NO. 15 ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IX PERU — 11 KIM. UK. \ 3 



bones upon the surface of ancient cemeteries, exploited by the peons 

 and occasionally by persons " higher up " for the sake of the 

 pottery and other valuables buried with the bodies ; and to the 

 usually equally exploited burial caves or houses in the mountains. 

 This procedure was necessary on account of the limited time avail- 

 able for the journey, as well as to comply with the terms of the 

 official permits. It had the unequaled advantage of enabling the 

 writer to examine an immense number of specimens. This made 

 it possible to learn promptly many facts offered by the material, 

 and to make representative collections in a relatively short time. 

 These precious and now rapidly disappearing opportunities present, 

 however, also certain disadvantages which can be compensated for 

 only by patient and prolonged excavation. They render difficult and 

 in many respects impossible, any exact statistical determinations, and 

 only rarely do they give opportunity to examine all the parts of the 

 individual skeleton. 



As heretofore mentioned the opportunities for anthropological 

 and pathological studies on the prehistoric material in Peru are on 

 the wane, and should be taken full advantage of before they are 

 largely lost, which is seemingly a matter of only a few years. In 

 1910, after the writer returned from Peru, he called the attention 

 of the Anthropological Society of Washington to the vandalism 

 going on unrestrainedly in the richest burial grounds and ruins of 

 that country, and a resolution was adopted by the Society calling the 

 attention of the Peruvian Government to the necessity of stopping 

 this wanton destruction. 1 As a result, a set of rules was promul- 

 gated by the president of Peru prohibiting unauthorized excava- 

 tions and exportation of archeological specimens from the republic. 2 

 These rules were published and communicated to the various 

 Peruvian authorities concerned in the subject and while they failed 

 to accomplish their full purpose, yet they have diminished the exca- 

 vations to a very large extent, and have especially made the peon 

 wary, so that in many instances he now hides the traces of his work- 

 by covering the bones. Meanwhile the destruction by the elements of 

 the skeletal remains left on the surface is rapidly advancing, so that 

 cemeteries that were still rich in such material in 19 10, to-day, in many 

 cases, offer little more than useless rubbish. The laws against the 

 destructive work of the peon will doubtless be more fully enforced 



1 See Science, 1911, p. 552; The American Anthropologist, 1911, p. 317. 

 : Edict of August 11, ion, published in the El Comercio and other Peruvian 

 periodicals; translation in The American Anthropologist, igu, p. 204. 



