THE GRAVES. 



53 



Fragment (posterior part only) of a large and heavy male skull, with fragmentary skeleton. 

 The very decayed condition of these remains suggests a burial considerably older than the 

 burial designated as Ost. Coll. 321 1. The skull belonged undoubtedly to a large male of 

 the coastal type, and the long bones were of corresponding proportions. Close to this skull 

 and presumably placed with it was a bronze tool (Plate II, figure 12) that might have 

 served as a prize-bar or possibly as a stone-worker's "point," the worn condition of the 

 pointed end of the tool and the battered state of the striking end suggesting such a use. 



Llama bones were found in profusion beneath the floor of the cave, around and above 

 the interments, the skeletal material of these useful beasts being almost as plentiful as the 

 human remains. Nearly every skeletal part of the animal was represented, and it should 

 be noted that, with the exception of the podials and the patellae, not an entire llama bone 

 was to be seen. All the long bones were broken, as if to extract the marrow, and a few 



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Figure 49. — Floor plan of Cave 52. 



of the fragments were more or less calcined. Most of the material, however, showed no 

 evidence of having been in the fire. The only lower animal beside the llama represented 

 in this cave was a paca, presumably the new species of Agouti described on page 89, and 

 of this animal only a maxilla was seen. Some charcoal was also found, mostly in firm pieces 

 not less than half the size of a hen's egg, in this respect differing from the finely broken 

 and evenly distributed charcoal characteristic of many kitchen middens. I mention this fact 

 because the question may naturally arise whether the extremely fragmentary condition of 

 the llama bones does not indicate that the human interments were made through and beneath 

 the miscellaneous accumulations on the floor of an ancient rock shelter. Some of the grottoes 

 of the Machu Picchu mountainside are undoubtedly natural caves, more or less improved 

 and enlarged by the Indians. In other parts of the American Continent, the bones of 

 food-animals are often to be found in the floors of caves or shelters, the long bones split 

 open for the marrow and usually showing little or no traces of fire. In the present instance, 

 however, although some relics of the early inhabitation of the cave may have become mingled 

 with later ceremonial deposits, it would be very difficult to prove that any of the articles 

 obtained with the human remains are other than conventional garniture of the graves. 



