19 years)
and young adults (20-34 years), while the
majority of females (12 out of 23) fall into
the old adult age class (50+). If this sample
is representative of the Moche population at
Pacatnamu as a whole, these differences
suggest that Moche women had a substan-
tially greater probability of reaching old
age than did men. Was this due to greater
violence or more hazardous activities among
men or to greater susceptibility of males to
disease? We do know that the Moche
frequently depicted scenes of warfare and
the capture and sacrifice of prisoners.
However, we have found very little skeletal
evidence of fractures or other injuries in
the Moche sample from Pacatnamu, making
it difficult to attribute earlier mortality in
males to warfare.
Physical Characteristics of the Moche
People
Based on his early studies of ancient
Peruvian skeletons, Ales Hrdlicka of the
U.S. National Museum (presently the
National Museum of Natural History)
described prehistoric peoples of the
Peruvian coast as broadheaded
(brachycephalic) and of relatively short
stature. The Moche population at
Pacatnamu conforms well to this
description. Living stature calculated from
Moche skeletons for both males (av. 5'3")
and females (av. 4'11") is very similar to
that of present day North Coast people of
Indian origin. The Moche had wide faces
and prominent, relatively narrow noses.
Approximately half of the Moche skulls we
studied show artificial cranial deformation.
This deformation varies from a mild to
pronounced flattening of the back of the
skull, with flattening of the forehead region
occasionally visible as well. Broadening of
the cranial vault and slight broadening of
the cheeks are noticeable in most deformed
skulls, although I believe the deformation
we see was probably the unintentional result
of infant cradle-boarding rather than a
conscious attempt by the Moche to alter the
shape of the head. No depictions of infants
in cradleboards are known from Moche art,
nor have physical remains of cradleboards
been found in a Moche context, perhaps
because of poor organic preservation.
However, well-preserved cradles and cloth
bands which were used to fix an infant's
head to the cradleboard have been recovered
from later coastal cemeteries, along with
skulls showing the same form of
deformation observed among the Moche at
Pacatnamu.
Family Cemeteries
One preliminary but intriguing finding on
Moche mortuary practices has come out of
my study of skeletons at Pacatnamu. Here,
I expected to find one large cemetery where
the local population buried their dead, as I
had found at other sites in this area. I
found, instead, numerous small cemeteries
throughout the site and began to investigate
answers as to why so many cemeteries were
in use during a single time period.
Variation in the morphology of the facial
skeleton is known to be a sensitive indicator
of population differences, and has been
used successfully by physical anthropolo-
gists to differentiate ancient populations as
well as to identify the population affiliation
of recent forensic cases. By applying some
of these techniques to Moche skulls at
Pacatnamu, I was able to determine that
individuals buried in the same cemetery
resembled one another (in their facial
morphology) more closely than they did
individuals buried in other cemeteries of
the same time period. Since greater
resemblance implies closer genetic
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Page 15 Anthro Notes
relationship, I interpreted the results as
suggesting that the Moche buried their dead
by family group. This conforms with the
findings of the sixteenth century Spanish
Chronicler, Cieza de Leon, who on his
travels in 1547 through the valley where
Pacatnamu is located, learned that native
people buried their dead by kinship group
in the hills and bluffs above the valley
floor. This, along with the results of my
research at Pacatnamu, suggest that burial
by family group was a very ancient practice
in the valley.
Health and Disease
All the Moche skeletal material excavated
or surface collected at Pacatnamu was
examined for evidence of disease of
nutritional deficiency. Infants and children
showed little sign of nutritional stresses due
to low protein or insufficient calories,
(something which I found in some later
burials at the site), and adults were
relatively robust. All the older individuals
and several younger adults had some degree
of arthritis in the joints, particularly in the
hips, knees, shoulders, and elbows. In the
older adults, arthritis of the temporo-
mandibular (jaw) joint was also common.
The Moche also suffered from tooth decay
and loss; middle-aged adults (35-49) had lost
an average of 4.9 teeth and had cavities in
an average of 3.6 of the remaining teeth,
while old adults over 50 had lost an average
of 17.2 teeth. Remaining teeth were
frequently affected by periodontal disease.
This is consistent with a growing body of
data on dental disease among prehistoric
agriculturalists, indicating that people who
eat diets rich in soft foods and
carbohydrates frequently have a high
incidence of cavities and other dental
disease, even in the absence of refined
sugars.
Understanding the Moche: Ongoing
Research and Future Prospects
Recent archaeological excavations at sites
such as Sipan are rapidly increasing our
knowledge about ancient Moche culture.
The study of their skeletal remains is
providing additional information about
their physical characteristics, health, and
mortality patterns. The high status tombs
found at Sipan pose some new research
questions, which we are currently working
to answer. For example: Are there
differences in the health, stature, or other
physical characteristics of the Moche elite
that might reflect a lifestyle and diet
different from that of Moche commoners?
Do the skeletons of the elite show any rare
or unusual skeletal traits that might suggest
a lineage of hereditary Moche rulers? Do
the skeletons that surround the central
occupants of elaborate tombs at Sipan
represent retainers or relatives of the
deceased?
Ongoing research may provide answers to
these and other questions about the
population responsible for this remarkable
prehistoric South American culture. It may
well be that the next generation of school
children will be as familiar with the Moche
as with the Inca, who dominated the coast
of Peru 1,200 years later.
Suggested References:
Alva, Walter. "Discovering the New World's
Richest Unlooted Tomb." National
Geographic 174:4 (October 1988).
Donnan, C. B. "Iconography of the Moche:
Unraveling the Mystery of the Warrior-
Priest." National Geographic 174:4
(October 1988).
Donnan, C. B. Moche Art of Peru: Pre-
Columbian Symbolic Communication. Los
Angeles: Museum of Cultural History,
University of California, 1978.
Lumbreras, Luis G. The Peoples and Cultures
of Ancient Peru. Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974.
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