4 THE COLLECTION OF OSTEOLOGICAL MATERIAL FROM MACHU PICCHU. 



slopes of the mountain. At this point the Director's previous experience of the wonderful 

 results to be obtained from liberal offers of prize-money for discoveries, suggested the means 

 of overcoming all obstacles. A schedule of rewards, varying according to service rendered, 

 was offered to anyone who could find and guide us to graves containing valuable material. 

 Every Indian employed about our camp was then sent out prospecting. At evening, crest- 

 fallen, cut and bruised, and if possible more ragged than before, all straggled back, with 

 the exception of three men who had moved with their families a year or two previously from 

 somewhere down in the valley, to make their homes in a clearing near the ruins. These 

 men, Alvarez,* Richarte and Fuentes, were consequently more familiar with the lay of the 

 land than were the peons hired from distant places. They had, besides, acquired a knack of 

 wriggling snake-like through the jungle when the rank vegetation was not so dense as to 

 require vigorous use of machetes. They reported having found burial-caves about one-third 

 of the way down the northeast slope of the mountain. To this locality they conducted the 

 Director and me, on the following day, and from that time on, during the four weeks that 

 I spent in camp at Machu Picchu, these three Indians were my faithful guides and assistants 

 in the search for the remains of the former inhabitants of the city. 



As will be seen in the following pages, graves were found at various places on the steep 

 sides of the Machu Picchu Mountain, from its veiy foot close to the Urubamba River up 

 to an altitude of 1200 feet above the ruins. In most instances the human remains had been 

 placed in the cave beneath the boAvlders of the mountainside, these caves having usually 

 been made especially for that purpose, though a few of them were evidently of natural origin. 

 Just as no two bowlders were of exactly the same size and shape, so the forms of the burial 

 caves were found to vary. This will be easily understood by reference to the diagrams and 

 photographs that follow. 



In only a few instances were the remains actually inhumed, that is, entirely covered with 

 earth. The large majority of burials were made in caves, where the remains would be well 

 protected from moisture and sunlight. When skeletal material was obtained from such 

 sheltered places, there were usually indications that the greater part of each mummy or body 

 had been originally left above ground. I think that whenever there was sufficient head- 

 room, the mummies were placed sitting in the contracted position, and it is vtry likely that 

 shallow pits not more than a few inches deep may have been excavated in the floors of 

 the caves, in which the mummies could be set up to keep them from toppling over. A little 

 earth may often have been banked around the crouching mummies for the same purpose, 

 and when, after the lapse of centuries, the mummy wrappings and desiccated human tissues 

 finally disintegrated, permitting the skeletons to fall apart, the scattered bones would grad- 

 ually become more or less covered by slowly accumulating humus. Vegetation played a 

 freakish part in the destruction of the bones, even when inorganic nature had touched them 

 but lightly. Frequently the shafts of long bones were traversed throughout the length of the 

 medullary cavity Ijy wire-like stems of bamboo-grass, and on one occasion when an attempt 

 was made to lift a perfectly preserved skull from the floor of a ca\-e, it was found to be 



♦Alvarez, moreover, fancied liimself a sort of hunter-naturalist, being the proud owner of an antique muzzle- 

 loading gun, with the half-cock notch worn out, a weapon more dangerous to friends than to wild game, but 

 serviceable enough to kill, after three discharges at close range, a very small bear-cub, which he authoritatively 

 informed mc was "Un animal chico, lo mismo un gato." I provisionally accepted his classification of the 

 Carnivora, as a means of persuading him to leave the gun at hnme. 



