Contact in the Andes: Bioarchaeology of systemic stress in colonial Mórrope, Peru

Abstract

The biocultural interchange between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres beginning in the late fifteenth century initiated an unprecedented adaptive transition for Native Americans. This article presents findings from the initial population biological study of contact in the Central Andes of Peru using human skeletal remains. We test the hypothesis that as a consequence of Spanish colonization, the indigenous Mochica population of Mórrope on the north coast of Peru experienced elevated systemic biological stress. Using multivariate statistical methods, we examine childhood stress reflected in the prevalence of linear enamel hypoplasias and porotic hyperostosis, femoral growth velocity, and terminal adult stature. Nonspecific periosteal infection prevalence and D(30+)/D(5+) ratio estimations of female fertility characterized adult systemic stress. Compared to the late pre-Hispanic population, statistically significant patterns of increased porotic hyperostosis and periosteal inflammation, subadult growth faltering, and depressed female fertility indicate elevated postcontact stress among both children and adults in Mórrope. Terminal adult stature was unchanged. A significant decrease in linear enamel hypoplasia prevalence may not indicate improved health, but reflect effects of high-mortality epidemic disease. Various lines of physiological, archaeological, and ethnohistoric evidence point to specific socioeconomic and microenvironmental factors that shaped these outcomes, but the effects of postcontact population aggregation in this colonial town likely played a fundamental role in increased morbidity. These results inform a model of postcontact coastal Andean health outcomes on local and regional scales and contribute to expanding understandings of the diversity of indigenous biological variation in the postcontact Western Hemisphere.

Variation in large ectocranial lesions from pre-Columbian Kuelap, Peru

“…Naturally, each of these environments has distinctive hazards that would have impacted the health and lives of pre-Columbian populations in these different areas. Currently, regional bioarchaeological analyses are advancing our understanding of these patterns using skeletal indicators of pathology (e.g., Blom et al, 2005;Andrushko et al, 2006;Gagnon, 2008;Klaus and Tam, 2009;Murphy, 2004;Tung and Castillo, 2005), but most researchers focus within regions and broad-scale comparisons have yet to be developed to recognize major differences or similarities among regions.…”

Violence and weapon‐related trauma at Puruchuco‐Huaquerones, Peru

“…Despite long-term research on the biocultural effects of European contact on indigenous communities in the Americas (Verano and Ubelaker, 1992;Larsen, 1994;Larsen and Milner, 1994;Baker and Kealhofer, 1996;Larsen et al, 2001;Klaus and Tam, 2009;Spielmann et al, 2009), evidence of the historical battles or skirmishes of the Spanish conquest of indigenous populations has proven elusive (Larsen, 1994). Only two cases of osteological evidence for violent conflict at or shortly after Spanish conquest are known from North America (Hutchinson, 1996;Larsen et al, 1996).…”

Propuesta de factor de corrección a las mediciones de hemoglobina por pisos altitudinales en menores de 6 a 59 meses de edad, en el Perú

“…En el Perú existen indicios que muestran su presencia desde la época preincaica y por efecto de la colonización española. Los hallazgos del bioarqueólogo estadounidense Haagen D. Klaus en el distrito de Mórrope mostró que los esqueletos de los niños mochica presentaban lesiones en el cráneo que reflejaban parasitismo y anemia por deficiencia de hierro (2) . Estas lesiones conocidas como cribra orbitaria e hiperostosis porótica eran signos evidentes de la presencia de anemia ferropénica (3) .…”