Community Care and Dental Health: Cross-Generational Tooth Wear at Cerro Pacifico, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "(De)Pathologizing the Past: New Perspectives on Intervention and Modification as Care in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Across the globe, progressive tooth wear is related to diet and cultural use of teeth. In the Andes, often high levels of tooth wear are associated with the sandy grit in coastal diets. Extensive tooth wear is classified as an experience of old age. In these contexts, care is invoked as a practice for easing the pain of the elderly. Advanced tooth wear in younger individuals is often considered an isolated pathology, but a unique assemblage of human remains from the Late Archaic/Early Formative (3000-1800 BCE) site of Cerro Pacifico in the Lima Province of Peru presents an important case study where various individuals of varying ages present extensive tooth wear. This brings to debate the way we pathologize tooth wear for some age groups and not in others. This collection of over 30 human burials ranging from 6 months to 50 years provides an opportunity to assess the way we examine dental health. In this paper, we deconstruct the pathology of tooth wear and consider the contextual circumstances for tooth wear in younger individuals. Instead of classifying tooth wear as an impediment to daily practices, we propose that care was a community strategy to participate in food provision activities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• (De)Pathologizing the Past: New Perspectives on Intervention and Modification as Care in the Americas

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50903