The Moche of Huaca Cao Viejo

At El Brujo, on Peru's north coast, the adobe temple of Huaca Cao Viejo rises above the Chicama Valley, its painted reliefs still clinging to the walls. In four tombs cut into its floors lay the Señora de Cao, a tattooed Moche ruler buried around 500 CE with weapons and gold, with her kin. Genomes showed that six people in those tombs were one family across about four generations, and that the adolescent girl sacrificed beside the ruler was her own niece, recorded here with care. A wider study found no shift in ancestry as Moche gave way to Lambayeque. The four here come from the temple's Moche-era burials, studied in partnership with the town of Magdalena de Cao.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Family relations of Moche elite burials on the North Coast of Peru (~500 CE).

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Moche of Huaca Cao Viejo are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

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  Who were the Moche of Huaca Cao Viejo?

  The Moche of Huaca Cao Viejo (c. 200-600 CE, Huaca Cao Viejo, El Brujo, Chicama Valley, La Libertad, Peru) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 4 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Family relations of Moche elite burials on the North Coast of Peru (~500 CE)".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Moche of Huaca Cao Viejo mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

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  How do I see my own distance to the Moche of Huaca Cao Viejo?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers. Browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

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