Oral health and the postcontact adaptive transition: A contextual reconstruction of diet in Mórrope, Peru

Abstract

This work explores the effects of European contact on Andean foodways in the Lambayeque Valley Complex, north coast Peru. We test the hypothesis that Spanish colonization negatively impacted indigenous diet. Diachronic relationships of oral health were examined from the dentitions of 203 late-pre-Hispanic and 175 colonial-period Mochica individuals from Mórrope, Lambayeque, to include observations of dental caries, antemortem tooth loss, alveolar inflammation, dental calculus, periodontitis, and dental wear. G-tests and odds ratio analyses across six age classes indicate a range of statistically significant postcontact increases in dental caries, antemortem tooth loss, and dental calculus prevalence. These findings are associated with ethnohistoric contexts that point to colonial-era economic reorganization which restricted access to multiple traditional food sources. We infer that oral health changes reflect creative Mochica cultural adjustments to dietary shortfalls through the consumption of a greater proportion of dietary carbohydrates. Simultaneously, independent skeletal indicators of biological stress suggest that these adjustments bore a cost in increased nutritional stress. Oral health appears to have been systematically worse among colonial women. We rule out an underlying biological cause (female fertility variation) and suggest that the establishment of European gender ideologies and divisions of labor possibly exposed colonial Mochica women to a more cariogenic diet. Overall, dietary change in Mórrope appears shaped by local responses to a convergence of colonial Spanish economic agendas, landscape transformation, and social changes during the postcontact transition in northern Peru. These findings also further the understandings of dietary and biocultural histories of the Western Hemisphere.

Tuberculosis on the north coast of Peru: skeletal and molecular paleopathology of late pre-Hispanic and postcontact mycobacterial disease

“…During the colonial era, ethnohistoric and oral health data independently signal a major indigenous dietary change following contact evidently dominated by larger proportions of starchy carbohydrates (i.e., less iron) whose bulk was likely compensating for reduced meat intake (Klaus and Tam, 2010). Biocultural context here points towards two possibilities.…”

“…A.D. 1470e1532) whose principle aims were to control labor and amplify food production (Ramírez, 1990;Shimada, 2000). The Spanish colonization of the Lambayeque region however initiated a wide spectrum of highly consequential and bioculturally stressful transformations that are just beginning to come into focus Klaus and Tam, 2010;). …”

“…Zooarchaeological and paleobotanical evidence of diet indicate late pre-Hispanic Muchik foodways were relatively well balanced between marine and terrestrial resources (Klaus and Tam, 2010) and was sufficient in terms of terrestrial and marine protein and iron. By Moche V (A.D. 550e750), camelids may have surpassed marine foods as the chief source of protein (Shimada, 1994).…”

Oral Health in Past Populations: Context, Concepts and Controversies

“…These include: a) determining subsistence and diet of skeletal series with few associated cultural remains (Turner 1979;Lukacs 1989), b) understanding how differences in food preparation can influence the frequency of pathological lesions (Powell 1985), c) reconstructing trends in oral pathology across major changes in subsistence, such as the shift from foraging to agriculture (Cohen and Armelagos 1984;Cohen and Crane-Kramer 2007), d) determining the impact of colonization on diet and oral health of indigenous populations (Larsen and Milner 1994;Klaus and Tam 2010), and perhaps most commonly, e) providing an integrated biocultural perspective on subsistence, diet and nutrition of past populations. The last objective is an integral component of any multifaceted bioarchaeological research project.…”

“…Clinical and epidemiological research into the sex differential in oral health needs to accommodate and control for as many contributing variables as possible. It is encouraging to see that fertility and women's reproductive biology are now being considered in the analysis of oral health of contemporary hunter gatherers (Arantes et al 2009) and when sex differences are encountered in skeletal samples both female reproductive biology and sex differences in dietary behavior are considered (Klaus and Tam 2010;Temple and Larsen 2007). Future research into the sex bias in oral health holds promise for refining our understanding of the relative importance of key variables that contribute to it (genes, physiology, pregnancy, and culture).…”