Death in the Clouds: Bioarchaeology in the Northern Highlands of Peru By Dr. Catherine Faither

In the lecture "Death in the Clouds: Bioarchaeology in the Northern Highlands of Peru" by Dr. Catherine Faither she explains about burials of humans found in Peru. She talks about the burials, different types of trauma, infectious disease, genetic disorders, nutritional deficiencies and dental disease.
There was a lot of different mortuary burials found at the site of Chachapoya. THese contained circular structures and semi-circular structures. Dr. Faither wanted to see if there were other types of burials other than elite males. In the bodies that Dr. Faither studied in Peru she found that every single age of both femals and males were represented. She also found out aht the people were pretty tall for being a part of Peru Culture.
The different types of trauma that Dr. Faither found were accidental trauma and surgical trauma. Accidental trauma was discovered in the bodies and had pubis bone's broken out, a break in the femur or a break in the femoral necks. All of these seemed to be consistent with a fall of some sort. The surgical trauma dealt with healed skulls. There had already been pre-existing trauma, meaning that the people of this culture were doing skull surgery.
The disease and the disorders that were found in the bodies in Peru were infectious disease, genetic disorders, nutritional deficiencies and dental disease. In the infectious disease Dr. Faither discovered Saber Shin, Capitation and Mastoiditis. These were non-specific indicators of stress. One of the genetic disorders that she found in her study was a case where there werew not average size bones with Osteoporosis throughout the entire skeleton in a male's body. An interesting fact about this body is that although it is male, the body also looked female. The body was as well buried with some femal artifacts. Another genetic disorder that she found on a different body was a tumor located on the parathyroid glands. There were some signs of nutritional deficiencies in the bodies found. Although, the environment was rich in foods and in vitamin C the people of Peru were still dealing with the disease Scurvy. Dr. Faither believes that one of the reasons behind this is from children getting sick with something else and stops receiving the nutrition that a person needs. What was also noticed in analyzing these bodies was that males seemed to have more dental problems that females did.
Overall, I found it interesting when she spoke about the surgical trauma. It amazed me about these operations that they were performing on the skull. The pictures that Dr. Faither showed on her slides really gave a good interpretation to help better understand what she was talking about and they were all really interesting to look at.