The bravery and beauty within: Skeletal analysis of the ancient Chachapoya people at Kuelap

Summary

In early 17th century historical descriptions, Garcilaso de la Vega describes the Chachapoya people of Peru as "very brave", "the men well-formed and the women extremely beautiful". While the archaeological remains cannot address the veracity of these statements, the analysis of the skeletal remains from important Chachapoya complexes, such as Kuelap, provide the only direct means of reconstructing a biological profile of these ancient people, including aspects of their physical morphology, health, diet, and mobility. Kuelap is one of the largest sites in the area and the mortuary contexts are diverse, including individual burials, collective tombs, and secondary deposits, yet the preservation of skeletal materials is good. These preliminary osteological data synthesize the skeletal collection from Kuelap observed to date (n=589), including partial and complete individuals. Here we highlight the estimated age-at-death profile, stature estimates, patterns in cranial modification, and patterns in traumatic injuries in order to model the physical nature and local biology of the Chachapoya peoples compared to others in the region and the broader Andes.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• What was Chachapoyas?: Towards a cultural geography of the northeastern Peruvian Andes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage