Research articleAdvances in regional paleopathology of the Southern Coast of the Central Andes
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
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