Modeling the Spread of Smallpox during Spanish Colonial Rule in the Chicama Valley, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Myriad reasons for the native depopulation of the Americas have been cited, chief amongst them is the spread of Old World diseases like smallpox (Variola major) with the arrival of Europeans. Ethnohistorical documents are limited in understanding the direct effects of infectious diseases at the community level, especially in small indigenous towns where documents are limited. Coupled with this, many diseases, including smallpox, are skeletally invisible, making interpretation difficult. Here we use ethnohistorical documents and the epidemiological characteristics of smallpox, in order to investigate the effects of this epidemic disease at the reducción of Magdalena de Cao Viejo (1578 ~ 1750) in the Chicama Valley, Peru. We present a computer model for the spread of smallpox from the large colonial city of Trujillo to this small ‘backwater’ town. This model was made to illustrate the speed and scale of such an epidemic and to illuminate how communities may have coped with their spread. While it is impossible to account for the countless variables influencing disease proliferation in such a complex system as Colonial Peru, this model provides a foundation for future study and, in complement with the archaeological record, can inform our understanding of life under under colonial rule.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24997