6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



and other skeletal remains on the surface and also some open 

 graves in the form of deep adobe-lined cists, resembling considerably 

 the stone cists encountered farther south, in the Xasca and Acari 

 valleys. The bones indicated a homogeneous population of medium 

 stature and strength. The skulls were almost invariably brachy- 

 cephalic, of the coast type, and usually free from the characteristic 

 artificial antero-posterior deformation so common in prehistoric 

 times on the coast, but which disappeared soon after the coming of 

 the Spaniards. A few that showed the fronto-occipital flattening 

 showed it in a small degree only. These facts would seem to speak 

 for a rather recent, post-Columbian, period for these ruins and 

 burials. 



Fifteen miles eastward of Cajamarquilla. in the now rough and 

 narrowing valley of the Rimac River, lies the health resort Chosica, 

 and, according to information obtained, skeletal remains of the 

 mountain population, with a few trephined crania, have been found 

 in the hills to the north as well as to the south of this locality. 



From Chosica the canyon ascends at an increasing grade to Matu- 

 cana, passing through what is probably the most dangerous 

 verruga region in Peru. Signs of ancient occupation in the form 

 of terraced fields on the slopes of the mountains appear in many 

 localities, and the natives tell of ruins and burial caves in the sides 

 and especially on the tops of the scarcely scalable great rocky hills. 

 Here for the first time the rather puzzling fact was met with — seen 

 later on to be the general rule in these regions — that the ancient set- 

 tlements and burials are found not in the scanty lowlands, but near 

 or at the summits of the less extreme mountains. 



Opposite and north of the village and station of Surco, 56 miles 

 from Lima, a huge mountain rises, known as the " Cerro Wacapuna,"' 

 the summit of which is reported to show remnants of a large, ancient 

 fortification, and a subterranean cavity with burials. 



Matucana itself is a small town situated 64 miles east of Lima 

 at an elevation of 7,800 feet, in a narrow part of the " quebrada,'' 

 of the Rimac, and is surrounded on all sides by mountain masses 

 that reach several thousand feet higher. In the great elevation 

 which dominates Matucana on the south there were said to exist 

 some burial caves, and a number of apparently more important 

 localities with ruins and burial caves were reported to exist in the 

 rough country to the northeast of Matucana. Due to the presence 

 of the verruga in this region, personal exploration of the various 

 remains was not undertaken, but an arrangement was made with 



