The "Llullaillaco Maiden" — a teenage girl whose mummified body was found atop a frigid volcano in Argentina — was sacrificed centuries ago by the Inca. Now, a new analysis of plant remains in her burial is helping archaeologists pinpoint the historical events that led to her death over half a millennium ago.
In 1999, archaeologists discovered the remains of three mummified Inca children — one teenage girl, and a boy and girl each around 7 years old — just below the summit of the Llullaillaco volcano in Argentina near its border with Chile. Analysis of the mummies over the past two decades has shown that the children were fattened up with gourmet food and plied with alcohol and coca (a plant from which cocaine is derived) before they were led to a subterranean shrine on the freezing, windy summit and left for dead in a ritual called capacocha.
