Biological Stress and Age-at-Death: Differential Survivorship in Colonial Period North Coast Peru
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Phillips, Megann
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Abstract
The relationship between age at death and biological stress experience is vital to consider, especially in the bioarchaeology of Colonial Latin America, where drastic changes in indigenous health and population size followed European contact. This thesis shows that the long-term and cumulative consequences of stress in Colonial Period north coast Peru were diverse. At Mórrope and Eten (1532-1750), two contemporaneous Colonial Period communities in the Lambayeque region of northern coastal Peru separated by 50 kilometers and marked differences in ecogeographic diversity and Spanish influence, there was variation in stress-associated survivorship. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Mantel-Cox log rank tests show greater mortality risk among males with enamel hypoplasia relative to those without at Eten. Significant differences in survivorship of individuals with and without periostosis at Mórrope show that individuals (especially females) with periostosis lived longer than those without. These findings illustrate complex biocultural outcomes in Colonial Peru.
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Bioarchaeology, Age-at-death, Stress, Survivorship, Peru, Colonization