Trophy heads.

• Author: Hardman, Chris
• Position: !Ojo! - Collection of skulls

AN EXPANSIVE collection of skulls from defeated enemies symbolized power in many early societies. The Jivaro tribe in the Amazon would remove skulls and shrink soft tissue to make "shrunken heads." The Munduruchu of Brazil decapitated fallen enemies and elaborately prepared the heads for display. But the skulls collected 2,000 to 1,500 years ago by the Nasca civilization on the coast of Peru may have served a different purpose; scientists believe that figuring out that purpose could be important to understanding how civilization progressed in South America.

Originally discovered by the late Alfred Louis Kroeber--an American anthropologist from the University of California at Berkeley--the heads were collected from the Nazca Valley on the arid coast of southern Peru during expeditions in 1925 and 1926. They were well preserved due to the area's dry climate and even retained traces of soft-tissue and hair. For the past 80 years the heads have been stored at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Scientists call the heads "trophy heads" because the heads each have a hole in the front so that they can be hung from cords. Although portrayals of trophy heads were common in pre-Colombian ceramics, textiles, and sculpture, the actual heads are hard to come by. Excavations in Peru have yielded only 150 of them so far. Due to the lack of physical evidence, researchers look to pottery for clues as to the purpose of these heads.

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"Illustrations on some pots depict warriors and trophy heads," says Patrick Ryan Williams, Associate Curator of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum in Chicago. "But there are also scenes that link trophy heads to agricultural fertility. Mythical creatures depicted on some pots carry trophy heads as well."

A 2001 study led by Professor Sloan R. Williams of the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that most of the eighteen trophy heads housed at the Field Museum came from males between the ages of 18-25. Although that demographic suggests that the heads belonged to warriors, there were heads from women and children as well. "As of 2001 we thought they were warriors," says Patrick...