The Manipulation of Human Remains in Moche Society: Delayed Burials, Grave Reopening, and Secondary Offerings of Human Bones on the Peruvian North Coast
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract A careful reexamination of funerary contexts suggests that Moche (ca. A.D. 100–800) graves were not simply spaces for the disposal of decaying corpses, but contexts periodically revisited by certain members of Moche society. The dynamic nature of funerary practices is documented through an examination of delayed burials. It is argued that these were the product of two distinct ritual processes, one of which involved the storage of corpses to be used as retainers in subsequent rituals. The practice of grave reopening is also explored, leading to the identification of different types of rituals. At least some graves were reopened to remove skeletal parts of possible potent ancestors. Related ideology is addressed by examining cases of bone destruction and the more common secondary offerings of human remains. This study highlights the dynamic nature of Moche mortuary activity while stressing the important role of those in charge of manipulating ancestors’ remains. Finally, it is argued that the Moche shared with their highland neighbors a common vision of the eternal character of human remains, comparable ritual practices involving the human body, and a similar belief in the capacity of the living to influence the course of their destiny through periodic manipulation of ancestors’ remains.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".