Stress and daily life in an Andean reducción town: preliminary osteological analyses of juvenile burials in a church sacristy

Summary

Juvenile mortality and morbidity is a sensitive marker of overall group health, as juvenile individuals are more susceptible to circulating endemic diseases and nutritional stress. Thus, reconstructing relative frailty of the juvenile population at Mawchu Llacta provides important data about daily life at this colonial site, in a relatively understudied transitional period of Peruvian history. In this paper, we present the results of preliminary skeletal analyses of burials excavated from the sacristy at Mawchu Llacta. These burials included 21 individuals whose ages ranged between birth/infancy and eight years old. While preservation of the remains varied depending on depth of the burial, dentition and some cranial and long bone remains were well-preserved enough to allow for macroscopic, paleopathological analyses. We particularly focused on recording indicators of nutritional and/or immune stress (such as periosteal reactions, porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia, and linear enamel hypoplasia) as a way to investigate overall frailty of the burial sample. Here, we present initial results and interpretations of this skeletal analysis, and suggest future projects that will help us more fully understand routine risk and stress experienced by people living at Mawchu Llacta.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Archaeological Microhistory at a Planned Colonial Town in Highland Peru

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15924