26 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



were very common. In one of the small cemeteries, every subject, 

 men, women, and children, was thus killed; and in the majority 

 of cases the wounds were in the posterior half of the skull, indi- 

 cating that the people were probably slain while running away from 

 those who attacked them. 



Trephining was very rare, if practiced at all. Two specimens 

 were recovered which show a partly healed lesion that may have 

 been a trephining, but the diagnosis is not certain. 



Not one really pronounced " mushroom-head " femur was found, 

 and even moderate grades of the disease were quite rare, which 

 seems to justify the conclusion that this peculiar disease was more 

 prevalent among the coast people farther north. Signs of more or- 

 dinary arthritis, on the other hand, especially on the vertebrae, were 

 not infrequent. Dental caries, curiously, was rather common in this 

 locality. 



Chavina. — About 20 miles, by the road, southeast of Lomas is 

 found the mouth of a fair-sized river, known on maps as the Rio de 

 Lomas, but locally called Rio Acari. The cultivated lowlands on 

 both sides of the river at this place constitute the hacienda Chavina 

 (fig. 1). The dwelling of the overseers is situated at the edge of 

 the high ground which bounds these lowlands to the northwest, and 

 a short distance to the east of this building, among low sandy hil- 

 locks, exists an extensive and highly interesting old cemetery. Three 

 other burial grounds, or rather one cemetery in three parts, are 

 situated about two miles to the west of the dwelling on the lower 

 sandy ground near the sea and not far from a hill fortified by 

 the ancients, the locality being known as Conventillo ; while several 

 small to fair-sized burial grounds are found in the sandy slopes on the 

 south side of the river, opposite the headquarters of the hacienda. 



The scattered cemetery east of the house showed exposed the 

 skeletal remains of about 200 individuals. So far as it was possible 

 to judge, the brachycephalic element was predominant, but there 

 were also longer skulls. A highly interesting feature was the 

 prevalence of extreme forms of fronto-occipital compression, 

 produced evidently by tying the head very firmly to a plank or 

 cradle-board (pi. 13). This was the first cemetery in Peru where 

 such pronounced deformations were seen, but another one was 

 heard of to the south of the river, one was found later on in the 

 valley of the Rio Grande de Nasca, and still another was seen about 

 60 miles to the north of the valley at the hacienda Ocucaje, near 



