Multi-disciplinary study provides evidence of forced migration by pre-colonial Incas

Phys.org ^ | July 14, 2020 | Bob Yirka

[SunkenCiv]

Prior research has suggested that during the Late Horizon, a period of Inca history, the Inca rounded up people living outside of the Inca Empire and forced them to relocate to places inside the empire as a means of bolstering the population and thus the economy. Unfortunately, to date, evidence for such forced migrations has been scant. In this new effort, the researchers conducted a thorough investigation of the remains of six people buried in a cemetery in what was once a part of the Inca empire during the Late Horizon -- they suspected that all six were people who had been forcibly moved from their homeland hundreds of miles away.

The work involved use of ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis, study of artifacts, written accounts in later years and information from biogeochemical sources to tie the six individuals to societies of people living outside of the Inca empire along what is now the Peruvian coast.

Whole genome sequencing of the individuals found in the graves showed they had belonged to a group of people who lived along the Peruvian northern coast -- their gravesites, in contrast, were in cemeteries in the center of the Chincha Valley, near the Peruvian southern coast. Radiocarbon dating showed them to have lived during the period between 1415 and 1805, which aligned with other reports of forced migrations. The researchers also noted that ceramics and textiles in the gravesites matched those that were made and used by people from the same area identified by the genome sequencing.

The researchers suggest... strong evidence of institutionalized forced migration by the Inca during the Late Horizon. They further suggest such individuals were either made to walk or were carried by oceangoing vessels.

[SunkenCiv]

Death and Ritual in the Chincha Kingdom: New Insights into the Funerary Practices of the mid-Chincha Valley, Peru | Jacob Bongers | Friends of Ethnic Art | Posted on November 8, 2014

[SunkenCiv]

[Tax-chick]

Professor Barnhardt at Maya Research Center covered this some years ago.

It’s almost like all of human history is full of people doing bad things to other people.

[Stravinsky]

Damn those white, capitalist Christians.

[RealVirginia]

But....but...they were innocent children of nature because they had brown skin.

[Wuli]

When some of these ancient civilizations are studied so well, and have become better understood, it is amazing to me how many commentators still call many of them “great”, when a better description would be “horrific”.