SKELETAL REMAINS FROM PERU — STEWART 155 



Valley, consisting of 34 unsexed adults (23 Middle, 11 Late). For 

 both series the measurements are limited to the three diameters of 

 the vault and the effect of deformity is not indicated. 



In following the progress of Professor Kroeber's studies I have 

 searched vainly through the large collections from coastal Peru in 

 our National Museum for culturally identified specimens. For the 

 most part the skulls are not labeled as to exact site. And even 

 when the site is known, it may have existed through several cultural 

 periods, or its cultural position may still be unknown. This condi- 

 tion of our collections, as indeed holds also for most of the 7,000 

 or so skulls from Peru in American museums (cf. Cobb, 1933), has 

 resulted from the fact that collectors obtained the specimens from 

 the surface or did not excavate them carefully. I do not mean to 

 imply that these collections are not valuable; this, in any event, 

 would be dispelled by the general studies that already have been 

 based thereon (cf. esp. Hrdlicka, 1938, 1940; Stewart, 1931). Never- 

 theless, this material must be considered of secondary importance 

 in relating physical type and culture. 



In view of this situation, I decided, when an opportunity came in 

 1941 to make a brief visit to Peru, that my primary objective would 

 be to search for and, if possible, to examine culturally identified 

 material in Peruvian museums. My efforts were rewarded to a cer- 

 tain extent in Lima, thanks to the assistance of Dr. Julio C. Tello. 

 I was able to study about 12 of the famous Paracas (pre-Nazca) 

 mummies at the Museum of Anthropology (Magdalena Vieja) and a 

 larger series of coastal Inca remains from Malena at the Archeolog- 

 ical Museum of San Marcos University. At Chiclin, thanks to a 

 kind invitation from Sr. Rafael Larco Hoyle, I was fortunate in 

 being able to examine a small skeletal series pertaining to two cul- 

 tural periods in the Chicama-Moche-Viru region. This material is 

 preserved in the Museo Arqueologico "Rafael Larco Herrera." 



The present report deals only with the series examined at Chiclin. 

 I have felt justified in describing this new series at some length, in 

 spite of the fact that it is small, for two reasons: (1) Because, as 

 pointed out above, only 14 skulls certainly identified with the Early 

 and Middle cultural periods of this region have been partly described 

 (Kroeber, 1930), and (2) because the recent work in the vicinity of 

 Lima by Dr. Marshall T. Newman (see Strong, 1942) will supply 

 comparable but more extensive data for the central coast. 



PROBLEMS 



Even though at this stage of our knowledge it is important to record 

 small series that are culturally identified, every effort should be made 

 also to discover the significance of this material. Something in the 



