To Live and Die in the City: Investigations of Health at the Huacas de Moche

Summary

During the last two decades of work at the Huacas de Moche site a large number of human interments have been excavated. Although the remains of human sacrificial victims have been well studied, those buried as part of the daily course of events at the site have received less attention. Yet, if we are to understand how the Southern Moche Polity developed, thrived, and ultimately declined, then we must investigate the everyday lives of the women, men and children who were the polity. In this paper I detail the results of bioarchaeological analysis of 117 individuals recovered from tomb contexts either located in the urban core or in the plazas of Huaca de la Luna. The collected data concerning diet and health, provide new insights into the Moche society.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Recent Research and a Chronological Reevaluation of the Viru-Moche-Chicama Valleys

Keywords

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