INCA RELICS I N THE ATACAMA DESERT, CHILE

BY H. W. NICHOLS

URING the winter of 1926 the Geological Section of the Captain Marshall Field Brazilian Expedition of Field Museum had an opportunity to make a brief inspection of the ruins of two deserted Inca towns, Lasana and Pucara, and of two Inca burial places in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. H. W. Nichols of the Expedition was accompanied by Hermann Eggers, a German mining engineer who has been interested in these ruins for the past thirteen years. Lasana (pl. 15) is the ruin of a fortified Inca village which, it is believed, was abandoned a t the time of the Spanish conquest. It is in northern Chile in about the latitude of Antofagasta on the Rio Loa in the heart of the desert a t an altitude of probably eight thousand feet. It is indicated on some of the larger maps and is not far from the modern village of Chiu-chiu, which appears on most large scale maps. It occupies half of a low but steep rock hill on the floor of the quebrada of the Rio Loa, which gorge has a t this point precipitous walls with an estimated depth of three hundred feet (fig. 1). I t is enclosed by three loop-holed walls with narrow streets and dwellings between, and the walls of the stone houses coalesce to form a number of other rings of walls, so that altogether the place was as strong in a military sense as it undoubtedly was in an olfactory way. The town is built of small irregular blocks of tufa set in mud mortar and the masonry work is irregular and poor (pl. 15). Lasana is small: two of us estimated the size as 120 feet wide by 300 feet long. The town consists of a huddle of rooms opening from each other and separated into groups by narrow footways or streets. There is also a small patio inside the outer walls. The walls of stone are in practically perfect preservation and are approximately six feet high. No vestiges of the roofs, which were apparently of thatch on poles, remain. As wood does not decay in this climate, the disappearance is presumably due to the value of wooden poles to the Quichua farmers.
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Lasana from pampa above gorge.

The main street of Lasana, showing character of masonry.

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OLO RIVLR BBD.

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The region for many miles around is destitute of vegetation, except for irrigated fields. There are no implements or utensils, or large fragments of them in the town. The only signs of human occupancy left are small fragments of pottery, broken stone pestles and mortars, small pieces of fabric and fabricated wood, and numerous corncobs. I n one of the larger rooms, which Eggers thinks was the residence of the medicine-man or priest, were two skeletons. I n one of the walls were built in a few bones, either human or of sheep. The same thing was observed in the walls of the ancient church a t Chiu-chiu. The rooms are small but are not of uniform size. They are intended to be rectangular, but like the field boundaries of the modern Indians are really quite irregular. The doors vary in width and height and are often irregular in outline. Windows are small and are not always present. They are more numerous in the outer walls, where they served as loopholes. One photograph (pl. 16) shows windows (there are two of these) in the shape of a cross. These apparently had no religious significance but were, like the loop-holes of the same shape in medieval Europe, a military device. These loop-holes are in an inner wall, but opposite them in the outer wall are large window openings so that the loop-holes command a wide territory opposite the main entrance. The main gateway through the outer wall is defended by guard-rooms to which the only access is through a small elevated hole. Most of the rooms had under the wall at the floor level a small niche to hold food supplies. There is one room much larger than the others. The floor of this room is on two levels, one half or less being elevated about a foot above the rest. Where the two levels meet there is a masonry pier, sixteen to eighteen inches square, which rises to the roof level. The entrance is on the side where the rock slopes. The opposite side of the hill is precipitous and faces the Rio Loa. The gateway opens on a desert plain, which is an ancient elevated bed of the river. This was once irrigated, as traces of the former ditches are still evident. This plain is divided into small garden plots by rows of stones which remain in position. It is terminated opposite the village by the three hundred foot wall of the quebrada, which here is mostly incoherent gravel talus. This talus has been prevented

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Loopholes in walls. 1,asana.

Grave at Iucara.

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from encroaching on the gardens by a complex system of retaining walls, which are still effective. A corral and another stone enclosure, apparently a storehouse, may or may not be of ancient origin. To the rear and above and below Lasana are Quichua farms and irrigated fields. Pucara is another deserted Inca village, which lies almost adjacent to Chiu-chiu. It rests on the flat pampa of the Atacama desert in a place where the conformation of the country permits some irrigation from the waters of the Rio Loa and there are irrigated fields nearby. It is much larger than Lasana and like the latter is supposed to have been abandoned at the time of the Conquest. Some of the better buildings have been re-roofed and are now inhabited by Quichua farmers. It is more ruined than Lasana. I n many of the walls only the lower two or three feet of masonry remain in position. I t had not the defensive strength of Lasana, as it stood in the open pampa and the defensive works were not so elaborate. The defenses were two loop-holed walls, each with a shallow ditch. Owing to lack of time only a few minutes were spent here. There are two large pre-Spanish burial places near Chiu-chiu. I n the nearer, which is about a quarter of a mile from Pucara, the burials are in catacombs in small chambers enlarged from natural openings in a bed of loose-textured rock. At some unknown time extensive systematic excavations were made here, leaving a large flat-bottomed pit with walls from five to seven feet high. This work seems to be that of a scientific expedition rather than that of treasure-seekers, for it was systematically performed and all mummies, artifacts and other objects of interest were removed, leaving only small fragments of pottery, coarse textiles, numerous fragments of stone pestles and mortars and broken-up bones. This is in strong contrast with the excavations in the other burial place, where the digging has been by curio hunters and the surface is covered with mummies and broken objects in great variety. The pampa of the Atacama desert is here a plain formed by the filling of a deep valley between two mountain ranges by wash from the mountains, so that the soil for an unknown but great depth is composed of sands and gravels mixed with large angular

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boulders. For many miles around Chiu-chiu this loose material

is penetrated, interbedded and overlaid by calcareous tufas deposited by waters effluent from volcanoes and their associated solfataras. I n places these tufas appear as typical Mexican onyx, in other places they form a cement which binds the loose gravel into rock. I n still other places the tufas are absent and sands and gravels remain unconsolidated. A t the graves a thin layer of sandy gravel covers a bed of fairly pure tufa. This bed is from two to five feet thick. Below it is another bed three feet thick of loosetextured, honeycombed tufa with stalagmitic and stalactitic forms and numerous openings. Below this loose-textured rock is another bed of firm tufa (fig. 2). The burials are in the porous bed in small
Surface gravel and sand.

2 to 5 feet solid tufa.

3 feet porous tufa. Burials here.

Solid tufa.
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FIG.2. Section of ground where burials occur.

natural openings which have, when necessary, been enlarged (pl. 16;. Small, irregular tunnels often connect adjacent openings. Most of the graves broken into at the edges of the excavation are blocked by detritus. The few that could be entered have been so disturbed that nothing of the original arrangement could be determined. Enough remains, however, to indicate that the bodies were mummified and that the objects buried with the bodies were of the same nature as those found a t the more distant burial place. About half a mile from this burial place is another believed by

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local collectors to be older. The bodies are in gravel and the graves are shallow. The bodies are about three feet below the surface and are mummified. The mummies are perfectly preserved. They are buried in a sitting position with the knees drawn up against the abdomen and they are wrapped with cord. Some are wrapped in a coarsely woven fabric, which is corded to the body. The bodies are clothed and wear ornaments. Various objects, such as arrows, wooden spoons and drinking cups, pestles and mortars of stone, and in some instances silver dishes are buried with the mummies. Nearly all of these are broken. As no excavations were attempted by the party, the placement of bodies and objects in the graves was not determined and an accurate description of the clothing of the mummies cannot be given. Many of the graves have been opened by curio hunters and mummies, bones, fragments of blankets, broken pottery, and pieces of wooden implements are scattered over the ground. The place occupies the floor and slopes of a dry valley. The sandy gravel or gravelly sand in which the burials were made is underlain by tufas like those nearer Chiu-chiu. Local collectors say that a t one end of the burial place the skulls are characterized by the presence of an extra bone of triangular shape in the rear which they call the inca bone and that as they proceed toward the other end of the burial place this bone (fig. 3 ) becomes more obscure until finally there is only a nearly

I;i(:.

3.

Inca Bone.

obliterated suture. This bone was observed on many specimens but it was not possible to verify the observations of the amateur collectors as to distribution. This place is in the salt desert not far from the nitrate fields and the presence of quantities of salt and niter in the soil may account for the preservation of the mummies.
FIELD MUSEUM, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS