Archaeologists find Inca who was earliest gunshot victim in N. America

Peruvian archaeologist Guillermo Cock, a research associate at UCLA's Fowler Museum and a researcher for National Geographic, excavated hundreds of shallow burials in Puruchuco that showed extensive evidence of violent deaths: Many were hacked to death, some were stabbed, and one was shot.

The skull of one individual showed the entrance and exit holes of what Cock believes to be a musket ball, fired from a Spanish weapon. Physical anthropologists confirmed Cock's initial conclusion that a round projectile caused the injury, and experts at the University of Connecticut used a powerful microscope to detect trace amounts of iron around the holes in the skull, confirming the hypothesis.

Cock believes these victims were slaughtered by the Spanish during an Inca uprising in 1536.

See the rest of the story at National Geographic.

More evidence of a violent Peruvian culture

National Geographic reports on a new article announcing the discovery of a headless burial in the Nasca region of Peru.

Christina Conlee from Texas State University found a tomb containing a skeleton seated cross-legged, but missing its head. Sitting just to the skeleton's left was a ceramic jar decorated with an image of a human head, which may have functioned as a substitute for the body's missing head.

While this is only the third such burial found involving a decapitated skeleton and a head jar, researchers have long documented the large number of human sacrifices performed by the Nasca, their use of "Trophy Heads" (mummified human heads which have been modified and decorated), and numerous depictions of such severed heads in their artwork.

In spite of the significant number of large caches of mummified heads and a matching abundance of severed head iconography, few of the corresponding headless bodies have been found.