Research article
Advances in regional paleopathology of the Southern Coast of the Central Andes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2019.11.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Because of a rich cultural history and excellent preservation of archaeological materials the south coast of the Central Andes is a region where many anthropological questions can be explored, using the latest methods and techniques. Over the last 20 years, multidisciplinary paleopathological studies have revealed interesting and unanticipated perspectives regarding the lives and cultures of the peoples who inhabited this region in pre-Hispanic times. This paper presents a panorama of these recent investigations, beginning with a review of the data sources – the collections of human remains – available for study, their numbers, preservation, accessibility, strengths and weaknesses. Then follows a revision of recent investigations, presenting new knowledge about temporal trends in human health in the region, including mortality curves, stature achieved in adulthood, porotic hyperososis, cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasias, dental caries, biochemical analysis, trauma, and violence. This review shows how the knowledge of the history of this region has increased but also the many new questions that have emerged. Hopefully this paper will encourage more investigation, as the collections of human remains from this region are abundant, well documented and well preserved.

Introduction

The southern coast of Peru is defined archaeologically as the territory extending between the Chincha and Yauca valleys. This is a clearly bounded space, both in geographical and cultural terms as was put forward by Menzel (1959) (Fig. 1). The pre-Hispanic history of this region extends back to the Archaic period and continues until Inca times (Fig. 2). Pernil Alto, a site located in the Rio Grande valley is representative of the earlier periods. At this site a village was established during the Archaic period (3800 – 3000 B.C.), and occupations continued in the following Initial period (1800 – 1400 B.C.). The excavation of this site gave evidence of the successful adaptation and exploitation of an environment that was more rainy and fertile than the desert landscape that exists there today (Reindel and Isla, 2013). The southern coast of Peru was also cradle of Paracas and Nasca, two sequential cultural developments, indigenous of this region, that originated after the initial period and whose history was signed by the slow but steady desertification of the environment (Reindel, 2009). For more than 1500 years the Paracas (800 – 200 B.C.), and then the Nasca (A.D. 50–650) developed technologies and political and social organizations that, growing in complexity through the time, allowed them to cope with these changes, exploiting a territory that extended from the sea to the highlands, near 4000 m above the sea level (Reindel and Isla, 2017). But everything failed around A.D. 650, when the desertification went beyond the capabilities of these peoples, who during the Middle Horizon were conquered by the Wari, their neighbors in the highlands. After the fall of the Wari empire, the indigenous culture flourished again with the Ica Chincha, who were finally conquered by the Inca. This paper focuses on the early cultural developments, from the Archaic period until the Middle Horizon. This part of the history is particularly important as it shows how humans adapted to environmental changes that resemble shifts produced today as a consequence of global warming.

This region of South America has been extensively and deeply studied by archaeologists, and particularly by bioarchaeologists, not only due to its rich cultural history, but also because of the extraordinary preservation of organic materials in this dry environment, as this region is part of the arid Atacama Desert (Eitel et al., 2005; Eitel and Mächtle, 2009). In this context, it is not a surprise that many seminal studies that Verano quoted in his 1997 paper focused on collections of human remains from this region of Peru (e.g., Allison et al., 1973, 1974a, 1974b, 1981a, 1981b, 1982; Gerszten and Allison, 1991). In the 20 years that have elapsed since that pioneering paper, new archaeological projects have increased the numbers, size, and scope of collections of human remains available for investigation while new studies have been carried out on long curated materials. Work involving case study orientations and population-level foci has emerged, both using traditional macroscopic methods (including those developed in forensic anthropology), as well as molecular, biochemical, microscopic and non-invasive techniques. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the contribution that the paleopathological studies carried out in the last 20 years have accomplished for the knowledge of the cultural history of this region, as well as the needs for future research.

Section snippets

Data sources

Today, the paleopathology of the south coast of Peru draws upon diverse forms of evidence and collections of human remains assembled from the beginning of the 20th century. The first scientific surveys to this region were conducted by Max Uhle in 1901 (Uhle, 1913; Proulx, 1970, 1999), but he did not collect human remains. It was Julio C. Tello who led a team from the Museum of Peruvian Archaeology and gathered the oldest and still largest collections of human remains from this region (Tello,

New studies

Several investigations comparing temporal trends in health and disease have been published over the last two decades, along with many other paleopathological case studies. Nevertheless, not all the collections of human remains described above have been studied and not all individuals from a single collection have been included. I will present an overview of key topical advances in the paleopathology from the southern coast, including population-level analyses, infectious diseases, and patterns

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors of this special issue for their kind invitation to contribute to this volume. This paper was possible due to the work of many investigators who came to Peru attracted by its fascinating history. I want to say thanks to all of them for discovering and showing to the world the cultural richness of this country. I also appreciate the invaluable comments made by the anonymous peer reviewers that improved the original manuscript. Photos in Fig. 4a were taken by Alain

References (93)

  • M.J. Allison et al.

    La práctica de la deformaei6n craneana entre los pueblos andinos precolombinos

    Chungará

    (1981)
  • M.J. Allison et al.

    Tuberculosis in pre-Columbian Andean populations

  • M.J. Allison et al.

    La sífilis, ¿Una enfermedad americana?

    Chungará

    (1982)
  • V. Andrushko

    The Bioarchaeology of Inca imperialism in the Heartland: an Analysis of Prehistoric Burials from the Cuzco Region of Peru. PhD Dissertation

    (2007)
  • D. Aponte

    Ciclo de vida y marcas corporales en Paracas Necrópolis

    Catálogo de la Sala Paracas – MNAAHP

    (2013)
  • L. Balbuena

    Evidencias Paracas en los valles de Pisco y Mala

    Boletín de Arqueología PUCP

    (2013)
  • D. Browne et al.

    A cache of 48 trophy heads from Cerro Carapo, Peru

    Lat. Am. Antiq.

    (1993)
  • S. Burgess

    Chiribayan Skeletal Pathology on the South Coast of Peru: Patterns of Production and Consumption. PhD Dissertation

    (1999)
  • M.R. Buzon et al.

    Refining oxygen isotope analysis in the Nasca region of Peru: an investigation of water sources and archaeological samples

    Int. Journal of Osteoarchhaeology

    (2011)
  • P.H. Carmicheal et al.

    Coastal but not littoral: marine resources in Nasca diet

    Nawpa Pacha

    (2014)
  • C. Conlee et al.

    Cabeza trofeo Nazca y sacrificio humano en La Tiza

    Arqueología y sociedad

    (2014)
  • M. Dietz

    Diet, Subsistence and Health: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Chongos, Perú. PhD Dissertation

    (2009)
  • L. Dausse

    Étude des déformations crâniennes intentionnelles dans la culture Paracas 800 avant – 100 après J.C.: les contextes funéraires de Cerro Colorado, côte Sud du Pérou. PhD Dissertation

    (2015)
  • B. Eitel et al.

    Man and environment in the Eastern atacama desert Southern Perú: Holocene climate changes and their impact in Pre-Columbian cultures

  • B. Eitel et al.

    Geoarchaeological evidence from Desert Loess in the Nazca-Palpa Region, southern Peru: paleoenviromental changes and their impact on pre-Columbian cultures

    Archeometry

    (2005)
  • F. Engel

    Prehistoric Andean Ecology: Man, Settlement and Environment in the Andes. Volume II. The Deep South. Humanities Press for the Department of Anthropology, Hunter College

    (1981)
  • J. Farnum

    Biological Consequences of Social Inequalities in Prehistoric Peru. PhD Dissertation

    (2002)
  • C. Gaither

    A Growth and Development Study of Coastal Prehistoric Peruvian Populations. PhD Dissertation

    (2004)
  • S. Genoves

    Proportionality of the long bones and their relation to stature among Mesoamericans

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (1967)
  • E. Gerszten et al.

    Human soft tissue tumors in paleopathology

  • E. Gilbert-Barness et al.

    Embryo and Fetal Pathology

    (2004)
  • J. Gómez Mejía

    Qualidade de vida e dinámicas de conflito na populacao da Península de Paracas, costa sul do Peru durante o final do Horizonte Temprano 400 a.C. – 100 d.C

    (2016)
  • J. Gómez Mejía

    Análisis bioantropológico de individuos enterrados en Cerro del Gentil

  • P. Horn et al.

    Humans and camelids in River oases of the Ica–Palpa–nazca region in pre-Hispanic times – insights from H-C-N-O-S-Sr isotope signatures

  • J. Imbelloni

    Formas, esencia y metódica de las deformaciones cefálicas intencionales

    (1938)
  • J. Isla

    Perspectivas sobre el proceso cultural en los valles de Palpa, costa sur del Perú

  • M.A. Judd et al.

    Trauma

  • C. Kellner

    Coping With Environmental and Social Challenges in Prehistoric Peru: Bioarchaeological Analyses of Nasca Populations. Ph.D. Dissertation

    (2002)
  • C. Kellner

    "Trophy" heads in prehistoric Peru: wari Imperial influence on nasca head-taking practices

  • C. Kellner et al.

    Dietary correlates to the development of nasca social complexity AD 1-750

    Lat. Am. Antiq.

    (2012)
  • H. Klaus

    Out of Light Came Darkness: Bioarchaeology of Mortuary Ritual, Health, and Ethnogenesis in the Lambayeque Valley Complex, North Coast of Peru AD 900-1750. PhD Dissertation

    (2008)
  • K.S. Larsen

    Bioarchaeology: the lives and lifestyles of past people

    J. Archaeol. Res.

    (2002)
  • G.P. Lombardi

    Detección de Mycobacterium tuberculosis en una momia de la cultura Nasca con mal de Pott, Tesis para optar el título de médico cirujano

    (1994)
  • N.C. Lovell

    Analysis and interpretation of skeletal trauma

  • P. Maita et al.

    El trauma en la piel: un análisis paleopatológico de tatuajes Paracas-Necrópolis

    In Revista Jangwa Pana

    (2014)
  • D. Menzel

    The Inca occupation of the South Coast of Peru

    Southwest. J. Anthropol.

    (1959)
  • Cited by (3)

    • Ecce Homo: Moving past labels to lives

      2022, International Journal of Paleopathology
      Citation Excerpt :

      A number of midline anomalies of the face associated with HPE include cyclopia, hypotelorism, single nostrils, midfacial midline clefting, and a solitary median maxillary central incisor (Lo and Hong, 2021). Two archaeological examples of cyclopia have been reported in individuals who died either prior to (Palamenghi et al., 2021) near the time of birth (Tomasto-Cagigao, 2020). HPE’s etiology is a heterogeneous outcome of genetic, chromosomal, environmental and/or metabolic anomalies (Cohen, 2001; Dubourg et al., 2007; Vilte, Battolla, & Meritano, 2008; Martino, 2000).

    • Intentional cranial modification as a marker of identity in Paracas Cavernas, South-Central Coast of Peru

      2022, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
      Citation Excerpt :

      In the Andean region, ICM was a practice with considerable geographic and temporal variation (Allison et al., 1981; Arriaza, 1995; Munizaga, 1987; Weiss, 1961). The earliest evidence of ICM in the Peruvian territory was detected in the Pernil Alto site (Palpa region, South-Central coast of Peru), which dates back to the fourth millennium BC (Tomasto, 2020). The cranial bones of infants can be molded through cultural practices due to their pliability.

    View full text