Catching up and moving on

Hello friends,

Time is flying by so fast these days and I have so much I haven't told you. We spent yesterday working in the museum again yesterday, and then met with Sonia Guillen in the afternoon to discuss the project and possible future collaborations. It was a great meeting, and I'm absolutely inspired to continue work in this region. Sonia had some ideas for stable isotope research which I might be able to turn into my thesis project, so that's very exciting as well.

We are boarding a combi at 1:00 today for the three hour trip up to Chachapoyas. From there, we're taking the overnight bus to Trujillo for a couple of days of archaeological site seeing and a bit of relaxation before the final sprint back to Lima.

I haven't told nearly enough stories about our time at the cave, and I promised to follow up on the last entry. So, here 'goes...

We camped for 15 days at 9300 feet or so, just by the entrance to Atumpampa cave. The cave was mapped as 1.4 km long (almost a mile), with cultural artifacts and burials throughout it's entire length. We worked in teams: Steve and Scott mapped the cave, Rosio (the lead archaeologist) and Rosio (the INC representative) marked the archaeological sites of interest within the cave and analyzed artifacts, P and I worked on documenting bones, Flor (the assitant archaeologist) worked first with the archaeologists and then with the 'hueseros' (bone people), Roc worked with the cave mappers and then with the hueseros, and Andreas split his time between mapping, connecting with the locals, and exploring the region for other cave sites. Luisa analyzed insect and arthropod life in the cave region and made some very interesting observations about the microclimates within the cave. The result was a really interesting collaborative effort, and I'm excited to be a part of creating the final report.

The area is amazing, and is absolutely full of caves, all of which were used by the Chachapoyans as burial sites and possibly ceremonial sites too. The terrain is rugged, and very green, and often very muddy. There isn't a level square yard to be found anywhere. The local community shares the land, so horses and cows would occasionally wander through camp or stop and graze (an odd thing to hear outside the tent in the middle of the night).

We were only able to do a surface survey, but there was plenty of information to glean anyway. The cave burials were heavily disturbed by huaqueros (grave robbers) as well as natural processes. Luisa made some great observations about powder post beetles which had eaten away the burial platforms, causing a lot of the collapse and scatter of remains in the cave. The natural rock fall within the cave (due to erosion and earthquakes) has certainly effected the site significantly as well.

So, to best analyze the surface remains, we collected all of the scattered bones and material near each identified tomb site, sorted all the skeletal elements, counted everything, and then re-interred all of the remains into the tomb from which they mostly likely originated. During this process, we were able to count a minimum number of individuals per tomb, estimate the sex, and ages of the individuals represented, and look at musculoskeletal markers of stress, and evidence of trauma, illness, and medical treatment from the Chachapoyan people. Altogether, we counted a minimum of 368 individuals. These folks led hard lives and were really tough. We saw so many examples of horrible broken bones which were completely healed. This population not only took care of their own, but people lived on for many years following these injuries. We also saw really robust muscle attachments - these folks were strong. There were many more women than men, which is interesting, and not nearly enough children. Of course, all of this is unofficial and not intended to be read as a formal publication of results. For now, this is just my story of 'what I did this summer'.

It was an amazing time. I'll follow this with another post about some of the highlights (fabulous food in the middle of nowhere, meetings with the local populations, and a visit by the crew from the History Channel's 'Digging for the Truth'. For now, though, it's time to head out and pack up again for the last sprint towards Lima.

Take care everyone. I'll see you soon!

Karen