THE GRAVES. 69 



and, its length remained equal to that of the right one; consequently the left foot must 

 have been everted outward by the tibial overgrowth. 



A wide fistula leading from the medullary cavity to a point near the insertion of the 

 semitendinosus, on the medial surface of the bone, indicates a condition of chronic suppura- 

 tion; while the uniform effect of the osteoplastic periostitis is diversified in one place by 

 a raised scale of bone, resulting from the partial separation of the periosteal membrane. 



I am informed that osteitis deformans is the only disease, other than syphilis, that pro- 

 duces changes even remotely similar to those just described. But osteitis deformans is a 

 disease of old age, practically limited to persons actually or prematurely old. I have been 

 able to find no record of its occurrence in subjects as young as the present individual, whose 

 age did not exceed sixteen years. 



The sex of the second individual is doubtful, the material being too limited to justify 

 an expression of opinion. 



The third skeleton is obviously that of a small adult woman of the coastal type. 



From the manner in which the leg bones of the two last mentioned individuals are 

 affected by decay, the bodies appear to have been buried in the contracted position. The 

 bones of the youth, on the contrary, either because they were in a drier part of the cave 

 or because they were placed there more recently than the others, are not so affected as 

 to afford any indication of the burial position. 



Cave 79. 



The record states that this cave was "about 200 yards east of the foot of the main 

 stairway," and that the material taken consisted of a baby's skeleton, which lay in the bottom 

 of a large broken olla; also a few pieces of large bones, and some bits of charcoal. 



There is very little to be said of this skeleton, except that the child was very young, 

 perhaps new-born. Its occurrence inside the broken olla, however, is a matter deserving 

 attention, as it is the only instance of urn-burial observed at Machu Picchu.* The urn 

 (M. P. 895) is shown on Plate XIV, figure 5. 



Among the many references to this form of burial, in Joyce's South American Archaeol- 

 ogy, the following are of special interest in this connection: (page 148) "The custom of 

 urn-burial is very rare in Peru, and seems to have been practised only in the case of twins 

 who died young. The urns were kept in the house." (page 228) "Urn-burial of any sort 

 is rare in the Andean region, and it is interesting to recall that the Puruha of Equador were 

 accustomed to sacrifice the first-born and preserve the body in a vase of stone or metal." 



Reiss and Stiibel (Necropolis of Ancon) describe "some graves in which the bodies had 

 been buried beneath large earthenware vessels or portions of them;" and more recently 

 Doctor Hrdlicka has related (Anthropological Work in Peru in 1913) the discovery in 

 several localities in the Nasca Region, of "burials in large, stout, undecorated, earthenware 

 urns, especially made for that purpose;" while in the valley of the lea, "The burials, or at 

 least some of them, were made in large cylindrical earthenware jars or urns, about two 

 and a half feet high and nearly the same in diameter." 



* Since this was written, I have been informed that during the excavation of an ancient dwelling at Qquente, 

 a ruin situated on the same side of the Urubamba River as Machu Picchu, and a few miles nearer to 

 Ollantaytambo, the Expedition of 1914-15 found a baby's mummy in the base of a large olla, covered 

 by another sherd of the same vessel. This modified urn-burial was enclosed in a niche of the house wall. 



