|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
The productive activities |
|
|
The population and the labor force |
|
|
Several of them were foreigners, perhaps mitmaq. In cave 101 they found a bottle typical of the north coast - Chimu - together with other offerings. Eaton thought there were many women who were from the coast and the rest were highlanders, given the former were brachycephalic or mesocephalic and the highlanders and the others, rather, with elongated or dolichocephalic crania. In addition, while some of the skulls were "flattened", deformed as a result of flattening the forehead and the occipit, others had an "Aymara" deformation, which is to say, the backs of the heads were elongated. Doubtless, both types of deformation answered to different ideals of beauty, and the inference of Eaton and Bingham that they belonged to different peoples, seems correct, although the places they came from would not necessarily be exactly the "coast" or the "highlands". |
|
|
|
According to the data from the documents of the period, the majority of Wayna Qhapaq's mitmaq came from the north, from the Caņaris or Chachapoyas, which is linked to his areas of conquest. We could expect the same for Pachakutec's, among whom we would be confident of finding a greater number of migrants from the north and central coast, and maybe from the southern highlands, because those are the zones that this Inca conquered.
The occupants of the three cemeteries were poor people, apparently malnourished and with health deficiencies. In several cases we noticed dental deficiencies and traces of inflammatory diseases. In general terms, the women and the men of Machu Picchu were of low stature, with gracile bones, who did not reach heights over 1.60 m with a tendency to less. There are young women, 20 years old or a few years older, who have lost most of their teeth, with strong alveolar abscesses and evidence of very well known dental infections.
These peculiarities are perhaps due to a type of nutrition based on maize, even though in most of the tombs llama bones are found as part of the mortuary offerings, as well as guinea pigs and paca (a larger rodent, from the tropical forest). We think, rather, it is an index of social status with deficiencies such as can be conferred on foreigners for whom uprooting was obligatory, a characteristic condition of the yanacuna and mitmaqcuna. These were led to the zone of Machu Picchu, which, for its semi-jungle characteristics, required that people from the highlands or the coast adapt to it. Maybe for this reason, they were the people from the equatorial region chosen by Wayna Qhapaq. The elite of Cuzco must have other qualities.
|
|
|
pag. 1
- 2 - 3
| | |
